What’s going on with Christian Coleman? The former world’s fastest man just can’t catch a break in 2025, and his track season went from bad to worse on Saturday night at the Shanghai Diamond League. The American sprint star, who was looking to bounce back from his 4th place finish in Xiamen (10.18s), instead finished 5th with a 10.13s performance. South Africa’s Akani Simbine won with a 9.98, but the real story was Jamaican rival Kishane Thompson’s comeback. Despite dealing with hamstring issues all season, Thompson ran 9.99s and left Coleman in his dust. Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo finished 3rd with a season-best 10.03s. And now? Social media is having a field day. Trolls are piling on Coleman, questioning his form, his focus, his future, even? But as the noise grows louder, one person isn’t staying silent. Sha’Carri Richardson, Coleman’s girlfriend, has stepped forward with a message of her own.

What’s going on with Christian Coleman? The former world’s fastest man just can’t catch a break in 2025, and his track season went from bad to worse on Saturday night at the Shanghai Diamond League. The American sprint star, who was looking to bounce back from his 4th place finish in Xiamen (10.18s), instead finished 5th with a 10.13s performance. South Africa’s Akani Simbine won with a 9.98, but the real story was Jamaican rival Kishane Thompson’s comeback. Despite dealing with hamstring issues all season, Thompson ran 9.99s and left Coleman in his dust. Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo finished 3rd with a season-best 10.03s.

And now? Social media is having a field day. Trolls are piling on Coleman, questioning his form, his focus, his future, even? But as the noise grows louder, one person isn’t staying silent. Sha’Carri Richardson, Coleman’s girlfriend, has stepped forward with a message of her own. “Enough is enough,” Sha’Carri Richardson seems to say between the lines of her fiery Instagram stories. As boyfriend Christian Coleman weathers the storm of his Shanghai flop, the track’s outspoken queen isn’t having any of the criticism. “Don’t read comments of people that’s watching you!!!” she fired off just a few hours after Coleman’s disappointing 10.13 performance. The highlighted quote that followed? Pure Sha’Carri: “Don’t take criticism from someone you won’t take advice from.”

Talk about drawing a line in the sand. And just when you thought she’d made her point, she doubled down with another post: “The best is yet to come.”  Now he’s watching an upcoming athlete take his spot, and it has been the case for this year now. If that happens, we might just see Christian Coleman returning to the peak of his powers. With a personal best of 9.76s in the 100m, he’s one of the fastest men on the planet. His indoor world record of 6.34s in the 60m still also shows his explosive sprinting ability.

Christian Coleman’s 2025 season in a nutshell

Once the fastest man on the planet with a blazing 9.76, Christian Coleman is now ranked 29th in the world in 2025. His best time this season? 10.06 seconds. That’s not even close to the Coleman who used to strike fear on the start line.

That 10.06 came at the Percy Beard Track in Gainesville on April 19, but even there, he wasn’t the fastest in the final. Coleman finished fourth in the final, behind Courtney Lindsey (9.97) and Christian Miller (10.02), both of whom don’t carry the titles Coleman once did.

Fast forward to the Shanghai Diamond League, and it didn’t get any better for the defending champion. Coleman finished fourth, clocking 10.18, a full 0.19 seconds behind the winner, Akani Simbine (9.99). To add salt to the wound, Jeremiah Azu and Ferdinand Omanyala also beat him to the line. This wasn’t a one-off; this has been the story of Coleman’s season.

For context, he hasn’t broken 10 seconds even once this year, a shocking stat for a man who has once beaten Usain Bolt in the World Championships in 2017. His season’s best (10.06) is a full 0.30 seconds slower than his personal best, and it’s not just numbers. It’s a signal of a steep drop.

Coleman is now tied on the 2025 list with Gary Card, a Jamaican sprinter born in 2007. Let that sink in. A high school-aged athlete has already matched the former world champion’s top time this year.