Did you know they started out as a basketball player?
BY BETHIA WYBORN , IMAGE VIA INSTAGRAM (@GIVEME1SHOT__)
USA Olympian Raven “Hulk” Saunders, is making waves online not only for their impressive athletic ability but for their choice to wear a mask during the 2024 Olympic games.
The non-binary shot-putter, who won a silver medal at the Tokyo games, unfortunately, did not achieve the same victory in Paris but still won the hearts of Olympic fans across the globe.
The mask is part of their Incredible Hulk alter-ego
In the Shot Put qualification on 8 August, the 28-year-old competed in orange-tinted glasses and a thick black mask that covered their face. They also sported purple and green split-dyed hair in homage to the Marvel character, the Incredible Hulk.
“But through my journey, especially dealing with mental health and things like that, I learned how to compartmentalise, the same way that Bruce Banner learned to control the Hulk, learned how to let the Hulk come out during the right moments and that way it also gave him a sign of mental peace,” they told Yahoo Sports in 2021.
“But when the Hulk came out, the Hulk was smashing everything that needed to be smashed.”
They’re open about their mental health journey
Saunders has candidly talked about their mental health journey. According to Yahoo Sports, Saunders was suicidal at one point and still has depressive episodes.
After winning silver in 2021, Saunders said: “Shout out to all my black people. Shout out to all my LGBTQ community. Shout out to all my people dealing with mental health. At the end of the day, we understand it’s bigger than us and it’s bigger than the powers that be.”
They have bigger goals outside of sports
The star athlete born in South Carolina, has previously expressed an interest in becoming an advocate for Black Americans to know that it’s okay to seek mental health services.
“There are so many people all around the world who are fighting and don’t have the platform to speak up for themselves, that we have to represent,” Saunders told Yahoo Sports in 2021.
“Being able to have people say that it’s okay to be strong and it’s okay to not be strong 100 percent of the time and it’s okay to need people… I feel like in our community a lot of times through history we haven’t had access or the resources to be able to do that.
“I want to be able to help put some of those things in place for our people.”
They’re friends with American hammer thrower, Gwendolyn Berry
Detailing their journey with mental health, Saunders says they cope by reaching out to friends for support. One of those friends is Olympic hammer thrower Gwendolyn Berry.
The pair met when Berry was a volunteer coach at the University of Mississippi Ole Miss Rebels athletic team.
Saunders said that they needed support with trials coming up and Berry was there to give them a boost.
They started as a basketball player
“I had hoop dreams. I first picked up the shot put as something to help with basketball,” Saunders told The Guardian.
“I did not think much of it, but I had been playing basketball since third grade. I was actually thinking of moving to Florida with a cousin before I started with the shot put. So it gave me a reason to stay back home and train.”
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