Sha’Carri Richardson, the 21-year-old track and field athlete who became well-known after her 2021 summer Olympics tryouts, is starring in a short film.
Sub Eleven Seconds will capture every moment during Richardson’s memorable field performance. Virgil Abloh, the beloved Louis Vuitton designer who passed away from a rare form of cancer last year, executive produced the project. The title represents the number of seconds it took for the athlete to run the 100m dash. Girls United reported that she is considered one of the fastest women in history to race.
Richardson will make her debut at this year’s Sundance festival. The website described the film as “A rumination on time, loss, and hope, Sub Eleven Seconds is a poetic imagining of the quest of Sha’Carri Richardson — a young track and field athlete — to achieve her dream of qualifying for the Olympic Games.”
“Time is my blessing and my curse,” she said in the trailer. “On the track, I’ve been blessed to run fast. Off the track, time has cheated me. You don’t know when something or someone will be taken from you.”
After she amazed the world with her talent, the 21-year-old learned that her biological mother had passed away. A reporter who was interviewing her at the time had delivered the devastating news to the track star.
In July 2021, Richardson was banned from participating in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics after testing positive for marijuana, and her track time of 10.86 seconds was stricken from the record.
“I was just trying to hide my pain,” she said in an interview with USA Today. “I want to take responsibility for my actions. I know what I did, I know what I’m supposed to do, and I still made that decision.”
Starring in the short film isn’t the first time Richardson has been in front of the camera. Last summer, the American sprinter starred in a Beats by Dre commercial featuring a track from Kanye West.
Sub Eleven Seconds premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this month, beginning on Jan. 20 and ending on Jan. 30.
Check out the film’s trailer below.
— Sha’Carri Richardson (@itsshacarri) January 18, 2022
