After two years in the background, Sha’Carri Richardson is making a flamboyant return to the front of the stage in 2023, in his image. At 23, the whimsical American, fan of flashy wigs, with endless nails and eyelashes, will experience her first international championships, after missing the 2021 Olympics, suspended for a positive cannabis test, and the 2022 Worlds on the ground of the United States, unqualified. “I’m not back, I’m better, she likes to repeat. I’m ready, mentally, physically, and emotionally, and I’m here to stay.”
Richardson arrives in the Hungarian capital with the second best performance in the world in the 100m (10.71, personal best, behind Jackson) and the fourth in the 200m (21.94). “I know what I want to achieve there but I’m not going to say it, I wrote it for me”, she wants to be mysterious. The Texan sprinter, however, remains on her only defeat of the season on the straight line, mid-July in Hungary, in Szekesfehervar, and a last minute withdrawal “as a precaution” a few days later in London, because of hamstrings painful.
Admittedly, his last competition before Budapest ended in defeat, his first in 2023, in Monaco at the end of July (4th with 5.72m). But before, Mondo Duplantis had won eleven competitions, seven in the summer, including five above six meters, and earlier in the year four indoors, punctuated by a new world record, raised to 6.22m in February. in Clermont-Ferrand.
So we don’t worry too much about the Swedish pole vaulting phenomenon, reigning Olympic, World and European champion. At its highest, Duplantis climbed to 6.12m this summer, in Ostrava (Czech Republic) at the end of June. After a day of pouring rain in Stockholm at the beginning of July, he unsuccessfully tackled a bar at 6.23m. Will he get back to the game on the Hungarian saltire?
Two world records in the space of a week in June, over 1,500m (3’49”11 in Florence) and 5,000m (14’05”20 in Paris) – for his first race over the distance since 2015 -, a third a month later, that of the mile (non-Olympic): Faith Kipyegon has been unstoppable since the start of the season. Already double reigning Olympic champion and double world champion in the 1,500m (2017 and 2022), the 29-year-old Kenyan is launching an assault on a 1,500m-5,000m double on the Hungarian track. On her way, she will find in particular the Dutch Sifan Hassan, who came to the marathon successfully in the spring, who decided to repeat her crazy triptych 1,500 m-5,000 m-10,000 m as at the Tokyo Games.
Halted last summer in his relentless march forward by a hamstring muscle injury, seventh in the world final of the 400m hurdles in Eugene (United States), Karsten Warholm is ready to regain world gold. The proof ? His fourth and fifth best times in history (46.51 and 46.52) signed earlier in the summer, just over half a second from his world record. Another Norwegian in reconquest, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, over 1,500m, a race in which the Briton Jake Wightman (absent) had deprived him of gold a year ago. The Scandinavian cross-country skier is also involved in the 5,000m, of which he is title holder.
Deserted by Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (forfeit even on 400m), reigning Olympic champion and world record holder, the 400m hurdles this time reaches out to Femke Bol, often in the shadow of the American until then. Especially since the 23-year-old Dutchwoman, vice-world champion 2022 – behind “SML” – and Olympic bronze medalist 2021, is in brilliant form: she has just smashed the European record by more than half a -second (51”45) to become the second fastest woman in the history of the specialty. “I hope to be in better shape at the World Championships than now,” she hoped in London at the end of July. It promises.
