Olympic legend Jackie Joyner-Kersee, named by Sports Illustrated as the Greatest Female Athlete of All-Time, has gone down in history with record-setting scores and achievements. She is a six-time Olympic medalist, with three gold medals, who dominated in the heptathlon and long jump events throughout her career.
Joyner’s athletic aptitude showed at a young age when, as a teenager, she won the first of her four consecutive National Junior Pentathlon championships. While still in high school, she qualified for the finals in the long jump at the 1980 Olympic Trials. Her high school success, including setting the Illinois high school girls’ long jump record at 6.68 meters (20 feet 7.5 inches), guaranteed her a scholarship to college.
While attending the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Joyner initially focused on the long jump and basketball before concentrating on heptathlon training. By 1984, she was ready for the Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, where she won the silver medal in the heptathlon. She was just shy of gold by five points.
Joyner graduated from UCLA in 1985 and, the following year at the Goodwill Games in Moscow, set a world record 7,148 points in the heptathlon. She was the first woman ever to score more than 7,000 points. She headed into the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, Korea as Jackie Joyner-Kersee after marrying her coach, Bob Kersee. She earned gold medals in both the heptathlon and the long jump.
Joyner-Kersee competed in the Summer Olympics two more times. In the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, she took gold in the heptathlon and bronze in the long jump. The 1996 games in Atlanta saw her take bronze in the long jump, but an injury forced her to pull out of the heptathlon.
In addition to being one of the world’s greatest athletes, Joyner-Kersee is also a dedicated philanthropist. She advocates for racial equality, women’s rights, social reform, children’s education, and health issues. She is the founder of the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation, which supports at-risk youth in East St. Louis and across the U.S. She also co-founded Athletes for Hope, which encourages professional athletes to become active in charitable causes.