{"id":588568,"date":"2026-04-06T06:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T06:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/588568\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T06:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T06:31:09","slug":"shacarri-richardson-wins-stawell-gift-from-scratch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/588568\/","title":{"rendered":"Sha’Carri Richardson wins Stawell Gift from scratch"},"content":{"rendered":"

American sprint star Sha’Carri Richardson has become the third woman ever to win the famous Stawell Gift from scratch.<\/p>\n

The Olympic gold medallist won in a time of 13.15 seconds to claim the handicap race.<\/p>\n

Richardson got away from the blocks well, but starting from scratch meant she would have to snatch the win in the final strides of the 120-metre race.<\/p>\n

\"Sha'Carri<\/p>\n

Sha’Carri Richardson is just the third woman to ever win the Stawell Gift from scratch. (Getty Images: Maya Thompson)<\/p>\n

Charlotte Nielsen, who started 9m ahead of Richardson, held a handy lead in the final quarter of the sprint.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Richardson stormed home to beat Nielsen to the line, pumping her fists with delight as she made history.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think I realised I was going to win right past 90 [metres],” the 26-year-old said.<\/p>\n

“This is one of the most exciting, fun, and entertaining track meets I’ve ever ran in.<\/p>\n

“The true love and support for track and field \u2014 unbeatable.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Richardson won the 2023 100m world title and was second in the blue-riband sprint at the 2024 Paris Olympics.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

There was a false start to the first attempt at running the final, with teenager Grace Crowe going early.<\/p>\n

Crowe was penalised one metre, meaning she was now 3.25 metres in front of scratch for the final.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That may have been a blessing for Richardson, who did not appear to get away as cleanly as she ultimately did the second time around.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Richardson put a scare through Stawell Gift organisers, just scraping through to the final after easing up late in her semifinal at Central Park.<\/p>\n

\"Sha'Carri<\/p>\n

The photo finish shows just how close it was between Sha’Carri Richardson (bottom) and Halle Martin (top) in the semifinal. (Supplied: Channel Seven)<\/p>\n

After easing through her heat to win from the back marker, it took her longer to catch up to the field in the semi and she only reined in Ballarat runner Halle Martin in the final metres.<\/p>\n

Richardson then stood up straight and eased off the pedal while holding her hands out in a shrugging motion as she stopped the clock at 13.522, ultimately pipping Martin by just 0.007 of a second.<\/p>\n

Australian Olufemi Komolafe won the men’s Stawell Gift ahead of Jake Ireland and Dutch hurdler Liam van der Schaaf.<\/p>\n

Brendan Matthews was a late scratching from what would have been his fifth Stawell Gift final after damaging a hamstring crossing the finish line in his semifinal.<\/p>\n

ABC\/AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"American sprint star Sha’Carri Richardson has become the third woman ever to win the famous Stawell Gift from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[287650,64,63,287652,286268,2649,287651,25906,36930,85,286269],"class_list":{"0":"post-588568","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-120m","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-bree-rizzo","12":"tag-christian-coleman","13":"tag-final","14":"tag-halle-martin","15":"tag-semifinal","16":"tag-shacarri-richardson","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-stawell-gift"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}