Gabby Thomas of the United States didn’t stay in the Olympic Village the night before she raced in the 200-m final—which she won on Tuesday at Stade de France, putting both hands behind her head after crossing the finish line and simultaneously sort of screaming and crying, a picture-perfect thrill of victory reaction. Instead, she crashed in the room of her boyfriend, Spencer McManes, in Paris outside the confines of the athlete space.
“She needed some air-conditioning,” said McManes, moments after Thomas became the first American woman since Allyson Felix a dozen years ago to win the Olympic 200.
Thomas woke up Tuesday morning, said McManes, with a lot of emotions. “It was just so intense,” he said. “I wouldn’t say it was anxiety. It was more like excitement, weight. You feel the weight of it.” With her primary rival, defending 200-m world champion Shericka Jackson of Jamaica, having withdrawn from the event, Thomas found herself the favorite.
They discussed, analytically, how to handle these feelings: it’s probably worth reminding fans here that Thomas graduated from Harvard, where she majored in neurobiology and global health. McManes played football at Yale. They decided to embrace the moment. Don’t deny it was a big deal. Recognize the excitement and the nervousness. That’s all part of the program.
And they had to eat breakfast at the same place they’ve visited a few times in Paris. Thomas had to have her favorite item: an omelet.
The approach worked wonders on Tuesday night, as Thomas held off the Olympic 100-m champion, Julien Alfred of St. Lucia, and crossed the finish line in 21.83 seconds. “I still don’t know what time I ran,” Thomas told reporters following the race. Someone informed her. “OK,” she said. She just cared about the win.
Her coach, Tonja Buford-Bailey, knew Thomas had it 80 m into the sprint. At that point, she lifted her arms into the air. “What makes her special, I love having an athlete that just doesn’t take this too seriously and is just able to keep herself calm,” says Buford-Bailey. “We were just laughing it up in the warm-up area right before.” They cheered as American Cole Hocker won a surprise gold in the men’s 1,500 m. Shortly before she was introduced onto the track, Thomas did 10 burpees. “I need to keep my heart rate up,” she said, “It is really embarrassing, but clearly works.”
Thomas swears she didn’t realize she had won the race until she crossed the line. “It’s the most bizarre feeling when you get into a flow and you get into that kind of energy where nothing matters but the finish line,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking about anything.” And where did the reaction—which should become a living, breathing poster for Olympics glory—come from?
“I did not expect to feel how I felt when I crossed that line,” said Thomas. “You prepare for this moment, and you train so hard for this moment, when it actually comes, it’s indescribable, and I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I never would have imagined in my wildest dreams that I would become an Olympic gold medalist. And I am one, and I’m still kind of wrapping my head around that.”
Thomas, very intentionally, knocked out any suggestion that this victory was anything less than stellar and deserved due to Jackson’s absence. “I have been doing really well in the 200 m all season,” she said. “So I wouldn’t say that I was relieved when she got pulled out. I wish her all the best. And it’s unfortunate that you can’t have your reigning world champion competing. But I was confident before that and I was confident going into the race.”
Some Olympic champions grew up passionate about their sport from a young age. Sweden’s Mondo Duplantis, for example, started pole vaulting in his Lafayette, La., backyard when he was around 4 years old: he broke his own world record, for a ninth time, on Monday. Thomas wasn’t one of those champions. “My mom heavily encouraged, almost forced me into it when I was in high school, because she knew I was fast,” Thomas said. “I grew up playing other sports like soccer.” Why the aversion to the suggestions of her mom, University of Michigan education professor Jennifer Randall, that she take up sprinting? “Track is not exactly a fun activity in itself,” said Thomas. “You’re literally running and it’s hard and it’s painful.”
By junior year of high school, however, she started to appreciate the goal-setting aspects of the sport. Run this time, finish in this position. At Harvard, the demands of school and track and field made her think about quitting. Thomas, who now has a master’s degree in public health, had ambitions beyond sports.
She still decided to turn pro after graduating from Harvard in 2019. Thomas moved to Austin to join a training group. She suffered through more growing pains. “There are a lot of egos, there are just a lot of moving parts, a lot of things going on,” she said. “I did think that I was going to be cut out for it. I told my agent that I’m done. I wrote an email saying I’m done running professionally and I’m going to go pursue other endeavors of my life.”
She’s in a far different place now. Balance has helped. She’s continued to pursue her passion for public health, volunteering, for example, seven to 10 hours a week for an Austin clinic that provides services for uninsured patients. This spring, she arranged for her sponsor, New Balance, to donate shoes for hypertension patients that she and a team of volunteers help look after. The facility, the Volunteer Healthcare Clinic, hosted a watch party for the 200 m on Tuesday. A group of 15 to 20 staffers, doctors, volunteers, and patients gathered to cheer her on.
“Gabby is very dedicated,” Marci Roe, executive director of the Volunteer Healthcare Clinic, told TIME in a telephone conversation after the race. She calls Thomas an A-level volunteer. She puts in the real work. She’s not serving the clinic to brandish her resume or score PR points. “She cares deeply about helping others,” says Roe. “She has the education in public health and wants to put it to good use.”
Thomas believes her involvement in advanced academics and other activities has helped keep her fire for track and field burning. Now she has a chance for two more gold medals at these Paris Games. She says she “expects to” run both the 4×100 on Friday and the 4×400 Saturday.
“I found the beauty in it,” she said. “I found a love in it. I just love chasing goals. I love chasing my dreams. I love moments like this, where everything kind of comes together.”
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