Simone Manuel makes history and break a record, all in less than a minute. Manuel became the first African-American woman to win an individual event in Olympic medal swimming.
Simone Manuel and Penny
Oleksiak both touched the wall in 52.70 seconds, breaking the Olympic record by
one-hundredth of a second. Sweden's Sarah Sjostrom took the bronze in 52.99.
Manuel leaned her head
into her hands and cried when she recognized her historic achievement in a
sport that still has few African-Americans.
Simone Manuel the 19,
years old Texas-native took her place in Olympic history last Thursday night,
becoming the first African-American woman to win gold in swimming after tying
with 16 years old Canadian for the top spot in the 100 freestyle.
Simone is so grateful to
God He is her background backbone, who grant her grace to become the first
African American to win Olympic swimmer. She give God all the glory for seeing
her through the season.
MORE: Olympic Profiles
in Faith
“All Glory to God. I’m
so blessed,” she said in an emotional interview after her historic win.
Simone Manuel has
consistently given credit to God for her sucess. After qualifying for the
Olympics, Manuel wrote about her faith in a Twitter post.
I “All glory to God.
Isn’t he awesome! I am extremely blessed. A long, tough year, but many more
good things to come,” she said.
Manuel told NBC after
the race that "This medal is not just for me. It's for a whole bunch of
people who came before me and have been an inspiration to me. ... It's for all
the people after me who believe they can't do it, and I just want to be an
inspiration to others that you can do it."
An emotional Manuel was in tears in her post race
interview as the historic nature of her win caught up to her.
“All I can say is all glory to God,” Manuel said.
“It’s definitely been a long journey these past four years, and I’m just so
blessed to have the gold medal.”
Wiping away tears, she said, “This medal is not just
for me, it’s for a whole bunch of people who have came before me, and been an
inspiration to me and it’s for all the people after me who believe they can’t
do it. I want to be an inspiration to them that they can do it.”
On a night when everyone started out talking
about Michael Phelps, it was another young swimmer who made American history. Finally
the young 20-year-old Simone Manuel became the first black female swimmer to
win an Olympic medal for America when she tied for first place in the 100m
freestyle Thursday night.
In the last few meters, Manuel caught up to
Australian favorite Cate Campbell and touched the wall at 52.70, dead even with
16-year-old Canadian Penny Oleksiak.
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