Florence Joyner was the American woman, who most female track runners wanted to be like. Many may know Joyner as “Flo Jo”. She was given that name because of her great speed. Joyner is considered to be the fastest woman of all time, based on the fact that she set the world record in 1988 in the 100m dash and 200m dash. Since her death, her records still stands in the 100m dash and 200m dash, running a 10.49 and 21.34. There are very fascinating and inspiring things about Joyner that some people may not know about her. Florence Joyner was born in Los Angeles, California, on December 21, 1959, in and went on to become one of the fastest competitive runners of the 1980s. Joyner began running at the age of 7, and her gift for speed soon became …show more content…
There, she won a silver medal for the 200-meter run. A few years later, in 1987, Florence married fellow athlete Al Joyner, the brother of famed athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee,taking the legal name Florence Delorez Griffith-Joyner, she became publicly known as Florence Joyner, or "Flo Jo," at this time. Around this time, Joyner selected her husband to serve as a coach, dropping Kersee. She had taken a break from competing after the 1984 Olympics and had just decided to re-enter racing. Before long, however, she began training again for the 1988 Olympic Games under Bob Kersee, the husband of Jackie Joyner-Kersee. Joyner's hard work paid off at the 1988 Summer Olympics, held in Seoul, South Korea. She took home three gold medals, in the 4-by-100 meter relay, and the 100- and 200-meter runs; as well as a silver medal in the 4-by-400 meter relay. Florence Joyner was a very creative woman. She was known for her crazy 6 inch nails, form-fitting bodysuits, and amazing speed. Few people really knew it, but Delorez Florence Griffith Joyner, the fabulous FloJo, was a very shy and deeply insecure. Underneath her skin tight running suits and her lavishly manicured nails lived a little girl who was socially awkward and bore the taunts of other children and resolved to show the world that, some day, she would live her dreams. So her creative nails had deep meaning to them and they weren't
Florence was born in January of 1896 in the slums of Washington, DC. As the daughter of ex-slaves, she had it rough, but this girl had an ability that would soon show. She won a talent contest at age four, and by age seven she had made her professional debut. Two years later, she joined a vaudeville touring company. Since she was too young to do this, it was not very long before she was arrested and put into an institution.
At this point in time, she changed her name to Bobby Broadhurst. In 1926, she established the Broadhurst Academy in Shanghai, offering tuition in violin, pianoforte, voice production, banjolele playing, modern ballroom dancing, classical dancing, musical culture and journalism. At the age of 28, she sustained a serious head injury in a car accident and moved to England. In 1929, she married a wealthy Percy Kann and once again reinvented herself as Madame Pellier. Florence changed her accent, her history and the scene to suit the character she was
When most people think of Texas legacies they think of Sam Houston or Davy Crockett, but they don’t usually think of people like Jane Long. Jane Long is known as ‘The Mother of Texas’. She was given that nickname because she was the first english speaking woman in Texas to give birth.
African Americans entered the world of sports in the early 1900s when the first African American Olympian became a gold medal, Constantin Henriquez de Zubiera. He won a gold medal in rugby (Bosanac). Not only did the early 1900s open the door for African Americans, but women would also begin to infiltrate into sports as well. Women would be allowed to play in the Olympics; however, they were only allowed to play golf, tennis, and croquet. Only 19 women qualifiers made it through to the first Olympics with women participants (Bosanac). Before Althea Gibson, Margaret Ives Abbott was the first to win the singles tournament for tennis, foreshadowing Althea Gibson’s legacy to come (Schwartz). “She also won gold the 1900 Olympic games in golf just like Althea soo...
Contention (Introduction): At the beginning of the 1950's women faced the expectation that they must become a housewife. Towards the end of the 1960’s, women started to believe that
Gertrude Ederle was born in New York City on October 23, 1905. She was one of five children of Henry and Anna Ederle, German immigrants who owned a butcher shop on Manhattan's Upper West Side. From a young age she was passionate about swimming, which she learned at the local public pool and at the New Jersey beach where her family spent summers. As a kid she left school to practice as an athletic swimmer. Later she joined the Women’s Swimming Association. She had her first win at the age of 16, between 1921 and 1925 holding 29 records. Ederle swam at the Olympic Games in Paris, where her freestyle team won three straight medals. In 1925, she began training to swim across live television. Twenty-one miles of water between England and the European mainland. Other men swimmers had already crossed the channel but she was trying to be the first woman to ever achieve the goal.
Clara Bow grew up as an impoverished Brooklyn girl. She struggled with having an abusive father and mentally unstable mother. After finishing up high school she went to Hollywood and signed a contract with Preferred Picture. Clara Bow was featured in a number of silent films and later talkies. She even costarred in the 1927 movie ¨Wings¨ that went on to win the first ever academy award for best picture. The actress was most well known for her starring role in the 1927 movie ¨It¨. The movie was about a young store assistant that falls for the owner of the shop. The whole idea of ¨It¨ in the movie itself was this intangible charisma that a person could obtain. It was the concept that a person could be completely self- confident, have sex appeal
Kelli White was born on April 1, 1977 in Oakland California to parents who were both sprinters. She attended high school in Union City, California and ran track. She was 12 when Remi Korchemny became her coach (Plitt). She would reunite with him after graduating college (Plitt). When Kelli White was 17, she was attacked and cut by a knife. Even though her injury required more than 300 stitches, she continued to run that year (Plitt). When White graduated in 1995, she held the record in the 200 meter dash and had the second best time in the 100 meter dash in the North Coast Section. She went to the University of Tennessee on a scholarship and graduated in 1999 (Plitt).
