Michael Phelps receives a lot of attention at the Olympic Games, and rightly so. Her mother, Nett, posted the picture on Twitter after Manuel’s historic win, and it has since gone viral.
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When Manuel came storming back to tie for gold in the 100-meter freestyle, it was a win for young black Americans everywhere.
“It really inspired me to start practicing even more”, Lourdes Knox said.
Manuel’s roommate in the Athletes’ Village, swimmer Katie Ledecky, stayed awake until Manuel arrived at 2:30 a.m. The win made her become the first African-American woman to win a medal in an individual swimming event.
“Because the title “black swimmer” makes it seem like I’m not supposed to be able to win a gold medal, I’m not supposed to break records, and that’s not true because I work just as hard as anyone else and I love the sport and I want to win just like everybody else”.
“I didn’t know this”, Manuel said Friday of the celebrity tweets, “but [swimmer] Lia Neal sent me a screen shot of it [Friday] morning, so I think that’s pretty cool”.
Miller is part of the Detroit Swims program.
“In like three feet of water, I’d panic”, he said.
Angelika Sita Ouedraogo is an electrical engineering student from Burkina Faso, a nation not known for its swim team. “And it’s a tremendous feeling when you do that”.
Manuel tweeted the video with the caption “How @katieledecky gets ready to win Gold!”
Pop culture and mainstream media often fails to provide young black girls with role models who look like them. “I want to go to the Olympics one day, ‘” Robinson said.
For Lourdes, maybe that’ll be in time for Tokyo in 2020 or soon after that. It’s for [former relay gold medalist]Cullen [Jones] and for all the people after me who believe they can’t do it.
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“I’m the kind of person that tries to stay the same”, she said.
