Olympic champion Gabby Thomas said that education is the key driver to her success. The sprinter took the Paris Olympics by storm, winning three gold medals in the 200m event and as part of Team USA’s women’s relay.
Thomas made her debut in the Tokyo Games, where she won bronze in the women’s 200m and silver in the women’s 4x100mrelay. The 27-year-old is a Harvard graduate in neurobiology and works at a volunteer healthcare clinic for uninsured patients when she’s not on the track training.
“I always say education has been my foundation for success, it opens doors and empowers us to chase our dreams. Stay curious, stay driven, and never stop learning!!” Thomas said in a social media post.
The track star also has a master’s degree in Public Health and has said that she always prioritised Academics —inspired by her mother who studied to be a professor while raising Thomas and her twin brother as a single mum.
Studying wasn’t the only thing she did at university though. During her undergrad years, Thomas won 22 conference titles in six different track events and was the first National Collegiate Athletic Association sprint champion in Ivy League history with a winning time of 22.38 seconds in her now-signature 200-meter race. She is also the first Harvard graduate to win an Olympic gold medal for track and field.
“I was pushing myself in the classroom, in my extracurriculars and on the track, and it forced me to just get better at everything I was doing,” she told NBC News.
Thomas continues to push herself, running track “part-time” and acting as the director of the clinic’s hypertension-prevention programme that monitors pre-diabetic patients in the evenings.
“I get to go the clinic and volunteer and make a difference in people’s lives,” she told Olympics.com. “So I feel so fulfilled, and I feel so passionate about everything I do. And (that all) really just comes from gratitude.”
