Lana

Day 8: Simone Manuel

Who said Black people can’t swim?

That tired lie dissolves the moment Simone “Swimone” Manuel enters the water. With every stroke, she dismantles a myth that has lingered far too long, one rooted not in truth, but in access denied and histories erased. Manuel doesn’t just swim; she corrects the record.

At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Simone Manuel made history in a pool that had never made space for someone like her. She won two gold medals and two silvers, but it was the 100-meter freestyle that shifted everything. Tying with Canada’s Penny Oleksiak, Manuel became the first Black American woman to win an individual Olympic gold medal in swimming, setting both Olympic and American records in the process.

Her dominance didn’t appear overnight. At Stanford, Manuel rewrote the record books, breaking school, NCAA, and American records as a freshman and becoming a six-time individual NCAA champion in the 50- and 100-yard freestyle. She helped lead Stanford to back-to-back NCAA team championships and capped her collegiate career by winning the Honda Sports Award and the Honda Cup, recognizing her as the nation’s top female collegiate athlete across all sports. Excellence followed her wherever the water went.

Even when the Tokyo 2020 Olympics tested her physically and mentally, Manuel returned to the podium, earning bronze as the anchor of the U.S. 4×100-meter freestyle relay.

But Simone Manuel’s legacy stretches beyond medals. Through the Simone Manuel Foundation, she confronts the deeper roots of that old myth. She is working to expand swim readiness, water safety, and access for BIPOC youth. She understands that the issue was never ability. It was opportunity.

Simone Manuel didn’t just prove that Black people can swim. She proved how much the sport had been missing by keeping so many out.

The U.S. Women's Swimming Team as they sailed on July 15, 1936 on the Manhattan for Berlin and the Olympic Games. Left to right are; Edith Mobridge, Eleanor Holm Jarrett, Katherine Rawls, Dorothy Poynton Hill, Lenore Kight Wingard.