Paris, France - Team USA track star Sha'Carri Richardson won silver in the 100m sprint at the Paris Olympics, with Julien Alfred of St. Lucia taking gold.

Sha'carri Richardson ran her heart out to win her first Olympic medal in 10.82 seconds in Saturday's women's 100m final.

Richardson appeared to get stuck in the blocks for a slow start. Alfred took an early lead, which she never let up.

The race took place in pouring rain.

Richardson's medal-winning performance in Paris came three years after her dreams of Olympic glory in Tokyo were controversially wrecked by a positive test for marijuana following her victory at US trials.

The track star roared back to the pinnacle of her sport with a 10.65-second victory at last year's World Championships in Budapest and was heavily favored to win it all in Paris.

Richardson's training partner Melissa Jefferson, also of Team USA, took bronze in 10.92 seconds, while Alfred delivered St. Lucia's first-ever Olympic medal in 10.72 seconds.

"I'd love to be the first," Julien Alfred said of the possibility of becoming the first Olympic medalist from the tiny Caribbean island of St. Lucia. On Saturday, she achieved that in style by winning the women's 100 meters in Paris.

Getting to the top of the podium was not a smooth passage for the 23-year-old, whose victory came in front of 69,000 spectators, just 110,000 less than the population of St Lucia.

At the age of 12, her father Julian Hamilton died.

Five years later, just before she won Youth Olympic Games 100m silver in Buenos Aires in 2018, her aunt Karen Alfred, who had helped bring her up, passed away.

"I'm sure he would have wished for me to get this medal and be here for this moment," Alfred said at the time.

She pinpoints that silver medal as a turning point for her career.

"I think that was the beginning of something great," she told Olympics.com. "It influenced my choices in going to college, as well, so I think it was a really good experience for me."

Even getting to that stage in Buenos Aires had been an ordeal for the future Olympic champion.

She was so rocked by Julian's death she stepped away from athletics and two years later aged 14 decided to go to school in Jamaica, the home of her idol Usain Bolt, leaving behind her family.

"I did have tough times when I was 14," she said earlier this week. "I got an opportunity to go to Jamaica. So I think getting the opportunity to go to a place where Usain Bolt is was ideal and I decided I wanted to be there and my mum gave me the opportunity to go."

"She didn't say no. She just said to me if you want to go then, okay."

It certainly toughened up the young athlete and made her grow up fast.

"It was tough growing up without my family and friends," she admitted.

Alfred, known as "Juju," would not have thought then that she would develop into a talent who would compete on the Olympic stage where Bolt shone so bright.

Taken in hand by Edrick Floreal at the University of Texas – he also coaches reigning European 100m champion Dina Asher-Smith and Irish 400m medal hope Rhasidat Adeleke – she developed into a superb sprinter.

A shy individual, Alfred found the perfect mentor in Floreal, someone who could read her and extract the best from her.

"He's been like a dad, a mentor and a coach," Alfred told Olympics.com. "I think at this level sometimes there can be so much pressure and I really appreciate all that he has done, not just from a coaching standpoint, but also just being a human like I am."

"He's seen me as a human and not just an athlete."

Floreal has been wowed by how Alfred adjusted from the junior to the senior ranks.

"She’s fantastic," he said. "It's a difficult adjustment that a lot of kids are not able to do; there's a lot of people pulling at you."

As for the tough times she has endured, she chose an apposite saying from the Bible to put on her Instagram biography: "Present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us."

Her glory was revealed in 10.72sec on Saturday, stunning pre-race favorite Sha'Carri Richardson – and there promises to be much more to come.