PARIS — The victory bell at the Stade de France will eventually hang in one of the towers of the Notre Dame Cathedral, which is still being refurbished after a fire.
Only Atlanta native Gabby Thomas had the honor of ringing that bell on three separate occasions during the 2024 Paris Olympics. That’s because no other track and field athlete won three gold medals at these Games.
Not Noah Lyles, who was determined to win three — and possibly four golds — but came down with COVID instead. Not Dutch runner Sifan Hassan, who won bronze medals in the 5,000 and 10,000 and has the marathon left.
“I know how hard it is to win a medal in track and field,” Thomas said. “It’s a very cutthroat sport, especially at this level.”
Thomas won her third gold Saturday night in extraordinary fashion. The U.S. won its eighth straight Olympic title in the 4 x 400 meter relay, and ninth overall, with the second-fastest time in history of 3:15.27. They broke the American record and were just one-tenth off the Soviet world record from the 1988 Olympics.
Thomas won her first gold Tuesday in the 200 meters and her second came on the 4 x 100-meter relay Friday night.
“I think I proved that I belonged on the (4 x 400) team,” said Thomas, who ran at the World Athletics Relays in the Bahamas where the U.S. qualified for the Olympics. In addition, the Harvard graduate has run a lot of 400s in her career.
“I was hungry for a gold medal,” Thomas said.
And this was the team to help her get there.
“We’ve got the real quarter horses; we really do,” said Shamier Little, who ran the leadoff leg to add her gold to the silver she won on the mixed 4 x 400 relay.
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, the two-time 400-meter hurdles champ who ran the first leg for the U.S. relay to gold in the Tokyo Olympics, ran the second leg this time.
McLaughlin-Levrone gave the U.S. a cushion of about 50 meters on the rest of the field with her 47.71 split. That was .91 faster than hurdles rival Femke Bol, who as usual, made up ground and helped set a national record of 3:19.50.
“I knew Shamier was going to get me in a good position,” said McLaughlin-Levrone, who also won two golds in Tokyo. “I had to open it up. Gabby kept it going, and Alexis (Holmes) brought it home. We all just did our parts. We knew it was going to look a little unconventional, but we knew that if we did our parts we were going to be fine.”
After taking the wind out of the other countries’ sails with her astonishing lap, McLaughlin-Levrone was coming in hot — so hot that she and Thomas almost collided on the exchange.
“I did have a little moment of panic with the collision on the rail,” said anchor leg Alexis Holmes, “but once I saw Gabby back on the track I knew we were going to be OK.”
Thomas’ split was 48.30 seconds, while Little clocked 49.48 and Holmes 48.78.
The medal was the 14th gold and 34th overall for the U.S. on the track, with only the women’s marathon remaining.
The race had some drama, however. Kendall Ellis, the Olympic trials champion who qualified for the U.S. team in the individual 400 meters, said she was told she was running the relay. Four minutes before call time Ellis found out she was not. She was promised the third leg, which Thomas occupied.
Thomas joins an elite club of three-time gold medalists that includes Wilma Rudolph (1960), Valerie Brisco-Hooks (1984), Florence Griffith Joyner (1988) and Allyson Felix (2012).
Thomas also has a silver and a bronze from the Tokyo Olympics. If she stays on the U.S. 4 x 400 relay with the likes of McLaughlin-Levrone, Thomas could even have a world record. The Soviet record was once considered unapproachable.
“This generation of track and field is just on a different level,” McLaughlin-Levrone said. “Everything is improving: including us, including our technique, including how we prepare. I don’t think anything is impossible at this point, and we’re continuing to prove that every time we step on the track.”
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