Breaking news:In an interview Sha’Carri Richardson reflects on the advice her mother gave her before she began her journey as a track and field athlete….

Breaking news:In an interview Sha’Carri Richardson reflects on the advice her mother gave her before she began her journey as a track and field athlete….

Sha’Carri Richardson is not here. Day in, day out, the 24-​year-old sprinter makes her way to central Florida’s posh Montverde Academy and joins her training mates on the school’s manicured track. Practice runs 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., coach Dennis Mitchell explains, rain or shine. The rest of the runners are present and accounted for this morning, limbering up under a sky of gathering clouds.

But Richardson is stuck at the dentist—an emergency entailing novocaine, painkillers, the works. “We’ll see if she shows,” Mitchell says with a shrug. We’ll see? For most people, dental torture is a great excuse to skip a workout. Fire up Netflix, crack open a pint of ice cream. But then, most people aren’t Olympic-caliber athletes. Most people aren’t tipped for gold at this summer’s Paris Games. Most people aren’t Sha’Carri Richardson, the fastest woman in the world.