“I want to get to the Olympics and I want to win a gold medal – like, that’s one of my aspirations in life”. At 20 years old, Manuel is already a United States Summer Olympic legend.
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And as she physically made history in Rio, she symbolically swam upstream against the longstanding history of exclusion and violence in America’s “contested waters”.
Manuel recognizes the significance of her achievement, yet she has never wanted to be defined exclusively by the color of her skin.
The pair finished at 52.70 seconds, breaking the Olympic record by 0.01. Tears rolled down each of Manuel’s cheeks as she sang along.
“That’s something I definitely struggled with a lot, ” she said, referring to her role as an African-American trailblazer.
Her joy and the importance of her victory can not be understood outside of America’s bloodstained Jim Crow archives.
James showed his appreciation for Team USA swimmer Simone Manuel on setting an Olympic record in the 100 m freestyle by retweeting her and teammate Lia Neal’s video via Uninterrupted on Twitter.
She began swimming at age four in her hometown of Sugar Loaf, a suburb of Houston, with Sharron and her IT worker husband Marc wanting her to be safe in water.
Sixteen-year-old Deavon Stalling of the Mighty Krocs Swim Club says Simone Manuel’s gold medal win was not just inspiring but groundbreaking. “Just being a black woman myself and to see just someone like me, like the color, is just so fantastic and for her to get an Olympic record is better still”.
‘We got on the internet and we looked up information and pooled different articles and reading.
Manuel broke a national record for her age group the day she turned 17 and is a two-time N.C.A.A. swimming champion.
The seven-time All-American at Stanford is competing in her first Olympics, and also earned silver as a member of the USA’s 400-meter freestyle relay team.
‘We had all sorts of emotion running through us, ‘ she added. It is for some of the African-Americans who have come before me. “We are doing it in UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and hopefully Saudi Arabia will try to get there”. “. When she was about 15 in high school, we started talking to her about swimming isn’t just going to be about her and that there will be a point in her life when the swimming will be more than just for her, that it will be a time when she will have to share that gift with the world, and it will carry a message”.
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‘To see Simone’s emotions, her raw emotions, really said it all for all of us’.
