A freshmen Lousiana State University sprinter has broken the women's collegiate 100 meters record in historic fashion.
Lady Tiger Sha'Carri Richardson shook up the world of track and field after blowing away the competition on June 8. Richardson clocked in at 10.75 seconds at the 2019 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Austin, Texas. The Dallas native finished he race so quickly that other runners were just crossing the finish line as she wrapped celebrating.
According to Sports Illustrated, LSU sprinter Dawn Sowell set the record time of 10.78 seconds 30 years ago.
Saturday's race capped off a week of historic races for the young runner. Local news source,WGNO, reports Richardson also made history as with times clocking in at 10.99 in the 100 meters and 22.37 in the 200 meters on Thursday. She is the first woman under the age of 20 to run a sub 11 seconds in the 100 meters and sub 23.4 seconds in the 200 meters in the same day.
Those victories were used as fuel for the sprinter.
"Basically, I treated tonight like a good warmup day,” Richardson said late Thursday night. “I wanted to see what I could do … and see what I wanted to do in the final.”
LSU Freshman Sha'Carri Richardson hit the gas ????
10.75 in the women's 100 meters to break the collegiate record #SCtop10
pic.twitter.com/fgUT8BgBn1— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) June 9, 2019
Lady Tigers coach Dennis Shaver was just as shocked as everyone else when Richardson broke the 30-year record.
“I was surprised that she was able to double (in the 100 and 200) and run that fast as a freshman in college,” Shaver told The Advocate. “It’s the first time she’s been under that kind of pressure in her first NCAA meet. But you never know.”
LSU had other great individual wins that led them to a third place finish at the championship meet.
“When you think about it, we ran almost what we ran last year with two new sprinters on it,” Shaver said. “We really had almost a perfect meet.”
The young dynamo celebrated her historic win with a post on Instagram thanking God for her incredible freshmen year.
"This freshman year has been unbelievable for me and I thank God, my school, my support system, people that I don’t know that support me and as well as the doubters that said it couldn’t be done," she wrote.
Richardson's historic feats help LSU remain in the conversation of great college track and field teams.
