Amazing Female Athletes
This photograph is of an amazing female athlete named Jean Benoit she
was the first female to win an Olympic gold medal for the marathon in
1984 and a huge supporter of the push for woman’s sports. Prior to
1984 women were not allowed to run the marathon in the Olympic Games.
Jean Benoit was the first woman to run 26.2 miles in less than two
hours and twenty-five minutes. She attributes her success to the
woman competitors before her “The pioneer women in our field…put the
world within our reach and asked us to take from it what we need” (1)
Althea Gibson is also a major influence in the woman’s sporting
movement. She had amazing odds stacked against her; she was a poor
African-American girl born in South Carolina in the 1920’s. When she
was five her parents moved her family to the poor neighborhood of
Harlem in New York. It is here that she learned how to play paddle
ball in the streets. (1) Gibson was determined to become great and
show the world who she was and what she stood for. She continued to
play paddleball and starting playing tennis, it was here that she
found her nitch.
By 1948 Gibson was the best woman player in the Negro tennis
league-because of segregation she wasn’t allowed to play white
Americans. It wasn’t until 1956 that she was able to get her shot to
play white Americans; it was here that she became the first black
person to win Wimbledon. She also came back to America to win the
U.S. Nationals. She blazed the trail for black athletes in a game
dominated by the white upper-middle class. (1) Once Althea Gibson
retired from tennis she went on to record an album, star in a movie
with John Wayne, and become the New Jersey State Athletic
Commissioner. (1)
“In a world that divides us by class, religion, age, ethnicity, and
sexual orientation we are bound together by gender and share our
sisterhood a common oppression that is universally understood. (1)
To see more about these amazing women check out these links
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Benoit
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althea_Gibson
1. Borish, Linda J. "Women in Sports: Breaking Barriers" The Journal of American History (Dec 2004) 978-981
2. Miller, Ernestine "Making her Mark: Milestones in Women's Sports" Contemporary Books 2002
3. Cohen, Greta "Women in Sports: Issues and Controversies" Sage Productions Inc. 1993
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