As Blavity previously reported, Richardson herself has gone to social media to point out how her treatment in 2020 differed from that given to Valieva. Richardson, a top American track athlete who won the 100-meter trials for the 2021 U.S. Summer Olympics team, was disqualified from competing in the Olympics for smoking marijuana, a substance that is banned by the Olympics but is not exactly performance-enhancing. Richardson admitted to smoking weed — which she did to help cope with the unexpected death of her mother. At the time, she accepted the consequences for having broken a rule in her sport. By contrast, The New York Times reports that Valieva tested positive for three separate heart medications including trimetazidine, which is considered a performance-enhancing drug because of its effects on stamina and blood flow. Furthermore, The Washington Post reports that Valieva and her people are claiming that she must have accidentally been exposed to her grandfather’s heart medication, an explanation that seems very unlikely and that may not even explain the amount of the drug discovered in her system. Yet, the skater has so far enjoyed a benefit of the doubt that Black athletes like Richardson have not often been given. As Richardson herself said when comparing the two cases, “The only difference I see is I’m a Black young lady.”

Another athlete who knows what it’s like to be a “Black young lady” in an Olympic competition is Surya Bonaly, who represented France in multiple Winter Olympics and World Championships. As ESPN noted, Bonaly’s physical differences were often noted by those within the figure skating world, othering her in both subtle and blatant ways. For instance, she ended up tied with Japanese skater Yuka Sato in the 1994 World Figure Skating Championship, and the judges ended up giving Bonaly second place despite her seemingly superior performance. As the Los Angeles Times described the decision, the judges chose “Yuka Sato’s artistry and dynamic footwork” over “Surya Bonaly's gymnastic jumping.” Despite a career of similarly being held to skewed standards when compared to her fellow skaters, Bonaly excelled, winning multiple gold and silver medals in world competitions. Although she never won an Olympic medal, she achieved an even rarer feat. In the 1998 Olympics, when Bonaly was competing while injured and realized she was out of medal contention, she did her signature move — a backflip that had been banned based on the idea that figure skaters must land on one foot in all jumps. Bonaly did the flip, landing smoothly on one foot, thus becoming the only woman to ever perform the move in an Olympic competition. One newspaper called the bold move “the most elaborate expletive in Olympic history.” Bonaly was, ironically, also the first woman to attempt a quadruple jump, the skill that has brought Valieva to fame. Bonaly now lives in Las Vegas and coaches up-and-coming figure skaters, hoping that her example inspires a new generation of athletes.

One of the most famous images in Olympics history comes from the 1968 Summer Games in Mexico City. U.S. track runners Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their gloved fists in Black power salutes as they stood on the podium to receive the gold and bronze medals, respectively, for the 200-meter sprint. As the San Francisco Chronicle detailed, Smith and Carlos raised their fists in solidarity with oppressed people around the world during an era when colonialism still oppressed parts of Africa and other regions. The duo additionally wore black socks with no shoes to symbolize Black poverty and beads were worn as a protest against lynching. For their protests, they were suspended from the Olympic team and given 48 hours to leave Mexico. Over the years, the two runners faced anger and lost employment opportunities for their protest. As Blavity previously reported, it was more than 50 years before the Olympics decided to do right by the two athletes, announcing in 2019 that Smith and Carlos would be inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame. Despite the 50 years of hardship brought on by their protest, both men told Smithsonian magazine that they did not regret their decision. Carlos told the magazine that he “went up there as a dignified Black man and said: ‘What's going on is wrong,'” while Smith added that their demonstration "was a cry for freedom and for human rights.”

Before he converted to Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali, the boxing phenomenon then known as Cassius Clay competed for the U.S. at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. The 18-year-old boxer easily won the 81-kilogram weight division, bringing home a gold medal for the country. Ali thought that his achievements would help overcome the racism he faced back home, but his expectations were soon dashed. As NBC Sports reports, Ali has claimed that, soon after the 1960 Olympics, he was denied service at a segregated restaurant in his hometown, Louisville, Kentucky, and then was confronted by a biker gang that tried to steal his medal. Disgusted by these incidents, Ali allegedly took off his gold medal — which he wore continually as a source of pride — and threw it into the Ohio River. After a career of facing hardship for his race and his beliefs — including losing the heavyweight championship and being imprisoned for his opposition to the Vietnam War — Ali became an icon for both sports and activism. At the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Ali was presented with a new gold medal to replace the one he had tossed away decades earlier.

By the time he competed in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Jesse Owens was a track and field superstar with multiple world records. His performance in Berlin was legendary, and not just because he won four gold medals and set two new world records. Owens was a Black man representing the United States during the Jim Crow era, competing in Nazi Germany in front of Adolf Hitler, the world’s fiercest proponent of white supremacy. Despite having won glory and bragging rights for the U.S., which had helped defeat Germany in World War I and would soon be fighting German forces again in World War II, Owens was still treated as just another Black man at home. "When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus," Owens said about his return home after the Olympics, ESPN reports. “I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either,” the track legend added.

Like Ali, Smith and Carlos, Owens was honored decades later when President Gerald Ford awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976. Yet, these belated acknowledgments have not erased the biases and double standards that Black athletes like Bonaly and Richardson continue to face at the Olympics and throughout their professional and public lives. With people like Richardson refusing to remain quiet about the double standards they face, perhaps the Olympics and the rest of the sports world will move closer to showing Black athletes the fairness and respect they deserve.