SAINT-DENIS, France — For months, Gabby Thomas has envisioned this race, from the pre-event light show at the Stade de France to the 10 burpees she does to stay warm in the call room to her strong start to her devastating finish in the 200 meters. She does that for every competition, and the image always ends with her arms thrust in the air, celebrating another victory. But not this time.
“I could not see that moment when I crossed the line,” she said. “My mind blanked out.”
She has oriented her whole life about her dream of becoming an Olympic champion. But she never quite managed to dream about being an Olympic champion.
So when it happened—when she burst through the line in 21.83 seconds, a full quarter of a second ahead of St. Lucia’s Julien Alfred, who won gold in the women’s 100 meters on Saturday, and 0.37 seconds ahead of fellow American Brittany Brown—Thomas, 27, found herself completely unprepared for the emotions that rushed through her.
“You prepare for this moment, and you train so hard for this moment, but when it actually comes, it’s indescribable,” she said. But she tried anyway: “It was the happiest moment of my life. I felt very proud of myself. I felt very grateful for my community—my team, my coach, my family, my agents, everyone—and just immense love and joy.”
She flung her arms into the air and her mouth dropped open. She burst into tears. She hugged Brown and their other teammate, McKenzie Long, who finished seventh. Thomas jogged to the edge of the track and collected the American flag that she then draped around her shoulders. She rang the Paris 2024 bell that will hang in the Notre-Dame cathedral when it reopens in December after a closure of more than five years due to repairs from a fire. She hugged her mother, Jennifer Randall. Thomas remembered very little of it afterward.
Especially once reigning world champion Shericka Jackson, of Jamaica, withdrew on Sunday, reportedly due to injury, Thomas was the gold medal favorite. And anyone watching knew by halfway through that she would win. But she wasn’t watching. She always tries to achieve perfect focus during a race, but she does not always get there. On Tuesday, she did. “It’s the most bizarre feeling when you get into a flow and you get into that energy where nothing matters but getting to the finish line,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking about anything but getting to the finish line.”
Achieving that focus was harder than she had expected. Thomas’s talent snuck up on her: Only midway through her time at Harvard did she learn that “professional runner” was a job, and that she might have a chance at it. She raced at Olympic trials in 2021 mostly for the experience; she ran a 21.61, then the third-fastest time ever recorded. (“I am still in shock,” she said afterward. “I cannot believe I put up that time.”) In Tokyo, where there were no fans and no expectations, she shocked herself by winning bronze in the 200 meters and gold in the 4X100 relay.
But in 2023, she took silver at the world championships in the 200 meters and gold in the 4X100. In June, she won the Olympic trials in the 200 meters in 21.81 seconds, nearly a tenth of a second ahead of second place. Suddenly, everyone was looking at her. There are elements of that platform she likes: more attention on her work at an Austin health clinic for people without insurance; more inspiration for young Black girls who might not realize they can do anything. She choked up when informed that Long, 24, had said of her, “She’s the type of female that should be in front of the track world. She’s the type of female that everybody should look up to and want to be like.” But the spotlight can be blinding.
“It’s a lot more fun to run when people aren’t expecting things of you, that’s for sure,” Thomas said. “It’s a win-win: If you do well, then great. If you don’t do well, hey, you had the experience. Coming off of the Tokyo Olympics, my life definitely changed. In every race that I ran, there were a lot of eyeballs on me. There were a lot of expectations, and that was definitely a lot more pressure, and I had to adapt. And that’s what all the best athletes do.”
Still, it was one thing to adapt to a crowd of 36,000 people—mostly rabid track fans—for last year’s world championships in Budapest. It was something different altogether when she walked into the Olympic Village last week.
“I remember thinking, I don’t know how people can deal with the amount of pressure that we're about to put on ourselves as athletes,” she said. “Here at the Paris Olympics, there are so many people in the stands. This is a new age of social media where everyone’s watching us and [doing] commentary. And I was like, I don’t know how we're going to do this. But you kind of have to just step up to the plate and do it. And that’s what separates good athletes from great athletes.”
She has two more chances to hone that mentality this week. She said she hopes and expects to run the 4X100, on Friday, and the 4X400, on Saturday. Especially if Jackson and teammate Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who withdrew from the 100 meters due to injury, remain out, the U.S. has a good chance to medal in those events, too.
Then Thomas will have to decide what comes next. She admitted on Tuesday that she is probably not ready for how her life will change now that she is an Olympic champion. “I didn’t want to think about that going into the race, because it’s very overwhelming,” she said. But she has spent her whole life chasing down goals—that undergrad degree from Harvard, her master’s in public health at the University of Texas, the gold medal she will receive at Wednesday’s ceremony—and she expects she will come up with something else soon. Maybe she will get her Ph.D., as her mother has been suggesting with decreasing patience. She will likely take aim at the Los Angeles Games, in 2028. And beyond that?
Thomas knows her future will be great. She just can’t quite picture it yet.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Gabby Thomas Is Finally Living in the Moment As a Gold Medalist.
