In the final of the women’s 100m freestyle event, USA’s Simone Manuel and Canada’s Penny Oleksiak tied for the gold medal. Britain set a new world record of 4:13.260 to top the field, besting Australia’s time at the 2015 world championships by 0.423 seconds.
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The 20-year-old from Sugar Land, Texas, had just become the first African American woman to win an individual gold medal in swimming.
It was another flawless performance from Biles, whose prodigious talents have earned her comparisons to the legendary Nadia Comaneci, victor of five gold medals during the 1976 and 1980 games.
“I hope that I can be an inspiration to others, so this medal is for the people who come behind me and get into the sport and hopefully find love and drive to get to this point”, Manuel said. But I do hope it kind of goes away.
Oleksiak, the first Olympic champion born in the 21st century, has now won four medals in Rio.
Golf will return to the Olympics for the first time since the 1904 St. Louis Games, when 46-year-old insurance salesman George Seymour Lyon of Canada won the title just eight years after first picking up a golf club. After the race, Manuel said that she hoped her win would inspire others to take up her sport. She has already won silver in the 100-metre butterfly, and has bronze medals in the 4×100-metre and 4×200-metre freestyle relays. But there is a particular, fraught history that follows black Americans and swimming, which Manuel may have been alluding to in her comments.
“That’s something that I have struggled with a lot”. Her coach said he believes Van Acker contracted a severe intestinal infection while training in Rio in July that sapped her energy.
“I’m not sure if this will change the perception immediately”, Sharron said.
“I am glad I can be an inspiration to others and help diversify the sport”. Cate’s last 50 was 28.47 seconds, and she finished sixth.
“I was really upset after my race, just with myself”.
This was touted as the last showdown between two of America’s greatest swimmers, though there’s never been any question about which one had the upper hand. She said the constant questions about being a black swimmer can be hard, “but I think that’s just what comes with the territory of making history”.
While the world and social media lauded her milestone, Manuel didn’t have time to celebrate.
Coincidentally, Manuel and Oleksiak’s tie is the third Olympic swimming race in which the gold medal is shared.
“To me, this win shows that black people are resilient and soar through adversity”, she wrote in an email.
Afterwards, the 31-year-old waggled four fingers to signify the four gold medals so far in Rio which have taken him to an incredible 22 Olympic titles and 26 medals altogether.
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She spoke of the difficulty in being a rare black swimmer on the American team, how it has attracted positive attention but at the same time brought a burden. But one Canadian record she’ll nearly definitely never touch is most Olympic appearances, which is held by equestrian athlete Ian Millar.
