The Olympics champion has weighed in on what she feels is important to look for in coaches before athletes start working with any tactician.
Triple Olympics champion Gabby Thomas has emphasized the importance of track and field stars getting coaches they can share great relationships with.
Thomas feels such a scenario would create a strong bond that pushes athletes to better themselves themselves and make the coach proud every time they hit the track, with the tactician will not need to watch every move considering they have full trust in their runners.
Reminiscing her journey to the 200m final at the Paris 2024 Olympics, Thomas shared with her fans the last moments before she went on the track to win her first gold medal, explaining how her coach’s trust played a vital part in her victory.
The American Olympian has opened up about some of the shocking things she encountered at the Paris Olympic Games.
“One of the best things you can do as an athlete is find a coach that you genuinely want to compete for and to make proud,” Thomas shared on TikTok.
“I run an individual sport, but I did not take the journey alone. My coach was the last person I looked in the eyes before my 200m final, and at this point everything she had taught me was hay in the barn…it was on me to finish what we worked so hard for.
“I’m not a big talker, and we both already knew there was nothing left to say. We trained five years together for this moment…and I thank God I was ready.”
Thomas has been working with her coach Tonja Buford-Bailey since 2019 when she joined the former American 400m runner’s camp.
Their partnership has yielded three Olympics gold, a silver and a bronze medal as well as a silver in 200m from the 2023 World Championships.
Buford-Bailey met Thomas after she had graduated with a Degree in Neurobiology and Global Health from Harvard University and was pursuing her Master’s in Public Health at the time.
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The athletics-only outlet has cast doubts over Sha’Carri Richardson’s ability to defend her 100m world title as well as her participation in 200m at the 2025 World Championships.
The two had to devise a way in which the sprinter would train and also attend class with Buford-Bailey admitting last year that she had to convince Thomas that track is something she could also earn well from even if she had her degrees to fall back on.
“When you’re that smart and you have those kinds of degrees and that kind of background education-wise, you’re always like ‘I have so much to fall back on,’ which is true. Very true,” Buford-Bailey told the Daily Hampshire Gazette last August.
“But I’m like ‘you don’t need that fall back right now. You can use that fall back on the back-end and make this track thing really special.”
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The 28-year-old sprinter has sparked a conversation on authenticity in sports, balancing Olympic glory with a blossoming fashion career.
The two are now back in training plotting more glory for Thomas with the 2025 season culminating with the World Championships in Tokyo in September where the sprinter will be looking for her first world title.
