Just about every time you saw a promo for NBC’s Olympic coverage, she was there celebrating her win in the 100-meter dash at the 2023 world championships.

She’s been in commercials and the subject of numerous profiles. With all of that attention, she was supposed to win gold Saturday in the women’s 100-meter dash.

She didn’t. A fraction too slow in reaction to the starter’s gun, Richardson fell to the back of the pack in the final. She splashed across the rainy purple-colored straightaway at the Stade de France and made up ground, but she ran out of time and distance to reel in winner Julien Alfred of St. Lucia.

In an instant, Alfred became a hero to her island nation, its first person to ever win a medal in the Olympics. If her face isn’t on a stamp by Christmas you will here me exclaim, as the French say, “Quel surprise.”

Richardson got the silver, her first medal in her first Olympic final. That does not count as a mission failure. The list of great athletes who came and went from the Olympics without a gold medal is longer than the marathon.

She is an Olympian and an Olympic medalist for life, regardless of anything else. Those are not trivial achievements.

Richardson didn’t run her best in the 100 and she got beat. That is the almost inevitable outcome when you don’t deliver your best performance in the Olympics. You can also give your best and get beaten as well. But Richardson — who ran a 10.87 time in the 100 final, 0.22 seconds off what she ran in last year’s worlds — clearly can be better. She is clearly a gold medal-worthy athlete.

She now gets another chance to be exactly that. Richardson is one of five U.S. women entered in the 4×100 relay, along with another former LSU great, Aleia Hobbs of New Orleans, who also is seeking her first Olympic gold. Qualifying heats are Thursday morning, with the final to come Friday night.

Olympic relays are the United States’ middle name when it comes to running and swimming. It should say on our money, “The Home of the Relay.” They are events that allow the USA to best flex its athletic muscle, its depth, its brash self-confidence that the rest of the world dislikes so intensely.

The Americans — whose pool of runners in this particular 4×100 also includes Twanisha Terry, Tamari Davis and 100-meter bronze medalist Melissa Jefferson — are the deserving favorites to claim the gold over rivals Jamaica and Great Britain.

But relays are fickle things. Someone can drop the baton. Or line up outside the exchange zone. Or run a really, really good race and … just get beat.

The U.S. team, built around Richardson, deserves its status as a favorite. But considering all of the intricacies of the 4×100, she and her team are not as solid of a favorite as she was in the 100.

Gold, sliver, bronze or no medal in the 4×100 doesn’t change Richardson’s quality. She’s already a world champion, and that’s a credential that is chiseled out of stone.

In the same breath, world championships are great, but it’s Olympic medals that people remember. That they mark the time with. Mondo Duplantis has won four world championships in pole vault, but John Q. Steeplechase rightly counts the Olympic wins (and losses) for more.

Winning the gold medal isn’t just on Richardson’s slender neck but dependent on everyone doing their part.

That said, no one else has more on the line than Richardson. Maybe not her, but certainly her legacy in these Paris Olympics.

Richardson is already everywhere even without a gold medal. A win could be the spark for a new level of fame for her.

But the price of admission is gold.