Sanya Richards-Ross

Some Lesser Known Facts About Sanya Richards-Ross

• She began participating in athletics when she was 7 years old, representing her school, Vaz Prep, Jamaica, in annual youth championships several times.

• She moved from Jamaica to Fort Lauderdale in Florida, America, when she was 12 years old.

• During an interview, she claimed that she wrote about her desire to become an Olympic champion to one of her teachers when she was 9 years old.

• She was good in academics and had a 4.0 GPA at St. Thomas Aquinas High School.

• She won four consecutive state team championships, four 100m titles, three 200m titles, two long jump titles, and one 400m title from 1999-2002, while she was studying in high school.

  

• She revealed in an interview that after she switched countries and ran for the United States during the 2002 IAAF World Junior Championships in Kingston, Jamaica, she was booed by the local crowd. She said,
  

  I’ll be honest, in the beginning, it was difficult. I came and I ran for the World Juniors, and the Jamaicans were booing me. I realized it was more a language of love, right? Because they wanted me to be with them. But it was hard on me.”

• For her performance in the 400m, she was ranked number one in the world from 2005 to 2009 and in 2012.

• In 2007, she launched ‘Sanya Richards’ Fast Track Program’ in Jamaica, focusing on literacy and numeracy and promoting an active and healthy lifestyle through sports.

  

• After suffering from severe onsets of mouth ulcers, joint aches, and full-body skin lesions for over 5 years, she was diagnosed with Behçet’s disease in 2007. She wore compression arm sleeves to hide her ulcerated skin, which later became her trademark.

  

• She found out about being pregnant weeks before the 2008 Summer Olympic Games and opted for an abortion. She has talked about feeling depressed after the abortion in her memoir, ‘Chasing Grace: What the Quarter Mile has Taught Me about God and Life’ (2017). She wrote,
  

  I made a decision that broke me, and one from which I would not immediately heal. Abortion would now forever be a part of my life. A scarlet letter I never thought I’d wear.”

• She is the owner of ‘Team Sanya Richards-Ross Sports Clinic’, which helps parents and athletes achieve success.

  

• She has written several books, including ‘Run with Me: The Story of a U.S. Olympic Champion’ (2017) and ‘Right On Track: Right on Track: Run, Race, Believe,’ (2018).

  

• In 2012, she donated $10,000 to her childhood school, Vaz Prep in Jamaica.

• During the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, she opposed the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) controversial ‘Rule 40’ which forbade Olympic athletes and coaches from acknowledging and promoting personal, non-Olympic sponsors two weeks before or during the Olympic Games.

• She took to X (formerly Twitter) to question the rule, claiming that although the Olympics generate $6 billion, athletes participate for free. She wrote,

• In 2016, she officially retired from her track and field career and joined NBC (National Broadcasting Company) as a track and field analyst.

  

• During an interview in 2020, she revealed that she wanted to change the racist traditional song, ‘The Eyes of Texas,’ of her alma mater, the University of Texas. She revealed that it took her more than a decade to realise the racist origin of the song.

• She appeared in the reality TV show, ‘The Real Housewives of Atlanta’ from 2022 to 2024.

  

• In November 2023, she launched her pyjama brand, ‘Coordinates’, with her husband. The couple appeared on an episode of the reality TV show ‘Shark Tank’ in 2024 and made a deal with the businessman, Robert Herjavec, at $100,000 for a 20% share in their company.