Jackie Joyner-Kersee was
born Jacqueline Joyner in East Saint Louis, Illinois, and was educated
at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). At the age of 14,
she won her first of four consecutive United States junior national titles
in the pentathlon. Graduating from high school in 1980, she accepted a
basketball scholarship to UCLA where Bob Kersee, her coach and future husband,
encouraged her to train for multiple-event contests. In 1983 she represented
the United States at the track-and-field world championships in Helsinki,
Finland. She also competed in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles,
winning the silver medal in the heptathlon—a two-day event in which athletes
compete in the 100-meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, and 200-meter dash
on the first day and in the long jump, javelin, and 800-meter race on the
second day.
She married Kersee in 1986, and that same
year she gave up basketball to concentrate on the heptathlon, setting two
world records within one month. Jackie continued her success in 1987, winning
the heptathlon at the U.S. outdoor track-and-field championships; at the
Pan American Games in Indianapolis, Indiana; and at the world championships
in Rome, where she also won the gold medal in the long jump event. In 1988
she won the gold medal in the heptathlon at the Olympics in Seoul, South
Korea, setting a world record in the event. At the 1988 games she also
won the gold medal in the long jump, with a record leap of 24 ft 3½
in (7.3 m).
At the 1991 world championships in Tokyo she won the long jump
again. At the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, she repeated her title
in the heptathlon. There she placed third in the long jump. Overcoming
illness in 1993, she continued to dominate the heptathlon by earning the
gold medal in the event at the world championships in Stuttgart, Germany.
She is one of the world’s greatest female athletes and deserves to go down
in history as such. Being such an all around competitor in so many fields,
Jackie has developed the most incredible physique of any athlete, man or
woman. Without question, she could pin any opponent if she were a wrestler
and get any man to submit to her powerful leg scissors or headlock!
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