On a bright, sunny day in Paris during the 2024 Olympic Games, Lashinda Demus received her Olympic gold medal. Americans received many gold medals in track and field during those games, but Demus hadn’t just run her 400-meter hurdles race. Her triumphant moment happened 12 years earlier at the 2012 London Olympics — but that day, she received the silver medal. At this year’s Olympics, there was a reallocation ceremony at which Demus and nine other athletes received their rightful medals after athletes who finished ahead of them were disqualified for doping.
Demus’s journey to her rightful spot in Olympic history has been chronicled in “Lashinda Demus: The Fastest Mom in the World,” a documentary available on the Olympics YouTube channel. She admits she cried while watching a screener.
“Sometimes, I hold in a lot of emotions because I have kids and you have life,” said Demus. “That was a release of all of those pent-up emotions that I’ve been holding in … I’m happy that I’m in this place that I can just enjoy it.”
(Credit: Courtesy of Lashinda Demus)
Today, Demus is a clinical research associate, high school track coach, motivational speaker, and mother of four boys, including 17-year-old twins who have followed their mother into track. Many people didn’t know how deeply the second-place finish at the Olympics affected her, so the documentary surprised them. “I’m glad they were able to have some insight,” she said.
Throughout most of her career, including the 2012 Olympics, Demus was coached by her mother, Yolanda. At a reception at USA House after the reallocation ceremony, Yolanda Demus was presented with a coaching award.
“I think that no one ever properly gave her credit for being an amazing coach,” said Demus. “Out of all the coaches I’ve been with, she’s the one who coached me to the gold medal, who coached me to everything that I did in my career that is in the history books.”
Her twin sons were with Demus in London in 2012 and this past summer in Paris. “They were at the track with me a lot of the time,” she said. “It created an expectation of being the best, working hard, and not complaining about the work because you’re going after something you want. I’m happy that I gave them an example of success and accomplishment.”