In the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, 28-year old Tamyra Mensah-Scott made history by becoming the first Black woman to win a gold medal for wrestling. She is also only the second woman in history to accomplish this.
After winning, she told reporters, "It doesn’t matter the draw. You go out there and you beat whoever is in front of you because that’s how you tell somebody that you were the best."But the road to success has not been easy for Mensah-Stock. In 2009, her dad was killed in a car accident while driving home from one of her high school wrestling competitions.
This no doubt discouraged her and almost made her quit. "He was my number one fan. He would go to all the tournaments," she recalled. But she never gave up on the sport and now she feels proud about her historic victory that no doubt would have made her dad proud as well.