Joyner-Kersee Wins Heptathlon. Although she was competing with an injured left knee, American track-and-field athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee was determined to win the heptathlon--seven events held over a period of two days--at the 1988 Summer Olympics. Joyner-Kersee not only won the gold medal in the event, but also she set a new world record. . Joyner-Kersee Wins the Heptathlon No one doubted that Jackie Joyner-Kersee would make the 1988 Summer Olympics United States track-and-field team. There was virtually no debate over her ability to win the heptathlon, a grueling, seven-event competition. Her domination of the event was so complete, in fact, that her coach, her fans, and the media expected an even higher achievement. As absurd as it might seem, if she didn't break her own heptathlon world record, her performance in Seoul, South Korea, would very likely be labeled a failure. A silver medalist at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, California, Joyner-Kersee had been in a league of her own since July 7, 1986, when she became the first female heptathlete to crack the 7000-point mark at the Goodwill Games in Moscow. She duplicated that feat three times in the next 24 months--at the United States Olympic Festival in Houston, Texas, in August 1986; at the 1987 World Track and Field Championships in Rome, Italy; and at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Indianapolis, Indiana, in July 1988. Joyner-Kersee's performance in Indianapolis was particularly heroic. Temperatures reaching 38° C (100° F) didn't keep Joyner-Kersee from boosting her worldrecord point total to 7215. She set U.S. heptathlon records in the 100-meter hurdles (12.71 seconds) and in the high jump, reaching a mark of 1.93 m (6 ft 4 in). She also set a world heptathlon mark in the 200 meters (22.30 seconds). Along with near personal bests in the shot put and the javelin throw, Joyner-Kersee broke her own world record by 57 points. "She's from another planet," Greiner told Runner's World. "She's a real inspiration to watch." Fellow American heptathlete Cindy Greiner was justifiably awed; her second-place total was nearly 1000 points behind Joyner-Kersee's. Still, Joyner-Kersee's message to the world was: "You ain't seen nothin' yet." She told Runner's World, "I left a little something so that I'd have something to shoot for when I go to Seoul. I'm going to be hungry and motivated. I know I've got a lot more left to do." The two-day heptathlon at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games opened on Friday, September 23. Joyner-Kersee began with a personal best in the 100-meter hurdles. Fending off a late-race push by East Germany's Sabine John, her time of 12.69 seconds put her 4 points ahead of the record-setting pace she set at the Olympic trials. Joyner-Kersee then won the high jump. However, with a subpar leap of 1.86 m (6 ft 1.25 in) she dropped 87 points behind her record-setting pace, thus threatening her chances of breaking her own world record. Worse still, she strained a knee ligament while speeding toward the bar on the downhill approach ramp. Her left knee wrapped in tape, Joyner-Kersee rebounded with a solid mark of 15.8 m (51 ft 10 in) in the shot put. The first day concluded with the 200 meters where she turned in a time of 22.56 seconds. With three events remaining, her total of 4264 points put her 181 ahead of John but 103 short of her record-setting pace. "The woman is leaving with the gold," Joyner-Kersee's physiotherapist, Bob Forster, told Sports Illustrated, "but we'll be doing some work tonight." That work consisted of a battery of treatments on her tender legs, including ice packs, ultrasound therapy, and cross-fiber massage. She slept with a mild electric current pulsating through her injured knee. "People who wrote off the world record after the first day," coach and husband Bob Kersee added, "were people who didn't know Jackie." Joyner-Kersee awoke Saturday morning to some good news: The pain in her left knee had subsided considerably. And her first event, the long jump, was by far her strongest. She had, in fact, shared the world record with Galina Tchistakova until that June, when the East German surpassed the mark of 7.45 m (24 ft 5.5 in) by 7.5 cm (3 in). Launching off of her "good" knee, Joyner-Kersee leapt 7.27 m (23 ft 10.25 in), setting a new heptathlon world record. The jump yielded 1264 points, moving her to within 11 points of her record pace. With her knee throbbing once again, Joyner-Kersee taped up for the javelin throw. Her toss of 45.35 m (149 ft 9.5 in) was about 3 m (10 ft) short of her personal average, dropping her another 86 points off of the record pace. "It was disgusting," she told Sports Illustrated. "The knee was sore. I wasn't using the legs. I was just arming it." One event remained: the 800 meters, the most demanding of the heptathlon's seven tests. It was also the event that had cost Joyner-Kersee the gold medal at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. The Olympic track-and-field stadium was nearly empty, most of the 70,000 spectators having left after the performances of American stars Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis. Joyner-Kersee approached the starting line with a faint smile on her face. She needed a time of 2 minutes 13.67 seconds or better to break the record. Her personal best, established six years earlier, was 2 minutes 9.32 seconds. The Soviet Union's Natalya Shubenkova took the early lead, with Joyner-Kersee several paces back. "With a lap to go my stomach started to burn," she said afterwards. "I thought, 'Oh, no. What's this? Block it out. Block it out. If your legs aren't burning, you can still run.'" Although she crossed the finish line fifth, she recorded a new personal best of 2 minutes 8.51 seconds. Her total of 7291 points eclipsed her old mark by 76. East Germans Sabine John (6897) and Anke Behmer (6858) took the silver and bronze, respectively. "I am blessed," Joyner-Kersee said after the finale. "You just don't know how good it feels to be able to reach for something you've been striving for a long time. I like the heptathlon because it shows what you are made of." Five days later she came back to become the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in the long jump. "Think indefatigable," she told herself after watching East Germany's Heike Drechsler jump 7.22 m (23 ft 8.25 in). On her next-to-last attempt, Joyner-Kersee jumped an Olympic-record 7.40 m (24 feet 3.5 inches). The mark stood up, besting even the world record holder Tchistakova. Joyner-Kersee thus became the first Olympian in 64 years to win gold medals in multiple-event and single-event competitions in track and field. She also became the first American woman since Mildred McDaniel, who won the high jump in 1956, to triumph in an Olympic field event. Four years later, Joyner-Kersee successfully defended her heptathlon title at the 1992 Games in Barcelona, Spain. She was the first woman to win multi-event titles at two Olympics. She was also the first Olympian to capture multi-event medals at three Olympics. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
