Cullen Jones, a male African American gold medal swimmer who competed at the London Olympics in 2012, praised Manuel after her victory, tweeting, “I am so proud of @simone_manuel First African American female to get a GOLD medal”.
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Canada’s Penny Oleksiak recorded the same time in the race.
As the youngest sibling and the only girl, Manuel has spent her lifetime sharpening her competitive streak. Not only is the 16-year-old swimming phenom on the list of people that Canadians absolutely adore, but the Olympian is also now tied for having the most medals by a Canadian swimmer in an Olympic games. After preparation that took a lifetime, Manuel thus became a role model in less than a minute. But I want to be the best and if I have to work with what I have, I will work with it and maybe I will get better.
“She wants to be seen as an individual who just like everyone else has worked hard to be where she is”, Sharron Manuel said. “You might be pretty good at it”.
Nada Al-Bedwawi was also moved by Manuel’s historic swim.
Simone Manuel, a 20-year-old black female swimmer, and Simone Biles, a 19-year-old black female gymnast, dominated in two sports in which most U.S. competitors are white.
Australia’s Cate Campbell was a strong favorite going into the race, but Manuel remained calm as her rival faded. She had, though, arrived with a sense of what her participation meant. After all, it was only 12 years ago, in 2004, that Martiza Correia McClendon became thefirst black woman on the US swim team. She said she hoped her victory would encourage greater diversity in her sport. I hope that I’m an inspiration to others to get out there and try swimming. “And that’s not true”. As one reporter deftly pointed out, the swimmer – who broke several National Age Group Records on her 17th birthday and whose “50 free swim was the fastest 17-18 year old time and the second-fastest American time in history”, according to USA Swimming – simply describes herself as a Sugar Land, Texas native on her Twitter profile.
“It’s definitely been a long journey these past four years”.
Manuel and Oleksiak both made their Olympic debuts in Rio. Bronte trailed her by a quarter of a second. The 800-metre final of the heptathlon finishes it all off late Saturday night – but by then, this first gold medal chase could well be moot. And here came Manuel and Oleksiak. Russia’s Aliya Mustafina took bronze. “Simone’s win resonated with me as a black woman”. They both touched. A single light – indicating first – lit up on each of their starting blocks. “This medal is not just for me”.
Manuel’s teammate Abbey Weitzeil finished seventh in 53.30. But she knows, too, that when Michael Phelps wins a race, he can just break it down. “The racial comment was really out of line”, Biles’ father, Ron, told USA Today at the time, adding the irony of how “normally it’s not in her favor being black, at least not in the world that I live in”. “This win kind of helps bring hope and change to some of the issues that are going on in the world”. “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”.
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She tried, as so many gold medalists have before her, to hold back tears. “It was important for me to do that for her because even at that time I saw she could do something special”.
