Shalane Flanagan is no stranger to achieving her goals: NCAA champion, record setter, Olympian, New York City Marathon winner.
But before she won the 2017 New York City Marathon, before earning silver medals at both the 2008 and 2016 Olympic Games and before writing two New York Times best-selling cookbooks, Flanagan was a Tar Heel.
As UNC celebrates 50 Years of Carolina Women's Athletics, Flanagan's time in Chapel Hill—and beyond—is an important vignette on what it means to have competed for, and graduated from, Carolina.
"There are so many threads that have been consistent throughout my professional career that all started and were cultivated at Carolina," the four-time Olympian said in a 2019 interview with Carolina Athletics.