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&JACKIE JOYNER-KERSEE
JACKIE JOYNER-KERSEE (BORN MARCH 3, 1962) IS A RETIRED AMERICAN ATHLETE,
ranked amongst the all-time greatest heptathletes. She won three gold, one silver and two bronze
Olympic medals. Named after Jackie Kennedy, she currently lives in East St. Louis, Illinois. Joyner-Kersee
was the first woman to score over 7,000 points in a heptathlon event (during the 1986 Goodwill Games). She
was inspired to compete in multi-discipline events after seeing a 1975 television movie about "Babe" Didrikson.
As of August 2006, Joyner-Kersee holds the world record in heptathlon along with six all-time best results
and her long jump record of 7.49 m is second on the long jump all time list. In addition to heptathlon and long
jump, she was a world class athlete in 100m hurdles and 200 meters, in the top 60 all-time in those events.
Jacqueline Joyner was born in East St. Louis, Illinois, and went to UCLA, where she starred in both track and
basketball. She is the sister-in-law of the late Florence Griffith Joyner. Her brother, Al Joyner, is also an Olympic
gold medalist, having won the Olympic triple jump in Summer Olympics 1984. Sports Illustrated voted her the
greatest female athlete of the 20th century. In 1986, she received the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur
heptathlete in the United States. She also has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.
Along with the sudden death of her sister-in-law in 1998, Joyner-Kersee endured other great tragedies as a
young child. When she was 11, she saw a man get killed. A few years later, she called her grandmother to talk,
only to find out her grandmother too, had been killed. Also, when she was a freshman at UCLA, she suddenly had
to return home when her 37-year-old mother contracted a rare form of meningitis. By the time she arrived, her
mother was in a coma and brain dead. Since her father could not bring himself to have life support removed from
his wife, it fell to Jackie and Al to authorize removal, which they did.
Perhaps her greatest challenge, however, was physical. She suffers from exercise-induced asthma, and on more
than one occasion had to be hospitalized following an event.
A subway station on the St. Louis Metrolink is named for Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
“Achievement is difficult.
It requires enormous effort.
Those who can work
through the struggle are
the ones who are going
to be successful.”
Jackie Joyner-Kersee is known as the best female
athlete in the world.
SISTERHOOD
AGENDA
33
SUMMER
2007