Jackie Joyner-Kersee Pics

Jackie

Joyner-Kersee

03 March 1962

Slim

Black

Brown - Dark

St. Louis, IL

Pisces

Black

ranked amongst the all-time greatest in heptathlon as well as the long jump. She won three gold, one silver and two bronze Olympic medals

American

Female

She was the first American ever to win a gold medal in the long jump and the first woman in history to earn more than 7,000 points in the grueling seven-event heptathlon. She won three Olympic gold medals, one silver, and two bronze, and she established a world record in the heptathlon. Her achievements are so astounding-and her personality so engaging-that she has become one of America`s favorite track athletes. According to Kenny Moore in Sports Illustrated, Joyner-Kersee, "like her name, is a blend. Her years of hard, thoughtful training are the Kersee part, the expression of her husband-coach Bob Kersee`s hatred of talent lying fallow. The Joyner half is Jackie in competition. She wants to win, but having won, wants to go on. She wants to impress, but having performed gloriously, still wants to go on. The Joyner gift is her open joy in practiced, powerful movement, in improvement for its own sake, and it causes observers to presume, in error, that what she does is without personal cost." Indeed, Joyner-Kersee has often found herself in competition with only the clock and the yardstick, having left her competitors in the dust. Not satisfied just to win, she struggles for records, for solid recognition that she dominates her sport. She has won championships-Olympic and otherwise-with hamstring injuries, has broken world records in heat that would stagger a camel, and has managed through it all to maintain a stable relationship with her husband-coach Bob Kersee. As Ken Denlinger put it in the Washington Post, Joyner-Kersee "smokes the world`s playgrounds as no other female athlete in history." Before Joyner-Kersee set her sights on it, the heptathlon was a virtually unknown event in America. It has since become a track and field favorite, especially during the Olympics. For the heptathlon, athletes amass points by running a 200-meter dash, completing both high and long jumps, throwing a javelin and a shot put, running the 100-meter hurdles, and finishing an 800-meter run, all in the space of two days. The seven-event series demands skills in a variety of areas that most athletes choose as specialties. Joyner-Kersee has been a star in the heptathlon since 1984, when she won a silver medal after losing the 800-meter run by a fraction of a second. In the 1988 and 1992 Olympics she won a gold in the event. Even more remarkable, she has managed to single out one specialty-the long jump-and win Olympic medals in that event as well. In 1988, she earned a gold medal for a jump; in both 1992 and 1996 she settled graciously for a bronze. A drug-free athlete sometimes faced with steroid-enhanced competitors, Joyner-Kersee is the first American woman ever to win an Olympic long jump competition.

www.answers.com/Jackie%20Joyner-Kersee%20

University of California, CA

Jacqueline Joyner

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 four different events. Sports Illustrated for Women magazine voted Joyner-Kersee the Greatest Female Athlete of the 20th century, just ahead of Babe Didrikson Zaharias.

49