Throwback Thursday is a DyeStat feature that allows us to remember and celebrate some of the great meets and performances that have been a part of our DyeStat coverage since John Dye founded the site. Thanks to many stories, photos and videos that have been preserved in our archives, we are able to relive and share with you some of the very best of DyeStat.com.

Learning experience propels Richards to greatness

By Steve Underwood

2001 FLA. STATE COVERAGE | 2001 GIRLS 100 VIDEO | 2001 SANYA PHOTO PAGE
MORE 2001 STATE VIDEOS | 2002 FLA. STATE COVERAGE

Four-time Olympic Gold Medalist Sanya Richards-Ross says she has “the worst memory,” so when it comes to reaching back into her competitive past for the details of the 2001 Florida 3A State Meet – when she was a St. Thomas Aquinas (Ft. Lauderdale) junior – the clarity is somewhat choppy.  Things like the sequence of the five events she was attempting to win that day in Coral Springs, or whether it was the hamstring or the quadriceps that was strained in a tough 400 defeat.

But there’s something about that meet, and the rest of the spring and summer, that Richards-Ross will never forget.

“My main memory was that it was not a great meet for me, and of my dad really challenging me, questioning whether or not I was really going to work hard enough to be the best.”

The competition that weekend, May 11-12, 2001, marked the first time DyeStat covered Florida state competition on-site.  There was plenty of star-power, including in Saturday’s 4A meet the Jeffersons of Atlantic Community, short sprint record-setter Erica Whipple, and rising hurdler Bershawn Jackson.  But during Friday’s 3A competition, the spotlight was brightest on Richards as she attempted the unprecedented quintuple.  She had won four of the five events she was attempting as a soph in 2000.  During an era that was producing other all-time girls prep sprint greats like Monique Henderson and Allyson Felix, Richards was beginning to take her place in history and this state meet had the potential to be part of it.  “I’d had a lot of success leading up to it,” she said.

“I remember those state meets well,” said former St. Thomas Aquinas coach John Guarino, now an assistant at Florida Atlantic University.  “The LJ was very competitive that year and I believe she won it on her sixth jump. That took a lot out of her and affected her in the sprints. She was nursing a hamstring injury all year long that was affecting her. She did the best she could on the track.”

Indeed, John Dye wrote at the time, “Things started auspiciously with a 19-11.25 win in a great long jump competition (four more girls were better than 18-11), but the drive for five ended in the high jump as Richards couldn’t make her seed height of 5-6 and finished second to Marla Jackson’s 5-6.

“Then came the sprints – six races in a little over four hours. Richards advanced out of the prelims in all three events.”

She won the 100 comfortably to start in 11.96, but as Dye said, she was struggling with shin splints, turf toe and hamstring issues, and the hamstring tightened in the 400 – resulting in a runner-up finish (55.88) to Flagler Palm Coast junior Alycia Williams’ state record 54.15.  Then, “Sanya resisted suggestions that she scratch from the 200 and perhaps lived to regret it. Beaten well before the finish, she limped across the finish line eighth out of nine runners.”

Recalled Richards this week, “It was my first time really dealing with failure and disappointment.  I began to really realize how hard I was going to have to work to be as successful as I wanted to be, and that it was not going to be easy.

“It turned out to be a great learning experience.”

Richards would go on to compete at adidas Outdoor Nationals and some Junior Olympic competition, with some success, but really the off-season and preparation for 2002 was already starting.  Inspired by her father, she began a regimen of “1000 abs a day,” stadium steps and other core activities that would begin to shape the Sanya Richards-Ross we know today.  “I treated training like I was already a professional,” she said.  “My dad even had me watching film.”

In the late winter and early spring of 2002, Richards emerged as a sprinter ready to make history.  In early March, she went to New York for the National Scholastic Indoor Champs and, racing against stars like Felix, Angel Perkins and Natasha Hastings, lowered both the 200 and 400 USRs to 23.22 and 52.10.

Outdoors, she continued to rack up points for St. Thomas Aquinas, but an important development helped lessen the load – Jenna Utecht bursting on the scene.  The freshman became a jumps/hurdles star for the Raiders.

“I loved the long jump,” said Richards-Ross.  “And I always did whatever I needed to do for the team.  But when Jenna came along, I was able to resign from that part of it at state.”

At the 2002 Florida 2A state meet, Richards and Utecht combined for five individual golds.  Richards repeated in the 100 in 11.60 (-0.1w), smashed the state record in the 400 (52.51) and claimed the 200 title in 23.81 (-0.5).  Utecht won the 100H and long jump, while also taking a leg on the winning 4x100.  STA easily claimed its fifth straight team title.

There was actually much more to come for a healthy Richards in 2002.  She took sprint doubles at the adidas Outdoor and USATF Junior Nationals – at the latter beating UCLA frosh Henderson in the 400 and taking down Henderson’s two-year-old USR in the process with a 50.69.  Eleven years later, that mark still stands.  She represented Team USA in the 2002 World Juniors in Kingston (she was born in Jamaica but became a U.S. citizen that spring), earning silver in the 400 and bronze in the 200.

“My senior year was phenomenal,” she remembered.  “It was so rewarding.”

Of course, that was just the beginning of an international career where Richards-Ross has become one of the USA’s biggest stars and one of the true ambassadors of American track and field.  Prior to 2012, she won Olympic 4x400 gold in 2004 and 2008 (and 400 bronze in 2008), in 2006 set the American record at 400 with a still-standing 48.70, and also took the 2009 IAAF World Championship 400 (one of four gold and five overall World Champs outdoor medals she has won).

But she finally reached the pinnacle in 2012 at the London Games when she claimed that long-sought gold in the 400 in 49.55 – and added a second 4x400 gold. 

Richards-Ross has a lot of fond memories of her time at St. Thomas Aquinas.  “It was a great place to be a student and an athlete,” she said.  “It was a great college prep high school ... and we had an amazing team.”

She gives a lot of credit to Coach Guarino and an assistant she remembers only as “Tennessee” – especially for her development in her final year as a prep – as well as her parents, Archie and Sharon Richards.  “My dad was not my coach, per se, but he was at every practice and meet that he could and he was always an inspiration.”

“She was a special young lady who was very driven and focused at a young age,” said Coach Guarino.  “I knew she was going to be something special in the future. It has been a pleasure watching her develop into one of the greatest 400 meter sprinters of all time.”

So – now having turned 28 and married for two years – what’s up for her and what’s keeping her motivated for 2013?

“It’s more difficult to come back and stay motivated after achieving your lifelong goals and dreams,” said Richards-Ross.  “I also had surgery on my big toe after the Olympics, so it’s took longer to get back in training for this year.  But there’s another World Championships this year and I would like to make the team in June.  I would also like to try and beat my American record again and, God willing, stay around to make another Olympic team in 2016.”

Don’t be surprised if Richards-Ross does succeed in coming back and is better than ever.  Thanks to her experiences in 2001-02, she’s pretty good at that.