George Poage first Black Olympic medalist
Poage makes history as the first Black American athlete to win an Olympic medal when he wins bronze medals in the 1904 St. Louis Olympics in the 200-meter hurdles (since discontinued) and the 400-meter hurdles. Poage competes despite many prominent Black leaders calling for a boycott of the Olympics that year because organizers had built segregated spectator facilities for the event and refused to integrate the Olympics or that year’s World’s Fair in St. Louis. Poage, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, is also the first Black athlete to win a race in the Big Ten Conference track championships.
08/31/1904
First African American to win an individual gold medal in the Olympics
In 1924, William DeHart Hubbard became the first African American to win an individual Olympic gold medal. During his senior year at Michigan (1925) Hubbard set the world record in the long jump. While the football coach, Fielding Yost, had barred African American players from football since 1901, in 1921, then Athletic Director Yost allowed one African American to join the track team. Hubbard was the only African American track team member during his four years at U-M.
01/01/1924
DeHart Hubbard first Black Olympic gold medalist
Hubbard becomes the first Black American athlete to earn an Olympic gold medal when he wins the men’s long jump at the 1924 Paris Olympics. In a meet in Chicago in June 1925, Hubbard set a long jump world record of 7.89 meters (25 feet, 10 ¾ inches), and a year later in Cincinnati, equaled the world record in the 100-yard dash (9.6 seconds). Hubbard worked for the Cincinnati Public Recreation Committee after graduating from the University of Michigan. In 1942, Hubbard moved to Cleveland where he became a race relations adviser for the Federal Housing Authority until his retirement in 1967.
07/08/1924
Olympic champion helps create Black History Month
Ralph Metcalfe was a public servant and Olympic champion. In the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Metcalfe was second in the 100-meter dash behind Jesse Owens, and teamed with Owens and two others on the gold-medal and world-record setting 4×100 relay team. He also won the silver medal at the Los Angeles Summer Olympics in 1932 in the men’s 100-meter dash and a bronze medal in the 200-meter dash. After his athletic career, he served four terms as a city council member in Chicago before serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1971-78. Metcalfe was a co-founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, and in 1977 introduced the resolution officially designating February as Black History Month, which became law in 1986. Committed to fighting against racism, Metcalfe said, “In the caucus we have decided to put the interests of Black people first—above all else, and that means even going against our party or our political leaders if Black interests don’t coincide with their positions.”
08/01/1932
Jesse Owens wins four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin
Owens won four gold medals in the long jump, 100 and 200-meter dashes and the 400-meter relay at the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany. During the Games, Owens and German athlete Luz Long forged a friendship and proved that competitors can also be allies. After Owens defeated Long in the long jump, the two celebrated together in a gesture of sportsmanship and friendship and a classic example of the unifying nature of sport. When Owens returned to the U.S., however, he still faced racism in a segregated country and was never even congratulated by the White House for his record-breaking Olympics. Owens said “Hitler didn’t snub me; it was our president who snubbed me.”
08/01/1936
Coachman first Black woman to win Olmypic gold
Alice Coachman became the first Black woman to win an Olympic gold medal when she won the high jump for the U.S. at the 1948 London Olympics. Coachman was often turned away from athletic facilities growing up because of her race and sex and trained where she could. Following her win in the Olympics, Coachman became the first Black woman to endorse an international product when the Coca-Cola Company hired her as a spokesperson and featured her in billboard advertising with Jesse Owens. Coachman has been credited with helping open the door for future U.S. Black women’s track stars such as Evelyn Ashford, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and Florence Griffith Joyner.
08/07/1948
Wilma Rudolph makes history at the 1960 Olympic Games
After making history as the first American woman to win three gold medals in a single Olympics, Rudolph refuses to attend any segregated celebratory events, making her homecoming parade the first integrated event in her hometown of Clarksville, Tenn. In 1963, Rudolph joins other Clarksville citizens in an attempt to integrate a local Shoney’s restaurant. Despite being a hometown and national hero, she’s denied entry because she is Black.
