A ‘Harvard graduate’ wins Olympic gold in 200-m track and field

The 2024 Paris Olympics feature the largest number of Ivy League athletes ever, totaling 105. Harvard, which sent the highest number of athletes to Paris at 25, celebrated a historic victory with Gabrielle Thomas (27, U.S.) winning the gold medal in the 200-m track and field event on the 7th. Thomas is the first Harvard graduate to win a gold medal in track and field at the Olympics. James Connolly, who won the men’s triple jump at the 1896 Athens Olympics, was a Harvard student at the time.

In the final, Thomas crossed the finish line first with a time of 21.83 seconds. In a sport where outcomes are often decided by fractions of a second, her time was significantly faster than the second-place finisher, Julien Alfred (St. Lucia), by 0.25 seconds. The secret to her success is said to be her running posture, which reduces air resistance and maximizes elasticity, an improvement she made after finishing third in the 200m at the previous Tokyo Games. Thomas is the first American athlete to win the Olympic women's 200-meter track and field event in 12 years, following Allyson Felix, the champion at the 2012 London Games.

Thomas achieved this while balancing her studies and athletics. She majored in neurobiology and international health at Harvard University, graduating in 2019, and earned a master's degree in public health from the University of Texas Health Science Center last year. She chose this field of study to support her younger siblings, who are being treated for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Thomas worked on track and field during the day and at the health center at night. She plans to pursue a doctorate after this competition.

"I will grow to become an athlete like Thomas someday," Mackenzie Long (U.S.), who finished 7th in this event, said, Long is a popular college sports star from the University of North Carolina.

Three years ago, at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, 83 athletes from eight prestigious private universities in the eastern United States, including Harvard and Yale, competed and won a total of 11 medals.


Jae-Hyeng Kim monami@donga.com