Hassan’s three-peat podium feat-which involved her racing 24,500 meters in six races over nine days-is seriously impressive. Then it got even more impressive: Just 12 hours later, Hassan went on to win gold in the 5,000-meter final.Īfter that, she added two more medals to her Tokyo collection-gold in the 10,000 meters and bronze in the 1,500 meters. In a little over a minute, she passed them all to cross the finish line first, comfortably securing her spot in the semifinal. With next-level grit and a blazing fast stride, 28-year-old Hassan surged by her competitors one by one. It seemed like the race was over for Hassan, who dropped to 12th place out of 15 after the collision.īut the Netherlands athlete picked herself up and immediately started sprinting. In a preliminary heat of the 1,500-meter women’s track race, distance running star Sifan Hassan tripped over a fallen competitor and crashed to the ground with just one lap to go.
The Olympics only happen every four years you might as well take your shot." "I just wanted to stick my nose in where it didn't belong and get after it. "I wanted to go and be that person who, when you're racing, they're all saying, 'Who the hell is this girl?'" she said after the race, according to NPR. Olympic Trials in February 2020-seemed to find motivation in her status as an underdog.
Where others might have buckled under pressure, Seidel-who ran her first ever marathon in the U.S. The lack of experience didn’t seem to hinder Seidel, who endured brutal 100-plus degree heat, stifling humidity, and fierce competition to upset the field and clinch the bronze medal, becoming only the third American woman to ever podium in the 26.2-mile event. The 27-year-old American from Wisconsin had only run two marathons before she tackled the distance at the Tokyo Games. Most Olympians train and compete in their events for years, fine-tuning every element of their performance before taking those efforts to the world stage.
Bird has also pushed for more inclusive storytelling in sports and greater coverage of the next generation of female athletes. They’ve played in every Summer Olympics since and have won all 38 of the games at the Olympics they’ve competed in, the Associated Press reports.īut their impact extends beyond basketball-as social justice activists, they’ve rallied behind the Black Lives Matter Movement and encouraged voter participation. Taurasi, 39, and Bird, 40, made their Olympic debut together nearly two decades ago, at the 2004 Games in Athens. It's never easy playing on this team, the pressure, but this group found a way to win, and I am just happy that this group got to enjoy it." "It's 20 years of sacrifice, of putting everything else aside and just wanting to win. "It's been a tremendous journey," Taurasi said, according to ESPN. The victory marked Team USA’s seventh straight gold medal and 55th consecutive win in the Olympics, as ESPN reported. As Kurt Streeter wrote in the New York Times, “it was an act of resistance, simple and courageous, more powerfully important than any move she could have pulled off in competition.”ĭiana Taurasi and Sue Bird made history as the only basketball players ever to win five Olympic gold medals when the Americans secured their place on top of the podium by beating Japan. More important, though, is the deep and reverberating impact she made by prioritizing her well-being over shiny accolades. With a career record of seven Olympic medals, Biles now ties Shannon Miller as the most decorated American gymnast in Olympic history. “In that moment,” she added, “I was like, ‘There's more than gymnastics and medals.'"īiles went on to re-enter the Olympic competition and claim the bronze medal in balance beam. “And (athletes) were coming up to me saying how much I meant to them, how much I had done for their world.” "After the team final, we went to the village, and honestly I expected to feel a bit embarrassed,’’ Biles said, according to USA Today. While a few criticized Biles’s decision to pull out of the team event-the Americans ultimately earned silver in the competition-the response was overwhelmingly supportive and encouraged other athletes to speak out, too. So when she withdrew from multiple Olympic events to protect her mental and physical health, the decision sparked widespread discussion of mental well-being in sports. Widely considered the greatest gymnast of all time, Simone Biles entered the Tokyo Games with a mountain of pressure on her shoulders.
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