01/01/1960
Otis Davis overcomes racism to become Olympic champion
As a man of Black and Native American heritage, Otis Davis endured racism growing up in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in the height of the Jim Crow South. Like many others, he was not able to attend the high school closest to his home because of his race. Davis went on to serve four years in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War before enrolling in college at the University of Oregon. He would then win two gold medals at the 1960 Rome Olympics, taking the 400 meters in world-record time and two days later anchoring the U.S. 4×400-meter relay team to another gold medal and a world record. Davis was among a group of rising Black athletes who also won their first gold medals during the 1960 Rome Olympics, including Wilma Rudolph and Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay).
09/06/1960
Billy Mills, member of the Sioux tribe, becomes the only American man to win gold in the Olympic 10,000m
Mills, who is also known as Tamakoce Te’Hila and is a member of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) tribe, scores a huge upset, winning gold in the 10,000-meter race at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. His journey to his win almost tragically ends before it begins, as the pain that racism directed toward Mills causes him to consider suicide. He uses the goal of winning the race to help him push through, however, and now Mills advocates for Native American youth through Running Strong for American Indian Youth, which he helps start and becomes the spokesperson for in 1986. Mills also fights for Native American civil and voting rights, spending the vast majority of his time traveling for that cause, and in 2013 he is awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal, he second-highest U.S. civilian award. More than 50 years since his historic upset, Mills is still the only American to win the Olympic 10,000 meter.
10/14/1964
Tommie Smith and John Carlos stand for human rights at the 1968 Olympics
Drawing inspiration from sociologist Harry Edwards, American track & field athletes Carlos and Smith after medaling in the 200-meter dash at the Mexico City Olympics stand atop the podium during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” with bowed heads and their fists in the air, each wearing a black glove. The iconic protest, Smith says, is a “… cry for freedom and for human rights. We had to be seen because we couldn’t be heard.” The International Olympic Committee bans Carlos and Smith from the Olympic Village for their political message and threatens to ban the entire USA Track & Field team after the US Olympic Committee refuses to send Carlos and Smith home. Eventually, the IOC does expel them from the Mexico City Olympics, and the two return to the United States where they are ostracized from Olympic competition for the next 30 years. The silver medalist, Australian Peter Norman, is the one who gives Carlos and Smith the idea to each wear a glove. Norman, who like Carlos and Smith wears a “Olympic Project for Human Rights” badge on the medal stand, tells them to each wear a single glove after Carlos forgets his at the Olympic Village as an alternative. Norman himself uses his badge as a form of protest for the racist “White Australia” policies at the time. His form of allyship effectively ends his career as he is blackballed from competing for Australia ever again despite running Olympic qualifying times and “suffered to the day he died,” Norman’s son later says.
10/16/1968
Shaul Ladany survives Holocaust and Munich Massacre to compete for Israel in Olympics
Much of Shaul Ladany’s family was killed during the Holocaust, but at age eight, Ladany is liberated from the Bergen-Belson Nazi Concentration Camp in Germany in 1944 with his parents and survives. His family later moves to Israel where Ladany ultimately becomes a top race walker, winning multiple national titles. He represents Israel at the 1972 Munich Olympics and proudly wears a Star of David on his warm-up uniform, meant to show his pride and demonstrate the survival of the Jewish people in the face of Nazi persecution. During the Games, 11 Israeli Olympic members (coaches and athletes) are kidnapped from their living quarters in the Olympic village and murdered by members of Black September, a Palestinian terrorist organization. Ladany escaped the quarters amidst the attack and ran to alert authorities to what was happening. Days later he competes in his event, the 50-kilometer race walk, and finishes in 19th place. Specializing in long-distance walking, Ladany won the 100-kilometer gold medal later that year at the World Race Walking Championships and still holds the unofficial world record in the 50-mile race walk.
