Today, Sha’Carri Richardson took on the 2024 Olympic Games for the first time, ending the first round of her women’s 100 sprint in first place. Known as the fastest woman in the world, Richardson reminded fans of the late Flo-Jo’s beauty––the fastest woman of all time––as she pressed her stiletto nails into the purple Olympic track. As the front-runner for gold, her winded path to Paris can be documented through her decorated nails, which compete just as hard as her legs run.
Looking back at the U.S. Trials which won her a spot on Team U.S.A., the American sprinter ran the first 100-meter heat in boughetto styled nails. “She just said she wants them long and she wants them bougie,” nail artist Kinaya Haug tells ESSENCE. The nails, decorated with baroque red, gold, and black gems clustered throughout, featured techniques from airbrush aura paint to speckled zebra print. “I put my whole back into them,” she says.
However, the XXL nails had an unintentional hurdle––the sprinter couldn’t tie her shoe. “That’s why she wobbled in the first one,” Haug says. Winning even with an untied shoelace, Richardson finished in 10.88 seconds, just .02 seconds off the time she ran in the previous trials held in Oregon. According to ESPN, the then 21 year old became the youngest woman to win the trials event after running a 10.86 since Alice Brown in 1980. Despite the historic run, however, 2021 was a difficult time for the now Olympian.
Raised in the small town of Eugene, Oregon, Haug met Richardson a few years ago through Olympic shot putter Raven Saunders. “I went to the track and then I saw Sha’Carri,” she says, right after the women’s 100-meter race at the 2021 U.S. trials in her hometown. At the time, the sprinter had just been suspended for testing positive for marijuana following her mother’s death, which disqualified her from the Tokyo Olympics. “She was dealing with a lot of heat from different people for processing trauma,” Haug recounts.
Leading up to this year’s Olympics held in Paris, Richardson returned to the U.S. Trials track after her 100-meter win with a new set of embellished nails for the 200-meter. “‘You can freestyle them’,” she told Haug. “‘They just need to be shorter because I couldn’t tie my shoe [in the 100-meter.]’”
For her 200-meter heat at the Olympic Trials––which she will not compete in at the 2024 Olympic Games––Richardson requested a lighter-colored set with embellishments. “We don’t have a nail supply shop here in Eugene, Oregon,” Haug says, turning to Hobby Lobby and craft stores. “I grabbed lace and different fabrics and gems and charms. I didn’t leave the nail shop until 2 a.m. making these nails.”
As her final set before the Olympics, the nude stiletto nails were adorned with pearls, accented French tips, and butterfly charms, in a more coquette version of the dramatique Richardson is used to. Now, amid her first win at the 2024 Olympic Games––she arrived in patriotic red, white and blue nails by nail artist Kelly Phan––Haug is taking time off from the sprinter’s nails this week.
“It doesn’t matter if I’m not the one doing them,” she says. “I’m excited to see all the artwork other nail techs are doing because it’s a team effort when it comes to doing nails. Everyone gets an opportunity to shine.”