Just over a month after Tori Bowie, the champion American sprinter who won three medals at the 2016 Olympic Games, was found dead in her Florida home at age 32, a medical examiner reportedly found that she died from complications of childbirth.
Bowie’s autopsy, performed by the Orange County Medical Examiner’s Office of Florida, revealed that she was “undergoing labor” when she died, according to a copy of the report obtained by TMZ Sports. The athlete was roughly eight months pregnant, and was carrying a “well developed fetus,” according to USA Today Sports, which also reviewed the report.
Her death was ruled due to natural causes, according to the report.
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The exact nature of the complications that Bowie suffered were not immediately clear, but officials speculated that she had experienced respiratory distress and eclampsia, USA Today reported. Eclampsia is a condition where high blood pressure triggers seizures during pregnancy or shortly after birth, according to the Mayo Clinic.
The Orange County medical examiner’s office did not immediately return an after-hours request for comment from The Daily Beast.
It was reported shortly after Bowie’s death that she had been pregnant, but it was unclear at the time just how far along she was. An obituary published by the Florida funeral home that hosted her memorial service said that the runner had been “preceded in death” by her daughter, who was named as Ariana Bowie.
Officials said at the time that results of pending toxicology tests could take up to three months to complete.
County sheriff’s deputies had been sent to Bowie’s home on May 2 after receiving reports that a woman in her early 30s had not been seen or heard from in several days. Neighbors later told the Daily Mail that Bowie had a “long history” of erratic behavior, including pelting eggs at one neighbor’s house and clutching a knife in the street while screaming at a boyfriend. Her garage door had reportedly been left open for three months before the discovery of her body.
At the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Bowie won silver in the 100 and bronze in the 200, going on to anchor Team USA’s gold-winning 4x100-meter relay run. A year later, she won a world championship.
“Yes, I am the world’s fastest woman. Oh my God, I’ve been waiting to say that for years,” Bowie said after the race.
She did not compete in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic trials, with The New York Times reporting after her death that she’d grown increasingly, inexplicably distant from her fellow athletes. Her longtime agent told the newspaper that Bowie had struggled with anxiety and paranoia before her death.
Her last competition was in June 2022.
