Massachusetts' Gabby Thomas helped the U.S. women's 4x100m relay team to gold at the Paris Olympics on Friday.
The team ran the quarter mile in 41.78 seconds, just beating out Great Britain in the rain.
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It's Thomas' second gold medal of the Olympics after she breezed to the win in the 200m on Tuesday. The 27-year-old sped to victory in that event, finishing in 21.83 seconds to add a gold to the bronze she took home in the event from Tokyo three years ago.
“I don’t think,” Thomas said afterward, “it could have gone any better.”
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She burst into the lead for good at the curve and was never challenged down the stretch, finishing well clear of 100-meter champion Julien Alfred of St. Lucia, who was 0.25 seconds off the pace in 22.08.
After Thomas crossed the line, she shouted and placed both of her hands on her head, looking every bit like someone enjoying what she called “the happiest moment of my life.”
“I couldn’t tell you where my competitors were in that race, because I blacked out,” Thomas said.
Thomas grew up in Northampton and went to Harvard — Friday's gold gave the venerable Cambridge university 12 medals in one Olympics, tying the record set at the first modern Olympics. Ask a teammate what about Thomas is most impressive, and “poise” is a word that comes up.
“She’s very much an empowerment woman. She carries a lot of power. You can tell by how she carries herself,” said McKenzie Long, a 24-year-old who finished seventh Tuesday. “She reminds me of me — but an older version.”
After she earned her degree at Harvard in neurobiology and global health, Thomas enrolled at the University of Texas, where she got a Masters in public health for studying sleep patterns of different ethnic groups — while also making the wise choice to double down on her track training.
The decision was to set up a six-year schedule, with the long-term aim being this cool evening in the City of Light. Thomas didn’t want the Paris Games to be her first Olympics, so she did what it took to get herself to Tokyo three years ago.
That happened — and her takeaways from that trip to Japan were third place in the 200, a silver medal in the 4x100 relay, plus, maybe most valuable of all, the experience.
“I feel like I’ve worked very hard, and everything has been a part of the plan. This has been a six-year plan, ever since moving to Texas,” Thomas explained. “We’ve been working hard every day for this, so I earned it. But it’s still an unbelievable, indescribable feeling.”
