WHAT RICHARDSON
WEARS

Same swoosh, two wardrobes

With most athletes in this series the national kit and the sponsor kit come from rival brands. With Richardson both say Nike. She has been a Nike athlete since 2019, and USA Track & Field has been a Nike federation since 1991, under a contract that now runs to 2040. The logo never changes. What changes is who is making the decisions.

At the Olympics and the World Championships the brand and the design are fixed for the whole team. In Budapest in 2023 that meant a crop top and briefs in fine red and blue pinstripes. In Paris in 2024 it meant tops that fade from blue-purple at the shoulder to red at the hem. Every American on the track is wearing the same thing, and the only parts that are hers are the cut she picked, the spikes on her feet, and everything above the neck and beyond the wrist.

At the US Trials and at invitational meetings there is no national kit at all. Athletes compete in their own sponsor's clothes, under rules that cap the maker's logo and ban every other commercial mark, and the track fills with adidas, Puma, New Balance, On and Hoka. We explain that meet in The US Olympic Trials Explained, and the federation side in The History of Athletics in the USA.

The Team USA kit is a menu

The Team USA kit is not one garment. Nike described the Paris range as nearly fifty pieces with about a dozen competition styles, and athletes choose among them. That detail got lost on 11 April 2024, when Nike previewed the kit in Paris and a photograph of two mannequins went round the world. The women's mannequin wore a leotard cut very high at the hip.

The criticism came from inside the sport. Lauren Fleshman wrote that if the cut helped performance, men would wear it too; Tara Davis-Woodhall and Queen Harrison Claye joked about what it left exposed. Katie Moon, a Nike athlete, said the image deserved the reaction and also that athletes had plenty of options. Nike answered that the leotard was one style among many, with tailoring available, and USATF that the two outfits shown were two of many.

Richardson was on the stage that day, and she modelled a version with shorts: a new short-leg unitard that Nike added to the women's line for 2024. In Paris she did not race in the leotard either. Footwear News saw a purple tank with matching shorts in the 100 m rounds.

You can buy part of that menu. On 21 September 2026 the official Team USATF store listed a Nike Team USA singlet, race short and half tight at US$90 each. It listed no sprint crop top, no competition brief and no unitard, which are the pieces she actually races in.

Her own Nike kit

Her own kit is harder to document, because nobody photographs a Diamond League heat the way they photograph an Olympic final, and the two free images that exist are both from Eugene. At the Trials in June 2021 she ran in a navy high-cut one-piece with a white and light-blue diamond pattern across the torso, under flowing orange hair. The other Nike finalists wore the same navy as two-pieces.

Three years later the Associated Press described a gold and black running suit with nails to match. The photograph shows more: fine gold pinstripes on black, short legs, a half zip, and one long sleeve on the left arm only. Pinstripes were that season's Nike athlete issue, and you can see them in burgundy on the runner beside her.

What she wore at Diamond League meetings is not described by any source we trust, so we leave it out. The best documented outfit of her 2026 was not a race kit at all. For the red carpet at Athlos London on 18 September, Nike Atelier, the company's one-off couture studio, made her a light-catching ripstop coat with hand-set crystals over a rib-knit corset dress, with a 3D-printed FlyWeb bra underneath. She won the 100 m that night in 10.80. At the same meeting Keely Hodgkinson raced in a one-of-one hooded speed suit.

Nike since 2019

She won the NCAA 100 m for LSU in 10.75 on 8 June 2019, announced four days later that she was turning professional after one college season, and signed with Nike that month. The value and length of the deal have never been published.

The contract was tested once in public. On 2 July 2021 she accepted a one-month suspension that cost her an Olympic place, and the same day Nike said it would “continue to support her through this time”. It did: the sponsorship stayed in place throughout.

Since then Nike has used her well beyond the track. She fronted the Nike x Jacquemus collection of spring 2024, stood several metres tall as a statue outside the Palais Brongniart for the Nike On Air event that April, and was one of thirteen athletes given a 3D-printed concept spike, a design exercise that has never been raced or sold. In early 2025 she relaunched the Air Superfly, a 2001 running shoe brought back as a lifestyle model from US$100. None of this is a signature line. The page under her name on Nike's site lists general-release products only.

The spikes

Two models are on record. NBC names the Air Zoom Maxfly for her world title in Budapest in 2023, where the pair was bright pink. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce wore the same pink in that final, so the colour was Nike's team colourway for the summer and not a personal edition.

For Paris in 2024 Nike confirmed the Maxfly 2, and Sneaker Freaker reported that her pair took the shape of Nike's Electric Pack but in full electric green where the pack was orange, with her slogan of that year lettered across the two shoes. The Maxfly 2 appears on the World Athletics approved list from 11 April 2024, the same day as the kit launch. It sells for US$190, and we take the category apart in Sprint Spikes.

For 2025 and 2026, including Tokyo and Athlos, no reliable source names what she raced in.

Hair, nails and a thrown wig

The part of the look that belongs to her alone is the part everyone remembers. The long decorated nails came from her grandmother, and she has said she only learned later that Florence Griffith Joyner wore them too. She names her hair colours. At the 2021 Trials it was orange. At the US Championships on 7 July 2023 she was introduced in a bright orange wig, pulled it off and threw it on the track, and won her first national title in 10.82 with braids shaped into a star. In Paris the nails were red, white and blue.

Where she stands

Her 2025 started late after an injury in February and ended with a fifth place in the world 100 m final and a relay gold. That final was won by her training partner Melissa Jefferson-Wooden in 10.61, which also took away the championship record Richardson had set with her 10.65 in Budapest. The 10.65 is still her best, according to her World Athletics profile.

In 2026 she won a third US 100 m title in New York in 10.77, was second at the Prefontaine Classic in 10.79, third in the Diamond League final and third at the Ultimate Championship in Budapest in 10.76, and closed the year by winning Athlos London in 10.80, a meeting record, in her first race at a meeting she part-owns. She is 26.

What you can and cannot buy

The spike is the easy part. The Maxfly 2 is a retail shoe, the colourways Nike's athletes raced in during 2024 were general releases, and the Team USATF store sells a singlet, a race short and a half tight in the national design.

Not for sale: the custom green pair from Paris, the concept spike, anything from Nike Atelier, the Team USA sprint cuts she actually wears, and her own Nike race kit. We found no retail listing for the black and gold one-piece of 2024 or the navy leotard of 2021. That is the gap between what Nike sells and what Nike issues.

Issue kit is what this archive holds. These two pieces come from the same seasons as the two Trials photographs: the 2024 pinstripe, in the burgundy worn in the lane beside her, and the navy of 2021.

Athlete issue · in the archiveNike Pro Elite 2024 Women Competition BriefsBurgundy pinstripes with a volt swoosh and a grey waistband: the 2024 Nike athlete issue, the colourway visible on the right of the Trials photograph.120,00 €View piece →

Athlete issue · in the archiveNike Pro Elite 2021 Women Competition BriefsDark blue with a white swoosh, made in the USA: the 2021 season, when Nike's finalists at the Trials all wore navy.120,00 €View piece →

The brand's story is in The History of Nike Pro Elite, the 2024 cycle in Nike Pro Elite 2024, the garment itself in Competition Briefs, and the tiers in What Is Pro Elite Clothing?.