Manuel, Simone

Impact on the world

Won gold in the 100-meter freestyle at the 2016 Rio Olympics in a dead heat with Canada's Penny Oleksiak, becoming the first African American woman to win an individual Olympic swimming gold, in a sport with a documented history of segregated pools and persistent barriers to Black participation.

Life & background

A Stanford-educated swimmer from a Houston suburb, Manuel won gold in the 100-meter freestyle at the 2016 Rio Olympics, tying Canada's Penny Oleksiak for first place and becoming the first African American woman to win an individual Olympic gold medal in swimming, a sport where public pools were racially segregated for decades and where civil rights-era 'wade-in' protests targeted ongoing exclusion. She credited earlier Black swimmers including Maritza Correia and Cullen Jones as inspirations, while expressing a wish to be recognized for her achievement rather than solely as 'the Black swimmer.'

Sources

1. CNN (Two Simones); Yahoo Sports; Encyclopædia Britannica