Photo: Tyrone Smith/Instagram
Sandi Morris will have lots of support from around the world as she competes at the Tokyo Olympics.
“He’s the hardest worker I’ve ever met in my life, and he’s so intelligent,” Morris, 29, told PEOPLE of her 36-year-old husband, who earned a business degree at the University of Texas in May because he was nearing “the end of his track career.”
As he was studying and training simultaneously, Morris, who tested positive for COVID-19 with Smith in January, was keeping her focus on making Team USA for her second consecutive Olympics. And being married to a fellow athlete helped keep her in a competitive mindset.
“I think just as athletes when you’re with another athlete, you’re a little competitive in all aspects of your life. I don’t know. Just silly little things, like finishing your food first, jokingly, or we’ll be like, ‘Race you to the car’ or something goofy like that,” Morris joked. “When you’re with someone who’s so successful, you’re like, ‘Okay. I can’t slack off. I got to step up to the plate and be worthy of this awesome person that I’m with.’ We inspire each other.”
Morris and Smith’s relationship made headlines in August 2018, when he surprised at her track meet in Zurich and proposed after her race. Then in October 2019, they had a “little beach wedding” in Key Largo, Florida. “We had an amazing time. Our wedding was just such a beautiful combination of people from all different cultures and backgrounds,” Morris raved.
Morris, a white athlete from Greenville, South Carolina, and Smith, a Bermuda-born and Chicago-raised Black athlete, had completely opposite upbringings — something Morris knows makes their “stories very, very different.”
“Our similarities are more we’re both very outgoing. We both are professional track athletes. You put us in a room full of people and we will get everybody talking and laughing. Our personalities are very similar in that way, but our stories are polar opposite,” she explained.
Speaking briefly about the racism they have dealt with as an interracial couple, Morris said she hopes their romance will inspire others and normalize that love is love.
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“Bringing home a medal of any kind is just such a blessing because there are so many athletes who go their whole careers, they never medal. So, to sit here and say that I’m disappointed in a silver medal at Worlds or at the Olympics is complete silliness, but I guess it’s also the athlete in you is competitive, and wants to push yourself,” she said.
“I know I can do more. I know I’m capable of much more. I know that I’m capable of the gold in Tokyo, but I also do not underestimate my competitors. I know there are a handful of other women who are very much capable of gold in Tokyo and were also close when it comes to our personal bests, what has our 100 percent been. I’m not saying I can’t hit another personal best. That’s kind of what I’ll focus on when I go out in Tokyo: don’t think about winning because that’s actually never been a good mindset for me. I focus on jumping as high as I physically can, and if I were to go out there and hit a personal best, that would very likely win the gold.”
source: people.com
