1. Linda Haglund showed great promise as a future sprinting star by recording, barefoot, 12.7 for 100 m at her first meet representing Hanvikens SK.
19 Facts About Linda Haglund
1. 2.
Linda Haglund was named on the Swedish track and field team that competed in Helsinki that year.
3.
Linda Haglund was 15 at the time and acknowledged as the youngest athlete of the meet.
4.
One year later, Linda Haglund was appointed to the first of three Swedish Olympic teams: Munich, 1972.
5.
Linda Haglund's running career would take her to the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games, as well as those held in Moscow in 1980.
6.
Linda Haglund had her best Olympic Games' showing with a fourth place in the Moscow Games' 100 m final.
7.
Linda Haglund participated in the World Cups of 1979 and 1981 and was a five-time medalist at European Championships held in 1976,1978,1978,1980, and 1981.
8.
Linda Haglund was the captain for many years of the women's track and field team in Sweden and still holds Swedish records for 100 m - 11.16,200 m - 22.82, and 60 m - 7.13.
9.
Linda Haglund was one of very few sprinters to have beaten Evelyn Ashford.
10.
Linda Haglund ran 11.06 to better Jarmila Kratochvilova's 11.18 and Ashford's 11.25 in a 1981 meet in Berlin.
11.
Linda Haglund was ranked 3rd, 5th, and 7th in world rankings during her running career.
12.
Linda Haglund's running career was brought to an abrupt end in 1981 after a failed drug test.
13.
Linda Haglund was a member of the Swedish Sports Academy, and was awarded the Victoria Scholarship in 1981.
14.
Linda Haglund belonged to the Legends of "1956", a sports fraternity of outstanding Swedish athletes born in 1956: Bjorn Borg, Ingemar Stenmark, Thomas Wassberg and Frank Andersson.
15.
Linda Haglund authored a book on health and wellness, Lindas ma bra bok, published by Prisma in 2007.
16.
Linda Haglund was related to the Danish singer and actor Otto Brandenburg.
17.
Linda Haglund was married to American sprinter Houston McTear from the 1980s until his death on 1 November 2015, aged 58.
18.
Linda Haglund died of cancer and a pulmonary hemorrhage on 21 November 2015, aged 59.
19.
Linda Haglund died only three weeks after her husband's death, from cancer.