The U.S. women’s eight won its 11th consecutive major title Saturday, claiming its third Olympic gold medal in a row (no pun intended). She’s a role model now.
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“Hopefully it will get them inspired”, Manuel said following her victory.
Manuel not only gave Team USA its first gold medal in that competition in decades, the win marked various firsts for her as well.
It’s important because of what being black could mean for anyone who has wanted to go to a public swimming pool or, in other words, the people who came before her. “They might be pretty good at it”.
Manuel then carefully folded the ribbon around her medal and placed it in a dresser drawer.
The original headline on this story was insensitive and has been updated to acknowledge the historic gold medal wins by both Simone Manuel and Michael Phelps.
Ranomi Kromowidjojo of the Netherlands, the gold medal victor in London four years ago, came sixth, one place ahead of the reigning world champion, Australia’s Bronte Campbell. (She shared first place with Canada’s Penny Oleksiak in the 100-meter freestyle). She had, though, arrived with a sense of what her participation meant.
And Manuel hopes she can just be a swimmer and a champion without her race being a factor.
The decorated Olympian said the color of her skin is something she’s “struggled with a lot”. “And that’s not true”.
Manuel’s first gold also comes at her first Olympics where she too, as an African-American swimmer, also carried a particular resonance. She finally did that in semifinals of the 100 here, a 53.11, but even that was just the sixth-best time in the world this year. “I felt like I was swimming every stroke with her”.
JaVe Bonner, a pre-med student at George Mason University, said Manuel’s win is significant to her because she was told when she was younger that she couldn’t go into a neighborhood pool since her skin was “dirty”. Bronte trailed her by a quarter of a second.
That was the first double gold in Olympic swimming and it came after the timing was reduced from a thousandth of a second to a hundredth following a controversial dead-heat in the 1972 men’s 400 individual medley. She finished in 24.07. Bronte’s final length was 28.00, and she finished fourth. Britain held on for silver, with Australia nabbing bronze.
“Everything was going through my head but mainly it was like I had finally done it and when that hits you, you can’t really stop the emotions”.
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Both Oleksiak and Manuel reached for the wall.
