Being an Olympian is just the first thing about Gabby Thomas, the 27-year-old star sprinter from Northampton, Massachusetts, who’s favored to win gold in the women’s 200-meter after absolutely smashing the semifinals at the Paris Games on Monday. The fact that she wasn’t even planning to run in college and wasn’t recruited by the top track schools makes her running accolades even more impressive: Thomas took home the bronze for the 200-meter and the silver for the 4×100-meter relay during her Olympic debut at the Tokyo Games in 2021; and the next year, she was part of the gold-medal-winning team for the 4×100-meter relay at the 2023 World Athletics Championships.
“The way I became successful in track and field was basically running track part-time,” Thomas told NBC News. “That’s really important for my mental health, just having other things in my life that helped fulfill my goals and make me feel fulfilled.” Sure, everyone has hobbies, you might think. But in Thomas’s case, the “other things” she credits with keeping her balanced have been arguably as highkey as her track pursuits—like studying neurobiology at Harvard and getting a master’s degree in public health. Casual!
Here’s everything you should know about the Team USA track phenom, whose pursuit for the gold is apparently a very intense side quest.
1. Allyson Felix is her inspiration.
The most decorated female track and field Olympian is Thomas’s idol—whom she cites as the reason she started running track in the first place. (Thomas played sports like softball and soccer in grade school, but it didn’t occur to her to seriously pursue track until she saw Felix running in the US Olympic Trials for the Beijing Games, in 2008, on television at her grandmother’s house.) As she told Andscape: “I was always a fan watching her. I loved her grace and she’s so accomplished.” In a very sweet full-story moment, Thomas would go on to be Felix’s teammate on Team USA at the Tokyo Games.
2. Thomas ran the fastest 200-meter time in the world this year.
If there’s one thing to know about Gabby Thomas’s track career, it’s that she shines in the 200-meter—a half-lap sprint that basically requires all the speed of the 100-meter but with extra endurance and the technique needed to hold your pace around the track’s bend. Thomas put a stake in the ground for this event when she clocked a world-leading time—21.78 seconds, faster than anyone else this year—at the US Olympic Trials semifinals in June. That time was just shy of the world record for the event, 21.34 seconds, run by US sprinter Florence Griffith Joyner (a.k.a. “Flo-Jo”), in 1988. No wonder she’s going for gold.
3. She has a Harvard undergrad degree and a master’s in public health from the University of Texas.
Academics were always a priority for Thomas, who told NBC News she was inspired to succeed at the highest level by her single mother—who waitressed and took classes to become a professor while raising Thomas and her brother. Her hard work paid off with admission to Harvard University, where she studied neurobiology with a minor in global health and health policy and a citation in French. One of the classes she took, on disparities in the US health care system and how they impact people of color, would inspire her to pursue a master’s in public health at the University of Texas, which she completed in May 2023.
But college wasn’t all studying for Thomas—it’s also where her track career began in earnest. According to her official Olympics profile, she won a whopping 22 conference titles in six different track events while she was a student, and became the first NCAA sprint champion in Ivy League history with a winning time of 22.38 seconds in her now-signature 200-meter race. If she takes home the gold in Paris, Thomas will also become the first Harvard grad to win the top prize in the Olympics for a track and field event.
4. She *really* prioritizes her sleep.
As part of her master’s program, Thomas wrote a paper on sleep epidemiology—how different populations sleep, and the barriers to good sleep faced by Black people, in particular. So you could say she’s super familiar with the importance of clocking quality shut-eye. “It is most definitely the most important part of my training, and I can’t stress that enough,” Thomas told AP News. She reportedly begins her sleep routine by 8 p.m. most nights, turning off all her digital devices. And we have to imagine she’ll be tucking in at least that early on the night before her chance at the gold.
5. Thomas volunteers at a clinic for people who don’t have insurance.
Further proof of her passion for health equity, Thomas also began volunteering at Volunteer Healthcare Clinic (VHC) when she was completing her graduate program, and has continued to support the free and charitable clinic while training for the Olympics.