Raven Saunders, her mom’s memory at heart, takes on challenge at USATF Outdoor Champs

Raven Saunders often carries her Olympic shot put silver medal with her. She always wears a locket containing her mother’s ashes.

Saunders is one of many Americans competing this week in their first championship meet since the Tokyo Games. A top-three finish at the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Oregon, will qualify her for July’s world championships, also in Eugene, the first to be held in the U.S.

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Saunders was one of the breakout stars in Tokyo. She garnered attention not just for becoming the third U.S. woman to win an Olympic shot put medal, but also for her character. Her green and purple hair, her biceps flexing and that green mask fitting her nickname, “Hulk.”

On the medal podium, she crossed her arms above her head to form an “X,” which she said was “to try and bring the world together for all people who have felt left behind, for all people who have wanted to be loved but have been loved less.”

“Gave EVERYTHING for this. If you are BLACK, LGBTQIA+, Or mentally Struggling. This one is for you,” she shared on Instagram.

Saunders told Outsports.com that she first came out to her mom in third grade and by ninth grade was comfortable with who she was. After her Olympic debut in 2016, she struggled with mental health and contemplated suicide.

Last year, few people knew that Saunders tore her right hip early in the season. Even fewer knew she tweaked her Achilles walking into the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo before competing and then winning the silver medal.

Afterward, her mom, Clarissa, told her, “You have a few things in you that I wish that I had in me.” They talked about the house and the food truck that were in their future.

Two days after the final,