Evelyn Ashford

American sprinter and four-time Olympic gold medalist who held the women's 100m world record for five years and was the first woman to run under 11 seconds at an Olympic Games.

Born on 15 April 1957 in Shreveport, Louisiana, Evelyn Ashford first showed her talent by outracing the boys on her high school track team, becoming the first girl to join the squad and eventually co-captaining it. She received one of UCLA's first athletic scholarships awarded to a woman and made her first Olympic team in 1976 at age 19, finishing fifth in the 100m. At the 1979 World Cup in Montreal, Ashford beat both reigning world record holders, East Germany's Marlies Göhr and Marita Koch, in the 100m and 200m respectively, becoming the first American woman to break 11 seconds and 22 seconds in those events. The 1980 US boycott of the Moscow Olympics denied her a shot at gold in her prime. On 3 July 1983, Ashford set her first 100m world record of 10.79 seconds, and at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics she became the first woman to run under 11 seconds at an Olympic Games, winning gold in an Olympic record 10.97. The following month in Zurich, she lowered her world record to 10.76, a mark she held for five years until 1988. Ashford won four Olympic gold medals across her 18-year career — the 1984 100m and three consecutive 4x100m relay titles (1984, 1988, 1992) — becoming, at the time, the only American woman with four Olympic athletics golds. At 35, she became the oldest American woman to win Olympic gold in track and field, earning her the affectionate nickname 'the grand old lady of track'.

Smooth, powerful sprinting technique

One of the most successful and enduring sprinters in American athletics history