For nearly two years, a sprint showdown has been brewing between Ewa Swoboda and IShowSpeed. After watching one of her sprints, the American streamer challenged the Polish runner in August 2024, saying, “Nobody in the world can beat me, okay?” So, Swoboda took up the challenge and invited Speed to the Kamila Skolimowska Memorial in Poland. However, that race never took place leaving fans wondering why the proposed showdown fell apart.
On August 21, Swoboda finally explained why she never went through with the race. Speaking on TVP Sport’s “Lekkie Gadki”, the 29-year-old made it clear that she has no interest in turning her sport into a spectacle. “I’m not going to clown around. That’s not my thing. I treat running as a serious matter ,” Swoboda said, before questioning why she should race someone “who barks at people.”
Swoboda was even more direct when she added, “I didn’t consider that I would race against him.” Her comments now explain why the showdown that once seemed possible never became a reality.
For an athlete with Swoboda’s record, there is also little reason to seek attention through an exhibition race. She is a two-time Olympian, having competed at Rio 2016 and Paris 2024, and has built a career at the highest level of international sprinting. In 2019, she won the European 60m indoor title, and she was the silver medal winner of the 2024 World Championships in Glasgow.
Her achievements have extended to the European arena. Swoboda went on to win the silver medal in the 100m, 0.02 seconds behind Amy Hunt, and provided Poland with a bronze relay medal in the 4x100m event of the 2026 European Championships in Birmingham. But Swoboda is not a lone voice among elite female sprinters who have taken a stand against raving with IShowSpeed.
In 2025, Sha’Carri Richardson also refused to accept a challenge from the streamer. This exchange happened during Super Bowl week in February 2025 when Speed and Richardson got together with a bunch of celebrities and athletes. Confident in his sprinting ability, Speed challenged the Olympic medalist to race him immediately. “I’m in race shape, let’s race right now,” Speed reportedly told her.
Richardson did not agree to an instant showdown. Instead, she replied, “I don’t race for free.” However, Richardson did not completely close the door on a future race. Rather than simply rejecting Speed, she challenged him to experience what it takes to train as a professional sprinter. “Before we race, I got to teach you how to be a sprinter first,” Richardson told him.
She then laid out her condition: “You come down for a day, you do my entire workout, and after that, we can set something up.” Richardson made her point even clearer, telling Speed, “You got to do what I do first before we race. You got to be a track athlete first before a race.” That makes Richardson’s response different from Swoboda’s.
Richardson left the door open if Speed was willing to train seriously, while Swoboda has now made it clear that she does not see a race with him as something she wants to pursue.
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