By: Nina He
On July 22nd, 2017, Tori Bowie participated in the 100-meter sprint in the Müller Anniversary Games in London, United Kingdom. Her time, 10.78, was her personal best and quite impressive, only .8 seconds behind the women’s world record.
Bowie always tried her best, so she gained lots of fans. It was a big shock for them when Bowie was found dead at age 32.
Bowie lived in Sand Hill and had faced many challenges in life, including being dumped in foster care when she was two years old with her sister.
Then, her grandma gained guardianship. Bowie cites her grandmother as her role model.
“My grandmother’s number-1 rule was that once you start something, you don’t quit,” Bowie said to Women’s Running. “From a young age, she never let me give up on anything.” That helped her win the race in 2017 when she won against Marie-Josee Ta Lou by 0.01 seconds.
Bowie went to Pisgah High School, and joined the basketball team. However, because of the small size of the school, if you wanted to join the basketball team, you had to join the track team too. Bowie’s first love was basketball, it was a bummer for her when she had to join the track team too. But during track practice, her skills, running and jumping, outshone everybody elses’ and got her a scholarship to the University of Southern Mississippi. Then she started to enjoy it.
Bowie became “the first athlete from the university to achieve an indoor and outdoor NCAA long jump title double in a single season” in 2011.
Then, just last week Bowie was found dead. She was in a bed, and it was a true tragedy. She was pregnant at eight months. Orange County Medical Examiner’s Office in Florida had just released their autopsy report, which reported that Bowie was found undergoing labor.
Associate Medical Examiner Chantel Njiwaji had written in the report, “The elite athlete had died from natural causes.”
The shock from Bowie’s fans took a long time to go away, and even though Tori Bowie is dead, many people still look up to her for her bravery to never give up, even when things were rough.