Team USA’s Sha’Carri Richardson and Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce were handed a significant inconvenience as they were denied entry to the warm-up area through the main gate before the women’s 100m semis and finals on Saturday.
St. Lucia’s Julien Alfred is officially the fastest woman in the world, having won gold in the final. And Fraser-Pryce will rue the lost opportunity as she withdrew before the decider.
Richardson and Fraser-Pryce had relatively easy qualifications but endured a frustrating Saturday. The athletes both chose to stay outside Olympic Village, which was apparently a problem as they had no idea of a critical change.
When they arrived outside the facility on Saturday, they were told they could not access the entrance they went through the previous day, as the competition’s organizers had changed the rules overnight.
As the aforementioned sprinters found out, athletes not staying in the Village had to pass through a different entrance as they wouldn’t have arrived on their team bus. But neither of them was told beforehand, and they weren’t allowed through.
