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Quick Facts
- NAME: Jackie Joyner-Kersee
- OCCUPATION: Track and Field Athlete
- BIRTH DATE: March 03, 1962 (Age: 51)
- EDUCATION: University of California at Los Angeles
- PLACE OF BIRTH: East St. Louis, Illinois
- AKA: Jackie Joyner-Kersee
- Full Name: Jacqueline Joyner-Kersee
- Maiden Name: Jacqueline Joyner
- AKA: Jackie Joyner
- ZODIAC SIGN: Pisces
Best Known For
One of the greatest athletes of all time, track and field star Jackie Joyner-Kersee has won three Olympic gold medals, as well as one silver and two bronze.
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A short biography of Jackie Joyner, who's considered by many to be the Greatest Female Athlete of the 20th Century. Her gold medal-winning score from the heptathlon in 1988 still stands as the world record.
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Play NowJackie Joyner-Kersee. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 03:17, May 23, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/jackie-joyner-kersee-9358710.
Jackie Joyner-Kersee. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/jackie-joyner-kersee-9358710 [Accessed 23 May 2013].
"Jackie Joyner-Kersee." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 23 2013, 03:17 http://www.biography.com/people/jackie-joyner-kersee-9358710.
"Jackie Joyner-Kersee," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/jackie-joyner-kersee-9358710 [accessed May 23, 2013].
"Jackie Joyner-Kersee," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/jackie-joyner-kersee-9358710 (accessed May 23, 2013).
Jackie Joyner-Kersee [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 23] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/jackie-joyner-kersee-9358710.
Jackie Joyner-Kersee, http://www.biography.com/people/jackie-joyner-kersee-9358710 (last visited May 23, 2013).
Jackie Joyner-Kersee. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/jackie-joyner-kersee-9358710. Accessed May 23, 2013.
Synopsis
Born on March 3, 1962, in East St. Louis, Illinois, Jackie Joyner-Kersee was the first American to win gold for the long jump and the first woman to earn more than 7,000 points in the seven-event heptathlon. She's ultimately won three golds, a silver and two bronze, making her the most decorated female athlete in Olympic track and field history. She's gone on to advocate for children.
Contents
Quotes
"Ask any athlete: We all hurt at times. I'm asking my body to go through seven different tasks. To ask it not to ache would be too much."
Early Life
Jacqueline Joyner-Kersee was born on March 3, 1962, in East St. Louis, Illinois. As a teen, she won the National Junior Pentathlon championships four years in a row, and received widespread honors in high school in various sports, including track, basketball and volleyball. Joyner-Kersee thrived as a basketball and track-and-field star, however, and during her junior year, she set the Illinois high-school long jump record for women, with a 6.68-meter jump.
Joyner-Kersee attended the University of Califonia, Los Angeles on a full scholarship, and continued to gain fame on both the court and field. However, in 1981, at the age of 19, she began to focus on training for the Olympics, specifically for the heptathlon—an Olympic track-and-field event comprised of seven separate events, including the 200-meter run, 800-meter run and 100-meter hurdles. She graduated from UCLA in 1985.
Olympic Star
Regarded as one of the greatest female athletes in history, Joyner-Kersee won a silver medal in the heptathlon at the 1984 Summer Olympics, as well as gold and bronze medals in the long jump in 1988 and 1992, respectively. She is currently the heptathlon world record-holder, scoring 7,291 points—she's set a record in the heptathlon four times—at the Summer Olympics in 1988, and taking home a gold medal. Joyner-Kersee is also a former long jump word record holder; she tied world long-jump record in 1987, with a 7.45-meter jump (her record was broken in 1988 by Galina Chistyakova, who jumped 7.52 meters). Joyner-Kersee is currently the American record-holder in the long jump.
Joyner-Kersee's last Olympic run came in 1996, when she took home a bronze medal in the long jump at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. She did not compete in the heptathlon that year due to a pulled hamstring.
Personal Life
In 1986, Joyner-Kersee married her coach, Bob Kersee. He also trained Joyner-Kersee's sister-in-law, the late track star Florence Joyner. Bob came under media speculation in 1988, when Florence Joyner improved her times in the 100-meter run, 200-meter run and 4-by-100 meter relay—and took gold medals in all three events—at the 1988 Olympics. Many people questioned Bob's training techniques and suggested that he could have been encouraging his runners to use performance-enhancing drugs. In the late 1990s, Bob became a volunteer member of UCLA's track and field coaching staff—a position he has held for more than a decade.
A sufferer of exercise-induced asthma, Joyner-Kersee officially retired from track and field in 2001 at age 38. Following her retirement, she founded the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Youth Center Foundation, which is aimed at encouraging youth in her underprivileged hometown to play sports.
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