Gabby Thomas beat Sha’Carri Richardson in the highly anticipated 200-meter final of the U.S. Olympic Team Trials for track and field.
Thomas came in first with a time of 21.81 seconds. Richardson missed qualifying for the 200 meters by fractions of a second, but will still compete in the 100.
Brittany Brown, who set a personal best, and McKenzie Long will also run the 200 in Paris.
Long, whose mother died earlier this year, choked up after qualifiying for the race.
“Mom, your baby girl is going to Paris,” Long said after the race.
Thomas and Richardson, two of America’s best-known sprinters, both qualified for the Tokyo 2020 team, though Richardson will make her highly awaited debut this year after she was disqualified from the Tokyo team after failing a drug test.
No one was close to Richardson in her semifinals heat Friday. She equaled her personal best at 21.92 seconds.
Then Thomas, who ran in a different heat than Richardson, upped the ante with a blazing 21.78, the world’s best for 2024.
“I was really happy with that,” Thomas told NBC Sports moments after the heat. “That felt like a really smooth and easy run for me. I didn’t really know what to expect. So, to see that kind of time for something that felt so nice and controlled was a good feeling.”
Stream every moment and every medal of the 2024 Paris Olympics on Peacock, starting with the Opening Ceremony July 26 at 12 p.m. ET.
Saturday’s action at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, will also include the men’s 200-meter final and and feature world Nos. 1 and 2 Noah Lyles and Kenny Bednarek. Lyles took bronze and Bednarek silver at that distance in Tokyo.
Lyles’ time of 19.60 in Friday’s seminal was a U.S. Olympic Trials record.
“It felt really easy,” said Lyles, who has already qualified for the 100-meter in Paris. “I was very shocked to see that time pop up. I wasn’t even really trying.”
The men’s 200 final will start around 9:49 p.m. ET.
Earlier this week, Richardson was victorious in the 100, punching her ticket to Paris as she seeks the crown of “fastest woman in the world.”
Richardson, a Dallas native and LSU alum, tested positive for THC after qualifying for the Tokyo Games and missed out on competing.
She admitted to taking the drug to cope with the death of her mother, and her supporters lashed out at U.S. Anti-Doping Agency policies on cannabis in an era when the drug is increasingly being legalized across America.
Thomas, a Harvard alum, took bronze in the 200 in Tokyo. She and Richardson are ranked Nos. 2 and 6, respectively, in the world in that event.
Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson, who is competing in her national trials this weekend in Kingston, took the gold at the last Olympics.
Other finals set for Saturday in Eugene include the men’s and women’s 20K race walk, men’s discus, women’s long jump, women’s shot put and women’s 10,000.
The shot put competition includes Tokyo silver medalist Raven Saunders, who will be seeking her third trip to the Olympics.