2024 Olympic triple gold medalist Gabby Thomas stuns in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit debut

For most people, three Olympic gold medals would define a lifetime; for Gabby Thomas, they were just the highlights of Summer 2024.

At the Olympic Games in Paris, the track and field athlete won the gold medal in the 200-meter race in 21.83 seconds. Along with her teammates, she also won gold medals in the 4×100m and 4×400m relays.

Olympic gold medals don't come easily. So, when you win three, you deserve to make the most of it. And this is exactly what the 28-year-old is doing by trying her hand at modeling.

Want to see more like this? Follow us here for daily sports news, profiles and analysis!

Now, with her star burning brighter than ever, Thomas has capitalized by making her modeling debut in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

In the Sports Illustrated shoot, Thomas was shown posing in a blue bikini adorned with the word "vote", another shot showed the sprinter sitting cross-legged wearing a peach bikini.

Thomas' shoot took place in Boca Raton, Florida. She had to wait out some rain before completing her shoot. She posted, "Just Florida weather, you never know."

Gabby Thomas may have risen to stardom with her gold medal-winning performances at the 2024 Paris Olympics, but her journey to the sport that brought her such glory was far from conventional.

Thomas told the A Slight Change of Plans podcast, "A lot of times I do just kind of feel like quite a phony being like the only pro track athlete who didn't want to go into track and field whenever I talk about it to people... quite frankly, I didn't want to run."

Despite the initial resistance towards running, Gabby Thomas always believed in her ability and her preparation once she invested in the sport, and it allowed her to succeed at the highest level.

Thomas told The Daily Show, "Truthfully, I had been envisioning myself winning that race over and over again the entire time that I was in Paris. So in my head, when I got to the starting blocks, I had already won the race."

Gabby Thomas' brilliance doesn't seem to have many boundaries. She won a gold medal in the 200-meter track event in the 2024 Paris Olympics, but also brings supreme brainpower to the equation as a Harvard graduate. We'll take a closer look at her unique combination of intelligence and speed.

Gabby Thomas didn't just claim gold in the 200 meters; she blew out the competition! AP News noted that she grabbed the lead after the curve, and no other runner came close to her as the race winded down.

Thomas only focused on one thing, at the request of her coach, Tonja Buford-Bailey. "The only thing I needed to do was get the lead. Get the lead and then finish strong. And I did that," Thomas told AP News.

The 28-year-old had a respectable performance in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the same event, finishing with a bronze medal. But she desperately wanted to grand prize in the 2024 Games. "If I didn't get this gold medal today, I don't know what I would have done," Thomas told AP News.

Want to see more like this? Follow us here for daily sports news, profiles and analysis!

According to Self's website, track wasn't at the front of Gabby Thomas' athletic interests growing up. She was more interested in playing softball and soccer. However, that would change after she watched Allyson Felix prepare for the 2008 Beijing Olympics on television.

Thomas told Andscape, "I was always a fan watching her. I loved her grace, and she's so accomplished."

Thomas didn't really jump into the track world headfirst, which may have led some of the premier track universities to overlook her when she was applying to college. However, this formula worked for her. "The way I became successful in track and field was basically running track part-time," she told NBC News.

Thomas would go on to say: "That's really important for my mental health, just having other things in my life that helped fulfill my goals and make me feel fulfilled."

Thomas would end up at Harvard, where she became a track star. Her coach, Kebba Tolbert, believes that her success underscores an important point. He told The Crimson, "To have people in the Olympics doing well shows that the Ivy League is Division I. You can come and get an amazing education... and compete at the highest levels. There's no sacrifice."

Self's website noted that Thomas was extremely motivated to excel in the classroom, as her single mother had made a lot of sacrifices to get her to college. Thomas was a neurobiology major at Harvard, and she also minored in public health.

Thomas was particularly motivated by the lessons she learned in the public health realm, and got her master's degree in that field at the University of Texas.

According to AP News, Thomas' divergent life experiences seemed to overlap when she was in graduate school. She wrote a paper on the importance of sleep, which had always been an integral component of her training regimen as an athlete.

Finding spare time might be a challenge for Thomas, who juggles a few different interests. However, according to the Olympics website, Thomas makes the time to volunteer at the Volunteer Healthcare Clinic near her home in Austin, Texas, for people who do not have insurance. She reportedly works with patients to make sure they keep their appointments and follows doctor's orders when monitoring blood pressure.

This is just the beginning of Thomas' grand plans to help improve the community around her. Self's website notes that she wants to open a hospital or nonprofit organization to extend access to health care for underprivileged neighborhoods.

Thomas told Sports Illustrated that she isn't sure how much her life will change as an Olympic champion, and didn't want to focus on that part of the story heading into the Olympics. Sports Illustrated believes there is a decent chance she participates in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Want to see more like this? Follow us here for daily sports news, profiles and analysis!

Thomas told Yahoo Sports, "I want to inspire the youth to continue to find their passions and be successful. I want young girls to look at us as strong female athletes and feel like they can do it too. They're inspired to be kind to people and to give back to their communities when they can, and if I can leave that message with the world then I've done my job."