RIO DE JANEIRO _ When Simone Manuel woke up Thursday, she was just another Olympic swimmer. Twenty-four hours later, the Sugar Land, Texas, native was front-page news.
LeBron James, Serena Williams and other celebrities tweeted their congratulations to Manuel, who became the first African-American woman to win an individual swimming medal.
"I didn't know this," Manuel said Friday of the celebrity tweets, "but (swimmer) Lia Neal sent me a screen shot of it (Friday) morning, so I think that's pretty cool."
Manuel achieved the impossible, overshadowing the much-anticipated Michael Phelps-Ryan Lochte showdown on one of the final nights of swimming. She tied Penny Oleksiak of Canada for the gold medal in the 100-meter freestyle, with their shared time of 52.70 setting an Olympic record.
Manuel's roommate in the Athletes' Village, swimmer Katie Ledecky, stayed awake until Manuel arrived at 2:30 a.m.
"I opened the door to the room, and she got up and gave me a hug and said, 'I wasn't going to fall asleep until I gave you a hug,' and that really meant a lot to me," said Manuel, who gave the U.S. a gold medal in the event for the first time since 1984. "She didn't have to say much after that, because her staying up said enough in itself."
Fellow Stanford students frequently mistake Manuel for a volleyball or basketball player. Manuel, 20, realized she was different than most swimmers when she was 11.
"She asked me a question about why she didn't see many others like herself in the sport of swimming," Sharron Manuel, Simone's mother, said Friday. "I didn't have an answer for it immediately, and I said, 'That's a good question. I don't know. Let's look it up.' We got on the internet, and we looked up information, and we pulled different articles and started reading. I think for her that was the moment that she realized she had a bigger role to play in what she was doing in the sport of swimming."
At her news conference after her victory, Manuel acknowledged the history she made. Manuel said she wanted her gold medal to serve as an impetus for "hope and change," accepting she now has a role to play as an inspiration to other African-Americans.
"It comes with the territory, because there aren't many of us in the sport of swimming, and we definitely talk a lot about that with Simone," Sharron Manuel said. " ... When she was about 15 in high school, we started talking to her about swimming isn't just going to be about her and that there will be a point in her life when the swimming will be more than just for her, that it will be a time when she will have to share that gift with the world, and it will carry a message."
While Manuel's victory might elicit change, at least in her sport, she insists the gold medal won't change her.
"I'm the kind of person that tries to stay the same," she said. "I'm glad I can be an inspiration to others, but I haven't really thought about how my life has changed."
Manuel, who won a silver medal in the 4x100 freestyle relay Sunday night, was scheduled to swim in the semifinals of the 50 freestyle Friday night.