Fanny “Bobbie” Rosenfeld is the most historically and culturally significant Canadian sport figure. Rosenfeld was a pioneer for women’s athletics, and was a role model to many young girls and working class women. When at a time when women in sport was not considered proper, Fanny broke down barriers, competing in high levels of softball, hockey, and basketball and track. She was a women of firsts, she helped define Canadian women in sport.
Canada’s most famous female all-around athlete in the 1920s was Fanny “Bobbie” Rosenfeld. Baseball, basketball, fastball, golf, hockey,lacrosse, softball, speed skating, tennis, and track and field were some of the sports that Bobbie played and she mastered all of them (“Bobbie Rosenfeld: One of the Greatest All-Around Athletes”). The first event that put Rosenfeld in the spotlight was the 100-metre sprint that she ran, for fun, in a small track and field meet in 1923. During the meet she came first in the race, beating Rosa Grosse, the leading Canadian champion. She beat her again at another meet and made the world record for that event. In the same year she was Toronto’s tennis champion (Rosenberg). Bobbie Rosenfeld continued her career by participating in a provincial track and field competition in 1925. She placed first in discus, shot put, 220-metre dash, low hurdles and long jump. In the 100-metre dash and javelin she came second (Library and Archives Canada). By that time she was the Canadian record holder for the 440-metre relay, standing board jump, discus, javelin and shot put. Rosenfeld’s greatest achievements were in, the first Olympics that allowed women to participate in track and field events, Amsterdam in 1928. She was a member of the Matchless Six, the Canadian women’s track and field team. This team did an outstanding job in the 400-metre relay; as a result they placed first and broke the previous record, becoming national heroes. In addition to the relay Bobbie won the silver medal in the 100-metre dash. The most memorable was the 800-metre race, one that Bobbie had not trained for. During the race she could have finished in third place, however she let her teammate finish before her and as a re...
Marjorie Stewart Joyner was born on October 24, 1896 in Monterey, Virginia, which was the Blue Ridge Mountain area of the state. She was the granddaughter of both a slave and a slave owner. She was a very strong businesswoman and humanitarian with strong ambition and desires. When she was a teenager, she and her family joined the Great Migration, moving to Chicago, Illinois where so many African-Americans were moving for jobs and a better life. Once she arrived to Chicago, she began to study and pursue a cosmetology career. Marjorie Joyner had a strong message that she carried throughout her lifetime which was: Be proud of who you are and treat yourself as if you care. From this belief, she became an avid supporter of young men and women throughout her life. She attended A.B. Molar Beauty School and became the first African American woman to graduate from the school in 1916. Marjorie made it her mission to become an educator in African American beauty culture. She did that while inspiring many younger African Americans. Marjorie also fought for racial and gender equality during the years of growth for the Black community in Chicago. At the very tender age of twenty she married a man by the name of Robert E. Joyner and opened a beauty salon soon after. Obviously Marjorie Joyner developed an early interest in becoming a cosmetologist so she started a salon in her home. Her mother-in-law was not impressed with the way she did hair and felt that she needed more practice so she suggested that Marjorie study at one of Madame C. J. Walker’s beauty schools. She was a very gracious and generous woman, and even offered to pay the cost for Marjorie to attend the beauty school. Soon after, she was introduced to the very well-known Afric...
Civil rights activist, Daisy Bates was at the core of the school desegregation catastrophe in Little Rock, Arkansas in September 1957. Bates used her position as president of a local Arkansas branch of the NAACP to strategically destroy the segregated school system. Her civil rights work involved changing the policies of the Arkansas Public School System that promoted segregation of school students, which in turn denied equality of educational resources and qualitative instruction to Arkansas’ Negro students. This fight for civil rights for students of color caused a fundamental shift in how the state educated its students both Black and White. Her plan halted the nation to expose the segregation in the Arkansas school district. Bates advocated for Black children to attend public schools that had been segregated arguing that the school system needed to be desegregated. As a result of argument, Bates became the mentor to nine African-American students, who enrolled in
Grace Patricia Kelly was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 12, 1929. Her mother was Margaret Katherine Majer: 1st coach of the women’s athletic team at the University of Pennsylvania. Her father was John Brendan “Jack” Kelly, a champion sculler who won three Olympic gold medals. Her father was also a self- made millionaire (“Grace Kelly Biography”).
Can you imagine that the fastest woman in the world had trouble walking when she was little? Wilma Rudolph was born in Tennessee on June 23, 1940. At this time in history, blacks were separated from whites in the whole south. They were not allowed to eat in the same restaurant or go to the same school. Wilma Rudolph was born two months early to Blanche and Ed Rudolph (Sherrow 7). Wilma’s mom did laundry and housekeeping, and her dad worked for the railroad. She was so fast when Wilma was in school her coach gave Wilma a nickname, “Skeeter,” because she was always busying around like a mosquito (Sherrow 19). Even though Wilma Rudolph had Polio as a young child, and the doctors said she would not be able to walk, she grew up
Kyniska was the first woman to breed horses and the first woman to win an Olympic victory. Her horses won the chariot race.