Simone Manuel made history tonight, becoming the first African-American woman to win a medal in an individual swimming event.
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Her jaw dropped as she looked up to the scoreboard and saw a tie for gold and an Olympic-record time of 52.70 seconds.
She has now collected four medals from Rio – the most by a Canadian at a summer Games – winning a 4x100m freestyle bronze on the opening day of the competition, followed by a 100m butterfly silver and another bronze in the 4x200m freestyle.
Penny Oleksiak now stands alone in Canadian Olympic history. Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden captured bronze in 52.99 seconds.
The last dead-heat for gold in swimming at the Olympics was in Sydney in 2000 when American training partners Gary Hall Jr and Anthony Ervin tied first in the 50m freestyle.
It’s also Canada’s first gold of the Games and moves them into 13th in the overall medal standings with one gold, one silver and five bronze.
Canada now faces Britain on Saturday morning with a shot at the gold-medal final on the line, while the USA will line up against Australia. “It’s for all the people after me who can’t, who believe they can’t do it”.
RIO DE JANEIRO – American swimmer Simone Manuel spoke out about the United States’ police brutality controversy after claiming a historic gold medal in the 100-meter freestyle at the Rio Olympics on Thursday night.
It was meant to be a battle between Phelps and Lochte, with the former having won the 200m IM at every Games since 2004. “I just want to be an inspiration to others so that you can do it”.
Neal pumped Manuel up before the nighttime finals by singing and dancing together. “But it wasn’t something I was trying to think about before my race, I was just trying to think about swimming as fast as I could and to be happy with whatever outcome”. “I don’t know, all I can say is all glory to God”, she told the reporter.
Manuel, who attends Stanford and has a brother who played basketball at SMU, was there to pick up the torch for African-American swimmers.
And Manuel hopes she can just be a swimmer and a champion without her race being a factor. “I do hope that kind of goes away”. “Coming into the race I tried to take weight of the black community off my shoulders”.
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“That’s something I definitely struggled with a lot”, she said.