09/03/1972
Reggie McAfee becomes first Black man to break four-minute mile
Reggie McAfee runs the mile in 3 minutes, 59.8 seconds in 1973 as a senior at the University of North Carolina. A week after his historic mile run, he broke the four-minute barrier again in winning the ACC championship and finished his career with seven sub-4-minute miles. After 26 years working for Xerox, McAfee starts the nonprofit Cross Country For Youth (CCFY) in 2006 to assist kids in the Charlotte, North Carolina, community. McAfee remains the executive director of CCFY, which introduces children ages 8-14 to cross country training, character building, nutrition concepts, and social-emotional training to develop the whole person.
04/21/1973
Evelyn Ashford wins multiple gold medals
Evelyn Ashford ended a 16-year gold medal drought for the U.S. in women’s Olympic 100-meter races when she won in Los Angeles at the age of 27 and added a gold medal in the 4x100m relay. Ashford made the 1976 U.S. Olympic team in Montreal as a 19-year-old before enrolling in UCLA where she was the first female track athlete to receive a full-ride scholarship. After having a daughter in 1986, Ashford returned to track and field and won a silver in the 100m in the 1988 Seoul Olympics and another 4x100m relay gold medal. She capped her career at the age of 35 with a gold medal in the 4x100m relay at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Ashford set two 100m world records and held the world record from 1983 to 1988.
08/05/1984
Wisconsin Women’s Cross Country brings home first women’s Big Ten Conference national title
The Wisconsin women’s cross country team completed the 1984 season with their first NCAA title, bringing home the first NCAA titel in a women’s sport for the Big Ten Conference.
11/19/1984
Derartu Tulu and Elana Meyer take victory lap to unite Africa
Derartu Tulu of Ethiopia wins the 10,000 meters at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics in a spirited battle with Elana Meyer of South Africa, becoming the first Black African woman to win a gold medal. Tulu and Meyer, who is white, share a hand-in-hand victory lap after the race that many saw as a symbol of hope for a new Africa as apartheid in South Africa was gradually coming to an end. Tulu also won the 10,000m in 2000 at the Sydney Olympics and won the event at the 2001 World Athletics Championships in Edmonton, Alberta, after having a daughter in 1998. After finishing third in the 10,000m at the 2004 Olympics, Tulu won the 2009 New York City Marathon at the age of 37. Tulu has been the president of the Ethiopian Athletics Federation since November 2018.
08/07/1992
Kipketer goes from Kenya to Denmark
Born in Kenya, Wilson Kipketer came to Denmark as a foreign exchange student, then applied for and was granted Danish citizenship. Kipketer won the first of his three consecutive World Athletics Championships in the men’s 800 meters in 1995 in Gothenburg, Sweden. Kipketer broke the world record twice in a 12-day span in August 1997, and his time of 1 minute, 41.11 seconds stood until it was broken in 2010. After retiring from running, Kipketer later worked for Champions for Peace, a group of famous elite athletes committed to serving peace in the world through sport.
08/08/1995
Cathy Freeman first Indigenous Australian to win Olympic Gold
Freeman is the first Indigenous Australian to win an Olympic gold medal when she sped to victory in the 400-meter dash at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Freeman also lit the flame at the opening ceremonies of the Sydney Olympics. She earlier won the 400m at the 1997 and 1999 World Athletics Championships, and was the silver medalist at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. After retiring from competition, Freeman created a foundation to support Indigenous students and was also an ambassador for the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation.
09/25/2000
Bryan Clay represents Hawaii, wins Olympic gold
Bryan Clay, who has a Japanese mother and a Black father, is considered the best track and field athlete from the state of Hawaii. He captured the silver medal in the decathlon at the 2004 Athens Olympics before winning the decathlon at the 2005 World Athletics Championships. He wins gold in the event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, joining an extensive line of American decathlete greats to achieve that feet. He later starts the Bryan Clay Foundation to support students in need and provide opportunities they otherwise would not have.
