Jacqueline Joyner-Kersee was born on March 3,1962 and is a retired American track and field athlete, ranked among the all-time greatest athletes in the heptathlon as well as long jump.
22 Facts About Jackie Joyner-Kersee
2.
Jackie Joyner-Kersee won three gold, one silver, and two bronze Olympic medals in those two events at four different Olympic Games.
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Jackie Joyner-Kersee is an active philanthropist in children's education, racial equality and women's rights.
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Jackie Joyner-Kersee is a founder of the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation, which encourages young people in East St Louis to pursue athletics and academics.
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Jackie Joyner-Kersee collaborated with Comcast to create the Internet Essentials program in 2011, which provides high-speed internet access to low-income Americans.
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Jackie Joyner-Kersee is one of the most famous athletes to have overcome severe asthma.
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Jackie Joyner-Kersee won the Broderick Award, as the nation's best female collegiate track and field competitor in 1983 and in 1985, and was awarded the Honda-Broderick Cup, given to the nation's best female collegiate athlete in 1985.
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Jackie Joyner-Kersee scored 1,167 points during her collegiate career, which places her 19th all time for the Bruins games.
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Jackie Joyner-Kersee was honored on February 21,1998 as one of the 15 greatest players in UCLA women's basketball.
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Jackie Joyner-Kersee was the favorite heading into the event, but finished five points behind Australian Glynis Nunn.
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Now known as Jackie Joyner-Kersee after marrying her coach Bob Kersee, she entered the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, Korea and earned gold medals in both the heptathlon and the long jump.
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Jackie Joyner-Kersee was the first American woman to earn a gold medal in long jump as well as the first American woman to earn a gold medal in heptathlon.
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Jackie Joyner-Kersee was everyone's favorite to retain both her World titles earned four years earlier in Rome.
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Jackie Joyner-Kersee did strain a hamstring, which led to her having to pull out of the heptathlon during the 200 m at the end of the first day.
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Jackie Joyner-Kersee won the bronze medal in the long jump which was won by her friend Heike Drechsler of Germany.
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At the Olympic Trials, Jackie Joyner-Kersee sustained an injury to her right hamstring.
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Jackie Joyner-Kersee was able to recover well enough to compete in the long jump and qualify for the final, but was in sixth place in the final with one jump remaining.
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In 1996 Jackie Joyner-Kersee signed on to play pro basketball for the Richmond Rage of the fledgling American Basketball League.
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Jackie Joyner-Kersee appeared in only 17 games, and scored no more than 15 points in any game.
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Two years after retiring, Jackie Joyner-Kersee tried to qualify for the long jump event at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia.
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Jackie Joyner-Kersee has consistently maintained that she has competed throughout her career without performance-enhancing drugs.
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Jackie Joyner-Kersee's brother is the Olympic champion triple jumper Al Joyner, who was married to Olympic track champion Florence Griffith Joyner.