Triple Olympic champion has opened up about the impact of Alex Ohanian’s women-only Athlos event.
Thomas explained that it was a proud moment for her, having been at the centre of the organising committee and seeing her fellow women compete proudly and flying their country’s flags high in the streets of New York City.
Having been a long season, was happy to have athletes still show up for the event and give their all in the races, making it a successful event. The world 200m silver medallist added that hosting such an event has shown the whole world that anything is possible as they will be back bigger and better.
Elid Kipchoge was not part of the 31-man list revealed by World Athletics.
“It’s really an incredible feeling, it has been a long time coming and it’s pretty incredible to see this coming into fruition and this is just a great celebration of all the hard work you put in this season, all the work that has been done to support and the best of women’s sports and then this is really showcasing,” Gabby Thomas said.
“It shows what is possible, it shows what we can do, shows how fun it can be to show up and support track meets and they should be about having fun celebrating what we can do. Women just show up to the line and then compete. This is something that we can do next year and the year after that,” she added.
Gabby Thomas competed in the women’s 200m and managed a second place finish behind Olympic 200m bronze medallist in a tight finish. Brown was fresh from finishing second in the women’s 100m behind Africa’s fastest woman Marie-Josee Ta Lou-Smith.
Gabby Thomas opens up about the challenges of adjusting to the competitive and sometimes unfriendly professional track environment after college while emphasizing the importance of self-belief, representation, and her drive to inspire others.
The event is currently in the top pool of awarding prize money to athletes having set aside $110,500 for each race. The winners of the event walked away with $60,000 with the second-place finishers bagging $25,000. The athletes who finish third pocketed $10,000 and those who finish fourth, fifth and sixth pocketed $8,000, $5,000 and $2,500 respectively.