Gabby Thomas is an Olympic gold medal winner and has a master’s degree in public health from Harvard. Turns out, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree because both her parents are high achievers in their respective fields.
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Born in 1996, Thomas won the women’s 200m at Paris in 2024 after winning bronze in Tokyo in 2021. “The first thing that came into my head after winning was: I want to find my friends and family,” she told Vogue. “It was like, ‘OK, I just won, I did it, this is great, but, like, where are they?’ I want to go celebrate with them.”
Who is Gabby Thomas’ mom?
Gabby Thomas’ mom, Jennifer Randall, works as the Dunn Family Endowed Professor of Psychometrics and Test Development at the University of Michigan’s School of Education. When Gabby was 10, her mother moved the family to Massachusetts so that she could finish her own PhD while teaching. “I think watching her as I was growing up and how hard she worked, that’s impacted me in ways that I probably can’t even recognize,” Thomas told Olympics.com.
“Watching her be a single parent without two pennies to scrub together and working her way up and to being what she is now, a successful professor living out her dreams and starting a non-profit to help people get an education… I mean, that was a lot to watch.” Gabby added, “It really showed me what true work ethic was, and it showed me that you can achieve your dreams through hard work… [through that] and anything is possible.”
Who is Gabby Thomas’ dad?
Gabby’s dad, meanwhile, was a college football player. Desmond Thomas was born in Jamaica and forged a solid career as a defensive back at Duke University. Gabby attributes her speed to her dad’s genes. “Everyone knows that I am Jamaican because I do believe that that’s where I get my fast roots from. I’m just not going to sugarcoat it that’s what it is,” she said.
After her historic win in Paris, Gabby’s dad told TIME, “She did it for you, she did it for us, she did it for the ancestors, she did it for the culture, she did it for the USA, and the whole entire world,” while wearing a “Team Gabby” t-shirt. “Not only she did it, we did it, because she felt our energy.”
