Sha'Carri On

Champion sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson, who was considered a favorite in the women's 100-meter dash at the 2020 - no, 2021 - Tokyo Olympics, has been suspended by the United States Anti-Doping Agency for a month for smoking pot when she tested positive for THC, the chemical in marijuana.  The suspension, as mandated by global anti-doping bodies, rules her out for the 100-meter race at the Olympics.

This is one of the biggest acts of stupidity that I've seen in recent years.  How could anyone be so dumb?

Not Richardson.  The anti-doping authorities. 

Richardson (above) has accepted her suspension, lamenting that she's human and makes mistakes, but the anti-doping authorities are making the mistake.  Anti-doping governing bodies were set up to catch cheating athletes using steroids designed to make them perform better.  Marijuana does nothing to make you perform better.  If you're a track runner, marijuana is going to make you make a 270-degree turn while you set off at the starting line at six yards an hour.  No sprinter is going to smoke pot right before an important meet or practice session.  Does anyone really believe that Richardson has a joint before going out and waiting for the starting gun to go off?

Right now, it's the fans that are going off.  Richardson, as well as being black, is also a lesbian.  Is this suspension a heavy dose or racism and homophobia on top of a shingle of sexism?  Seems that way, doesn't it?  Especially when Richardson only smoked pot to calm herself down upon learning of the death of her biological mother and did so while in Oregon, where recreational marijuana use is legal.  Legal!

Richardson has made no excuses for what happened, saying she knows what she did.  Give her credit for being mature about it.  The one-month suspension does leave the door open for her to compete on the women's 4x100 Olympic relay team, as it ends just before that event.  But I still say she should compete in the 100-meter race in the Tokyo Olympics.

She won't, of course.  But then, neither may anyone else.  A Serbian athlete already in Japan has tested positive for COVID ahead of the Games, and Japan remains a COVID hot spot.  Two other athletes had previously tested positive for the virus.  Seems that this unnamed athlete may have more consequences for the Games than any Serb since Gavrilo Princip, the fellow who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife and started World War I, effectively canceling the 1916 Games in Berlin.