"I just felt so defeated"- Gabby Thomas opens up about her struggles and dealing with failures while studying at Harvard among meritorious students

Gabby Thomas opened up about her struggles while studying neurobiology and global health at Harvard while managing her track career. The American athlete revealed how she had to undergo a lot of struggles and setbacks during her initial years among meritorious students.

The Olympic gold medalist revealed how she struggled with self-confidence in her initial years of college as it was a completely new environment for her and she never encountered any hardships during her high school. Furthermore, she revealed how this allowed her to reiterate and encourage her work to on herself to be better.

Gabby Thomas spoke about her life at Harvard in a running interview with Kate Mackz and revealed that after a lot of self-improvement, she proved to herself that she belonged to her peer group at the prestigious university.

"In college, I dealt with a lot of failures and a lot of setbacks things that I didn't have to deal with in high school or in grade school. I feel like things came up a little bit easier to me and being faced with that kind of dilemma and those failures really made me grow and look inside myself and then I realized alright, I'm going to do this and I'm going to get better and I'm going to be a better athlete and a better person for it," Thomas said.

Being a part of a University where students were excelling in a diverse range of fields, Thomas often compared herself to her peers and it had a profound impact on her.

"I was exposed to people who were just all around better than me. There were people in the room who were smarter than me, they were more athletic than me so, I just felt so defeated a lot of the time and then realizing that putting my head down and through hard work, I also belong to those spaces and I proved that to myself," she added.

Gabby Thomas on how her major at Harvard helped her in her Track career

Gabby Thomas at the Annual Footwear News Achievement Awards - Source: Getty

Gabby Thomas spoke about how her degree in Neurobiology helped her in her track career in an interview with Coy Wire. The American athlete revealed that she decided to major in Neurobiology as she had a strong foundation for the subject which drove a lot of interest in her to have a deep understanding of it.

Furthermore, studying neurobiology in college helped her to understand the importance of a strong mindset while competing which eventually played a major role in her track career.

"I have a really strong foundation on that and that was one of the reasons why I wanted to pursue neurobiology as my major and having that deep understanding of it I think has really helped me in my track career as well because I understand what it takes to get this level," she said.

Moreover, Gabby Thomas revealed how apart from regular training she learned that other aspects like having the right mindset, discipline, and diet create a huge difference in the long run. After steadily incorporating these changes in her routine over a period of time, Thomas succeeded in breaking into the pro track circuit.