BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY Jacqueline "Jackie" Joyner-Kersee born March 3, 1962 is a retired American athlete, ranked among the all-time greatest athletes in the women's heptathlon as well as in the women's long jump. She won three gold, one silver, and two bronze Olympic medals, in those two events at four different Olympic Games.
Sports Illustrated for Women magazine voted Joyner-Kersee the Greatest Female Athlete of the 20th century, just ahead of Babe Didrikson Zaharias.
After retiring as a competitive athlete, Joyner-Kersee has been
involved with many philanthropic efforts and has joined the Board of
Directors for USA Track & Field (USATF), the national governing body of the sport.
Born on March 3, 1962, in East St. Louis, Illinois, Jackie
Joyner-Kersee was the first American to win gold for the long jump and
the first woman to earn more than 7,000 points in the seven-event
heptathlon. She's ultimately won three golds, a silver and two bronze,
making her the most decorated female athlete in Olympic track and field
history. She's gone on to advocate for children.
"Ask any athlete: We all hurt at times. I'm asking my body to
go through seven different tasks. To ask it not to ache would be too
much."
– Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Jacqueline Joyner-Kersee was born on March 3, 1962, in East
St. Louis, Illinois. As a teen, she won the National Junior Pentathlon
championships four years in a row, and received widespread honors in
high school in various sports, including track, basketball and
volleyball. Joyner-Kersee thrived as a basketball and track-and-field
star, however, and during her junior year, she set the Illinois
high-school long jump record for women, with a 6.68-meter jump.
Joyner-Kersee attended the University of Califonia, Los Angeles on a
full scholarship, and continued to gain fame on both the court and
field. However, in 1981, at the age of 19, she began to focus on
training for the Olympics, specifically for the heptathlon—an Olympic
track-and-field event comprised of seven separate events, including the
200-meter run, 800-meter run and 100-meter hurdles. She graduated from
UCLA in 1985.
Regarded as one of the greatest female athletes
in history, Joyner-Kersee won a silver medal in the heptathlon at the
1984 Summer Olympics, as well as gold and bronze medals in the long jump
in 1988 and 1992, respectively. She is currently the heptathlon world
record-holder, scoring 7,291 points—she's set a record in the heptathlon
four times—at the Summer Olympics in 1988, and taking home a gold
medal. Joyner-Kersee is also a former long jump word record holder; she
tied world long-jump record in 1987, with a 7.45-meter jump (her record
was broken in 1988 by Galina Chistyakova, who jumped 7.52 meters).
Joyner-Kersee is currently the American record-holder in the long jump.
Joyner-Kersee's last Olympic run came in 1996, when she took home a
bronze medal in the long jump at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta,
Georgia. She did not compete in the heptathlon that year due to a pulled
hamstring.
In 1986, Joyner-Kersee married her coach, Bob Kersee. He also trained Joyner-Kersee's sister-in-law, the late track star Florence Joyner.
Bob came under media speculation in 1988, when Florence Joyner improved
her times in the 100-meter run, 200-meter run and 4-by-100 meter
relay—and took gold medals in all three events—at the 1988 Olympics.
Many people questioned Bob's training techniques and suggested that he
could have been encouraging his runners to use performance-enhancing
drugs. In the late 1990s, Bob became a volunteer member of UCLA's track
and field coaching staff—a position he has held for more than a decade.
A sufferer of exercise-induced asthma, Joyner-Kersee officially
retired from track and field in 2001 at age 38. Following her
retirement, she founded the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Youth Center
Foundation, which is aimed at encouraging youth in her underprivileged
hometown to play sports.
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Jacqueline Joyner was born March 3, 1962, in East St. Louis, Illinois, and was named after Jackie Kennedy. Her brother, Al Joyner,
is also an Olympic gold medalist. As a high school athlete at East St.
Louis Lincoln High School, she qualified for the finals in the Long Jump
at the 1980 Olympic Trials, finishing 8th behind another high schooler,
Carol Lewis.
She was inspired to compete in multi-disciplinary track & field events after seeing a 1975 made-for-TV movie about Babe Didrikson Zaharias.
Interestingly, Didrikson, the trackster, basketball player, and pro
golfer, was chosen the "Greatest Female Athlete of the First Half of the
20th Century. Fifteen years later, "Sports Illustrated for Women" magazine voted Joyner-Kersee the greatest female athlete of "all time".
Joyner-Kersee attended college at the University of California at Los Angeles,
where she starred in both track & field and in women's basketball
from 1980-1985. She was a starter in her forward position for each of
her first three seasons (1980–81, 81-82, and 82-83) as well as in her
senior (fifth) year, 1984-1985. She had red-shirted during the 1983-1984 academic year to concentrate on the heptathlon for the 1984 Summer Olympics.
She scored 1,167 points during her collegiate career, which places her 19th all time for the Bruins games.
The Bruins advanced to the West Regional semi-finals of the 1985 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament before losing to eventual runner-up Georgia.
She was honored on 21 February 1998 as one of the 15 greatest players in UCLA women's basketball.
In April 2001, Joyner-Kersee was voted the "Top Woman Collegiate
Athlete of the Past 25 Years." The vote was conducted among the 976 NCAA
member schools.
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