While many Olympic athletes take credit for their achievements, these medalists at the Tokyo Olympics gave glory to God.
And, to be clear, there are A LOT of Christian Olympic medalists. This is a growing list from 2021:
U.S. sprinter Allyson Felix became the most decorated female track and field Olympian after winning the bronze in the women’s 400-meter race Friday and gold in the women’s 4×400-meter relay.
Felix, 35, competed in her fifth Olympics in Tokyo. According to NBC Sports, she ran her fastest since 2015, before she gave birth to her daughter, and no woman has run faster at an older age.
“It might sound cliche, but getting to that starting line is an incredible victory for me,” she wrote on Instagram.
“I’ve experienced the hardest years of my life in this journey and by God’s grace I’m here. With a heart full of gratitude I’m taking space to remember all it took to get here.
Athing Mu, one of the youngest and fasted women in the world, took home gold Aug. 2 in the women’s 900-meter run, ending a 53-year drought for Americans in the event, ChristianHeadlines reports.
Mu gave all the glory to God just a month after she went pro.
“God definitely took the battle for this one!” she said. “So, thank you Lord!”
American sprinter Sydney McLaughlin broke a world record Wednesday in the 400-meter hurdles.
Alongside Team USA teammate, Dalilah Muhammad, who took second place, giving the pair gold and silver medals, they praised God and country.
McLaughlin told NBC she was “grateful” to represent the United States at the Olympics.
“Just trusting the process. Giving the glory to God. That’s all. This season, hard work and dedication and just really grateful to be able to represent my country and to have this opportunity,” she said.
Muhammad, who overcame a hamstring injury and getting COVID twice, said she was “just so thankful to God for getting me to this point…so thankful to end on a silver medal for the USA.”
Tamyra Mensah-Stock, who started wrestling after being bullied in high school, took gold in the women’s 68 kg final against Blessing Oborududu of Nigeria on Aug. 3.
“Of course I surprise myself. It’s by the grace of God I’m even able to move my feet,” Mensah-Stock, 28 from Katy, Texas, told NBC afterward.
“Like I just leave it in His hands, and I pray that all the practice, that all the hell that my freaking coaches put me through pays off, and every single time it does,” she said, adding she has no limits.
The U.S. women’s 3×3 basketball team made history, winning the first ever gold medal in the event after they dominated the Russian Olympic Committee team July 28 at the Tokyo Olympics.
Last year, Kelsey Plum tore her Achilles in June, which forced her to miss the entire 2020 WNBA season but was able to recover in time for the Olympic trails, where she thanked God, among others.
“I just want to thank a lot of people: God, my mom, my family, my friends,” she said. “I want to thank USA Basketball. They could’ve quit on me. They could’ve said, ‘We’re going to bring somebody else,’ and they didn’t. I’m just super grateful to my teammates, I mean, man, this was a battle.”
Vincent Hancock set an Olympic record by hitting 59 of 60 targets on July 26, becoming the first in the event to win three gold medals.
But he sees it as a platform to give glory to God.
“God has given me this amazing ability to do what I do, so I’m going to go out and I’m going to take a hold of it, and I’m going to do it because it’s more than just winning a gold,” Hancock told the Baptist Press. “It’s people I can impact in a positive direction on a daily basis through what I do — that would otherwise have no input from a Christian source.”
Hancock shares his testimony with CBN in the video below:
Fiji took home the gold for the rugby sevens team and worshipped God right on the field together July 28 over New Zealand.
In the hymn, the team, which also won in 2016 when the event was added to the Olympics, can be heard singing, “We have overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of the Lord.”
The team has been away from their families and friends since April due to COVID restrictions, so it was an especially emotional victory for them.
“We always start with our prayers and songs, and we always end with our prayers and songs,” team captain Jerry Tuwai said, via the Guardian, “and that song says that our God is a loving God, and that while we always tend to go stray from what He expects from us, He still loves us, and gives us good things.”
Hidilyn Diaz won the Philippines’ first Olympic gold and set an Olympic record on July 26 in weightlifting.
But instead of giving herself credit, the 30-year-old Catholic repeatedly shouted: “Thank you, Lord!”
Her reaction went viral in the Philippines, according to local media, and she posted on Instagram that if it was just her, she wouldn’t have been able to do it.
“Thank you God for bringing people, government support, private support, family, friends, and prayer warriors so that I can do this and make it possible,” she said Tuesday in a translated post quoting Matthew 19:26, “Jesus looked at them and said, ‘with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.'”
Brazil’s Italo Ferriera won the first-ever gold medal in surfing after his board snapped on the first wave of his final.
“I think it’s one of the best days of my life, for sure,” the 19-year-old Olympic gold medalist told reporters. “For me, that was a long day, and it was a dream come true. In the last couple of months, I have been training a lot, just to live in this moment.”
He added: “I just want to say thank you God for the opportunity to be here and do what I love.”
Caleb Parke is a senior correspondent for the ‘Todd Starnes Show.’ Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and connect with him at calebparke.com.
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