Tori Bowie, a sprinter who won three medals at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and the next year won the world championship in the 100-meter dash with a stunning comeback, has died. She was 32.
Her death was confirmed in a statement on Wednesday by U.S.A. Track and Field, which provided no other details.
At the 2016 Olympics, Bowie won a gold medal in the 4×100 relay, anchoring a team with Tianna Bartoletta, Allyson Felix and English Gardner that finished the race with a time of 41.01. She won the silver medal in the 100-meter dash and bronze in the 200-meter.
The United States relay team advanced to the Olympic final only after winning an appeal of a ruling that would have disqualified them, for dropping a baton in a qualifying race.
The American runners were allowed a rerun after Olympic officials decided that a Brazilian runner had interfered with Felix as she was about to hand off the baton to Gardner. To advance to the finals, the U.S. team had to submit to a rare time trial, running alone on the track and doing so faster than the slowest qualifier for the finals.
They did, recording the fastest time that day, and went on to win the gold with Bowie at anchor.
Bowie’s world championship title came the next year in London in a dramatic 100-meter race. Ivory Coast’s Marie-Josée Ta Lou sprung into the lead and seemed well ahead of the rest of the pack. But near the end of the race, Bowie accelerated, caught up to Ta Lou and leaned through the finish line ahead of her, then tumbled to the ground.
Bowie won another gold at that world championship, in the 4×100 relay.
She was born on Aug. 27, 1990, according to her page on the U.S.A. Track and Field website. She grew up in Jackson, Miss., and graduated in 2008 from Pisgah High School in nearby Brandon.
Bowie went to the University of Southern Mississippi, where she became the national champion in the long jump in 2011. She graduated in 2012 with a degree in interdisciplinary studies.
Survivor information was not immediately available.
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