“I did not expect to feel how I felt when I crossed that line,” Thomas said. “You prepare for this moment and you train so hard for this moment, but when it actually comes, it’s indescribable. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I never would have imagined in my wildest dreams that I would become an Olympic gold medalist. And I am one. And I’m still kind of wrapping my head around that.”

Winning Olympic gold meant defeating the recently crowned 100m champion lurking in lane eight – Alfred. Alfred took silver on Tuesday, but was the world’s fourth-best 200m runner entering the race with a personal best time of 21.86 seconds. All 200m finalists boasted a sub-22 second personal best except two – Ivory Coast’s Jessika Gbai and Great Britain’s Daryll Neita.

USA’s Brittany Brown broke through the 22-second barrier and ran her personal best of 21.90 seconds during U.S. Olympic Trials in late June. Brown rode that wave all the way to the Olympic 200m final in Paris, where she sprinted into a bronze medal finish.

“It has been a long journey to get back on the track, to get back training,” Brown said. “Coming back from injury last year, it was very, very hard.”

Brown worked through a sports hernia that kept her off the track until February of this year.

“I think sometimes when athletes have injuries, it’s like a mental game that you’re playing with yourself,” Brown said. “How am I going to get back? You know, it’s an Olympic year and I missed two, three months of training. Like is it actually going to happen?”

For Brown, it finally did. The bronze medalist out-leaned Asher-Smith for third place, running her 200m in 22.20, just two hundredths of a second faster than Asher-Smith’s 22.22.

“I’m just so grateful that I can be a vessel,” Brown said through tears. “I’m so grateful I can be here and be in this moment…It’s hard when life is hard. It’s hard when you deal with injuries and it feels like no one’s looking at you…It’s not about me. It’s about my team. It’s about people who look like me who go through stuff like me.”

The two sprint stars ended their nights wrapped in the Stars and Stripes – both with flags draped over their shoulders, and the approval of the American fans populating the crowd at Stade de France cascading down the grandstands to meet them in their victory.

Madie Chandler is writing for Team USA as a graduate student in the Sports Capital Journalism Program at Indiana University Indianapolis.