By Toby Adeyemi ·Updated August 20, 2024
Most athletes train their entire lives for the Olympics, but most aren’t Masai Russell. Herdecoding=”async” src=”https://www.essence.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GettyImages-2165692301-scaled.jpg” alt=”Masai Russell: An Olympic Champion Who Leaped Into The History Books” width=”400″ height=”266″ />TOPSHOT – Gold medallist US’ Masai Russell celebrates with the national flag after winning the women’s 100m hurdles final of the athletics event at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at Stade de France in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, on August 10, 2024. (Photo by Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP) (Photo by KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images)
“I never gave up on myself,” Russell explains. “I always knew I could do that. It was all mental. I was having amazing practices, but my meets were not aligning with the way that I was looking in practice. And it finally happened, I had my best race at the best time possible.”
That success followed her to the Olympics in Jordan Chiles, both of whom she got acquainted with due to endorsements and NIL deals they shared. But it was one specific person that she met that will forever be a core memory to her.
“Meeting LeBron James,” Russell reminisced during her time in Paris. “He was so big. Like, huge. And he was just super down to earth when I met him. We got to take a picture, and I was very happy about that. I was bragging to my brother and my boyfriend—I know they were jealous.”
With her first gold medal finally secured, Russell is now gearing up for her upcoming track season and some other career goals she wants to hit before she starts thinking about the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028. “I have a lot of other things to accomplish before I can start thinking about LA ‘28,” she says. “I mean, there’s records that I want to break, there’s world championships that I want to win. It would be a great sight to see my little sister with me competing here at home too. That would be one of the core memories of my life.”
Masai Russell is one of the faces of American track and field, and at only 24 years old, she will be for the foreseeable future. She showed everyone what it means to be the beauty, as well as the beast, and her Olympic Medal is golden proof of that.
TOPICS: 2024 Olympics paris track and field
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