Not only did she tie Canada’s Penny Oleksiak in the 100 m freestyle for Olympic gold at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but they set a world record in the event at 52.70 seconds. As the New York Times points out, Manuel would make history if she managed to win this individual swimming event, an Olympic first for a black woman.
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Manuel said: “It means a lot to me, especially what’s going on in the world today and some of the issues with police brutality”.
“She asked me a question about why she didn’t see many others like herself in the sport of swimming”, Sharron Manuel, Simone’s mother, said Friday.
NBC didn’t air Manuel’s medal ceremony until an hour after it happened. “I want to be an inspiration, but I would like there to be a day when it is not ‘Simone the black swimmer'”. Simone Manuel arrives in Houston after Rio Olympics winsManuel admitted to those in attendance that two of those medals were inside socks in her baggage because she only received two holders so far. “My goal coming in was to get on the medal stand after seeing how I swam in prelims and semifinals”.
She shared top spot on the podium with Manuel, 20, the first African-American individual Olympic champion from the United States.
“You have to work hard and be pretty smart to get into a school like this – but honestly, that’s another reason why I picked it, because I wanted to be in this atmosphere and challenge myself”, she told USA Swimming this year.
A generation ago, African-Americans were largely denied access to pools and so it never became part of their recreational culture to swim.
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.
According to her USA Swimming Foundation National Team bio, Manuel is originally from Sugar Land, Texas, where she swam at her local club. “She’s a trailblazer for the sport of aquatics, not just for African Americans, but just aquatics, period”. But Manuel has struggled with embracing her role as, as she said, a “black swimmer”, and shoving it aside. Slowly and methodically, black people were implicitly discouraged from engaging in water sports and learning how to swim.
RVA Swim manager Adam Kennedy says Manuel’s win at the Rio Games is a game changer and he believes it will propel diversity in the pools nationwide.
“To me, this win shows that black people are resilient and soar through adversity”, she wrote in an email.
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I’m glad I can be an inspiration to others, but I haven’t really thought about how my life has changed.
