The LGBT+ community has fallen in love with USA sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson after she thanked her girlfriend for choosing her fiery orange hair weave.
Richardson, 21, qualified for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team, winning the women’s 100-meter dash at the Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon over the weekend.
She ran a blistering 10.86 seconds, with her long, orange hair weave flapping in the wind behind her.
Afterwards, Richardson thanked her girlfriend for choosing the vibrant color of her weave.
“She said it just spoke to her, the fact that it was just so loud and vibrant,” Richardson told USA Today.
“She felt like [orange] was loud and encouraging and, honestly, dangerous… That’s who I am. She just wanted me to be able to make a statement — let’s continue to show the world I’m a force to be reckoned with.”
Richardson also posted a rainbow emoji on her Twitter feed, which prompted a plethora of rainbow tweets in her Twitter timeline.
After her qualifying run, the 5-foot-1 sprinter revealed the sad news that she lost her biological mother last week.
Richardson, who was raised by her grandmother and aunt, said she loved her mother and she knew her mother loved her, despite not bonding with her mom.
My grandmother is my heart. My grandmother is my superwoman,” she told NBC.
“To be able to have her here, at the biggest meet of my life and being able to run up the steps and knowing that I’m an Olympian now… Honestly, that probably felt better than winning the race itself.”
Richardson will have stiff competition from Jamaica’s two-time Olympic champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in Tokyo next month.
Fraser-Pryce, 34, ran 10.63 on June 5 to become the second-fastest woman in history after FLorence Griffith Joyner.
