Sha’Carri Richardson scratched the 200m after winning the 100m at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials.
Trayvon Bromell, the men’s 100m champion, previously scratched the 200m, too, before his races at Trials in Eugene, Oregon. He wasn’t considered a favorite to make the team in the longer distance, unlike Richardson.
The Olympic Trials 200m starts with heats on Thursday (women) and Friday (men).
Scratching the 200m is a not uncommon move for 100m medalists at major meets, though it marks the first Olympic Trials that neither 100m winner races the 200m since 2004 (Maurice Greene, LaTasha Colander).
The last time both Olympic Trials 100m champions also qualified in the 200m was 1988 (Carl Lewis, Florence Griffith Joyner).
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Richardson, 21, won the 100m on Saturday, clocking 10.86 seconds into a headwind. Ninety minutes earlier, she clocked 10.64 seconds with slightly too much tailwind for record purposes. She ran 10.72 on April 10, the fastest wind-legal time for an American in nearly 10 years.
She is an Olympic medal favorite, but the fastest woman in the world this year is two-time Olympic champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica. Fraser-Pryce clocked 10.63 on June 5 to become the second-fastest woman in history after Griffith Joyner.
Fraser-Pryce, a 34-year-old mom, competes in the Jamaican Olympic Trials later this week.
In the 200m, Richardson ranks third in the world this year and first among Americans (22.11).
The other fastest Americans since the start of 2019 are Cambrea Sturgis (22.12), Tamara Clark (22.13), Angie Annelus (22.16), Gabby Thomas (22.17) and Brittany Brown (22.22), the 2019 World silver medalist.
Allyson Felix, the 2012 Olympic 200m champion who entered Trials planning to race both the 400m and the 200m, is still entered in the 200m after making the team in the 400m on Sunday. The 200m and 400m overlap at the Olympics.
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