Stanford junior Simone Manuel had a look of disbelief.
Advertisement
“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”. Didn’t people tease you or say stuff about you? That really bothers me.
The 20-year-old set a new Olympic record and became the first African-American woman to medal in an individual swimming event.
It will have a “huge impact” on young, Canadian swimmers, he said.
Gymnastics is one of the hardest sports to master and even it’s harder to be on the USA Olympic team. A diversity study published in 2008 of 300 gymnastics gyms (PDF) in the United States found that only about 6% of athletes were African-American.
Manuel paid tribute to McClendon and Jones soon after her win in Rio. “Simone’s win resonated with me as a black woman”.
“The gold medal wasn’t just for me, it was for people who have come before me and inspired me to stay in the sport, and for people who believe they can’t do it”, she said.
It was also the makeup of that team – which features an African-American, a Jewish-American, a Puerto Rican-American and a Belizean-American with dual citizenship, and is managed by a Hungarian-Romanian immigrant – that elevated its cultural importance. But the weight of their achievements is amplified by the social progress they represent. “He’s in such a good place personally”.
American Maya DiRado won the gold medal in the women’s 200 backstroke. We are the same, in the same Olympics.
It goes beyond the historic achievements of Raisman and Biles.
The gold was Denmark’s third in swimming, and Blume’s first of any color at an Olympics. These athletes are filling roles that have seldom been occupied by minorities, if ever. “And I just want to be inspiration to others that you can do it”.
By 1964, “wade-ins” to protest segregation at public beaches and pools became a part of the civil rights movement. The aforementioned USA Swimming report also found that, if a parent can’t swim, there’s just a 13-percent chance that the child will learn. In 1964, Black and white protesters jumped into the Monson Motor Lodge pool, integrating it in solidarity. A 2010 study conducted by the University of Memphis and commissioned by USA Swimming revealed that almost 68.9 percent of African-American children had “low or no swim ability”. In London, she swam this relay with Rebecca Soni, Allison Schmitt, and Bonnie Franklin. “Stereotypically, black people participate in basketball, volleyball, football, and track”. 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. People were just like, ‘I love that.
Advertisement
“I would like to be remembered as someone who never gave up”, Biles told CNN. Manuel is 5-foot-11 while Biles is 4-foot-8.
