Recent feats of the American and of Fraser-Pryce suggest new standards are being set and we can move on from the 1980s
If you were watching the skies over Eugene, Oregon, last weekend you saw a new star come swimming into ken. Gabby Thomas, a 24-year-old Harvard graduate studying for a masters in epidemiology, set three personal bests in three days in the women’s 200m: 21.98sec in the heats, 21.94 in the semi-finals, and 21.61 in the final of the US Olympic trials. That last time wasn’t just the fastest anyone has run the distance this year, it was the fastest anyone has run it in 33 years. The only woman who has ever been quicker was Florence Griffith Joyner, twice, at the Seoul Olympics in 1988, when she ran 21.56 in the semi-finals and her world record of 21.34 in the final.
Thomas was startled by her time, too. Asked afterwards if it was her perfect race, she laughed, screwed up her face and looked up above, like she might find a good answer pasted to the ceiling. “How do I tell you I don’t know?” she said. “I couldn’t feel my legs, I couldn’t think, I was blacking out, so I don’t know. Was it a perfect race? It had to be. I’m sure people are always capable of going faster, there are always things to fix, but it had to be. I’m going to watch the videos, I’m going to watch it over and over again to see what I did wrong, but right now it was certainly perfect.”
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