Olympian Tori Bowie was excited about becoming a mom, and she gushed about the new chapter pending in her life, her agent told NBC News.
Bowie, 32, a standout Olympic sprinter who was once the fastest woman in the world, reportedly died in childbirth from a rare condition prevalent among Black women.
Kimberly Holland, Bowie’s longtime agent and close friend, shared that Bowie was like a daughter to her and said their last conversation was happy.
Tori Bowie of the United States reacts as she crosses the finish line to win gold in the Women’s 4×100 Metres Final during Day Nine of the 16th IAAF World Athletics Championships London 2017 at The London Stadium on Aug. 12, 2017, in London. (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
But Holland, in the NBC News report, said she worried about Bowie, who, at 5 feet 9 inches, weighed just 96 pounds at her death.
She asked the track great whether she was eating right and attending prenatal appointments. Holland wanted to keep a closer eye on Bowie, she said, but Bowie rebuffed the offer. She also told Holland she didn’t want to have her baby at a hospital.
Holland said she realizes adults make their own decisions yet told NBC News that if her family was allowed to help more, they “probably would have handled everything differently to make sure everything was done properly.”
“I think that that would have been one of the most luckiest babies ever,” Holland added, “because she had so much love to give.”
Sheriff’s deputies in Winter Garden, Florida performed a wellness check on Bowie at her home on May 2 because no one had seen or heard from her in a few days. Authorities found her, eight months pregnant, deceased.
CBS News reported that she was in labor at the time of her death. An autopsy showed she died from natural causes, with respiratory distress and the rare condition eclampsia, as possible contributing causes.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, “eclampsia is when a person with preeclampsia develops seizures (convulsions) during pregnancy.” On its website, the clinic maintained, “eclampsia typically occurs after the 20th week of pregnancy. It’s rare and affects less than 3% of people with preeclampsia.”
Preeclampsia impacts 5 to 8% of the population, but Black women suffer from the condition 60 percent more than white women, according to the Preeclampsia Foundation.
In 2017, Bowie became the fastest woman in the world when she ran the 100-meter dash in a blistering 10.85 seconds at the 2017 IAAF World Championships. She won three medals in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro — a silver in the 100, a bronze in the 200-meter, and a gold as part of the 4×100 relay team.
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