Harvard graduate in neurobiology is favourite for the 200m gold in Paris and has her sights set on a 36-year-old mark
‘It’s in reach at the Olympics’: Gabby Thomas on the science of speed and hunting down Flo-Jo’s recordAs I get into the blocks, I’m hyping myself up and thinking: ‘Let’s go, one shot, no second chances’. But once I’m on the line, it’s blank thoughts. I don’t want to hyper focus on anything. It’s just about reacting to the gun. The hay is in the barn. You’ve done all the training. It should be muscle memory at this point. Overthinking it will just tense your body up and slow you down.
When it comes to explaining the science of speed – and applying the intensely theoretical to the blisteringly practical – there is no one sharper or smarter than Thomas. Not only is the 27-year-old favourite for 200m gold in Paris, and one of the quickest women in history, she also happens to have a degree in neurobiology from Harvard.That much becomes clear as we sit down together to watch her extraordinary performance over 200m at last year’s US trials, frame by frame, step by step.
So could that Flo-Jo world record finally be broken after 36 years at the Paris Olympics? Especially given the lightning-fast track at the Stade de France and advances in super spike technology? Thomas nods. She also knows there will be millions more eyeballs on her now, especially in Paris, since becoming one of the stars of the new six-part Netflix track and field series, Sprint. Tellingly it not only captured her successes on the track – including a 4x100m relay gold and 200m silver medal behind Jackson at last year’s world championships in Budapest – but the egos, frenemies, and intensity off it.
“We were low income and African American,” she adds. “But my mum was trying to set us up to be successful, which meant we were in predominantly white spaces, going to good schools on scholarship. That put that underdog mentality in me where I felt like I needed to prove that I belonged in every space that I was in. Because I just didn’t feel like I did.
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