08/21/2008
Sarah Attar opens doors for women athletes in Saudi Arabia
Sarah Attar is the first woman to represent Saudi Arabia in the Olympics when she runs in the heats of the 800 meters at the 2012 London Olympics. Attar was born and raised in the United States but competes for Saudi Arabia as she holds dual citizenship. Attar’s participation prompts Saudi Arabia to create a new women’s division of its national sports federation. Attar also ran the marathon in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016. That year, four women athletes, including two track athletes, compete for Saudi Arabia at the Olympics. Qatar and Brunei also send female athletes to the Olympics for the first time in 2012.
08/08/2012
Poverty doesn’t slow down Amos
Nijel Amos shocked almost everyone when, as an 18-year-old at the 2012 London Olympics, he ran 1:41.73 in the 800 meters to win a silver medal behind Kenya’s David Rudisha, who set the still-standing world record of 1:40.91. Only Rudisha and former world record-holder Wilson Kipketer have run faster than Amos, who was raised in poverty in Botswana, orphaned, and then taken care of by his grandmother, whom he credits for this success. Amos, who trains with the Oregon Track Club Elite in Eugene, Oregon, will be among the favorites in the 800m at the 2022 World Athletics Championships.
08/09/2012
Yulimar Rojas, staunch LGBTQ+ advocate, dominates the triple jump
Venezuelan LGBTQ athlete Yulimar Rojas has won the women’s triple jump at every major global championship since finishing second in the event at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, and she is unbeaten in the event overall since September 2019. She won gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and broke her own indoor world record at the 2022 World Athletics Championships with a leap of 15.74m (51 feet, 7 ¾ inches). Rojas won at the outdoor 2017 and 2019 World Athletics Championships. She also is the indoor 2016, 2018 and 2022 World Athletics Championships gold medalist.
08/07/2017
Chand inspires LGBTQ+ community in India
Dutee Chand is India’s national women’s record holder in 100 meters and 4×100 relay. She came out in 2019 as India’s first openly gay athlete after the country’s Supreme Court decriminalized homosexuality. Chand competed at the 2017 and 2019 World Athletics Championships, and the 2016 and 2020 Olympics. Chand’s sexuality was a controversial topic among her family, and her sister threatened to out her before Chand publicly announced her sexual orientation. Chand is seen as a role model and hero by many in the gay community in India.
01/01/2019
Gold medalist Kerron Clement comes out
Kerron Clement, a Trinidadian-born American track & field athlete who competes in the 400-meter and 400-meter hurdles, won two Olympic gold medals and five world championships during his career and held an indoor world record in the 400m for nearly 13 years. In 2019, at age 33, Clement announces he is gay at a Nike event in Los Angeles and is considered the first U.S. men’s track star to come out while actively competing. “I was hiding that part because of what society thought,” he said, according to Outsports. “But it’s OK to be that way… Love is love. I have an attraction to men. It’s who I am and it’s what made me become the athlete I am today.”
10/11/2019
Saunders wins Silver Medal, protests oppression and racism on Olympic podium
American shot putter Raven Saunders wins a Silver Medal at the Tokyo Olympics and crosses her arms into an X shape on the medal stand to represent “the intersection of where all people who are oppressed meet.” The Black LGBTQ athlete, then 25, has spoken openly about her struggles with mental health, and says she aims to give light to “people all around the world who are fighting and don’t have the platform to speak up for themselves.” Saunders demonstrates on the podium despite the International Olympic Committee (IOC) rule prohibiting athletes from making such symbolic gestures on the medal podium. Prior to the start of the Tokyo Games, the IOC relaxes its Rule 50, which had banned all such demonstrations throughout the Olympics, allowing athletes to express their views on the field of play before the start of competition but still outlaws demonstrations during medal ceremonies. The IOC chooses not to discipline Saunders for her “X” gesture after her mother passes away days after the event.
08/01/2021