Harvard grad Gabby Thomas aims to help fix racial disparities in health care — and win gold at Tokyo Olympics
CBSN
Dashing down the final steps of the 200-meter race in first place, Gabby Thomas raised her arms. She knew she had just become an Olympian on Team USA.
"It has been a dream of mine for a very long time now," the 24-year-old said in an interview with CBS News this week. "It's such a long journey, and so many days and hours of mental and physical preparation. And it just all came together in that one moment." Thomas recorded a blazing time of 21.61 seconds, the second fastest time ever for the women's 200-meter dash in the world. She said she was "mind-blown to see" her time only trailed sprinting legend Florence Griffith-Joyner by less than .3 of a second and was actually faster than that of Marion Jones, another track icon.Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.
The knock at the door came at nighttime on Mother's Day 2008 in Oregon, where Jessica Ellis' parents lived. It was around 9:20 p.m. and his wife, Linda, was already in bed; her father Steve Ellis told CBS News, that he thought someone let their animals out — but two soldiers in Class A uniforms were standing at the door.