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Jackie Joyner-Kersee's silver medal in the heptathlon at the 1984
Olympic Games had been somewhat devalued by the absence of the highly
ranked East German and Soviet athletes due to the Olympic boycott by the
eastern bloc countries. However, Jackie continued to improve her
ranking against the rest of the world and her 6718 points total achieved
in July 1985 was the world's best that year advancing her to 6th on the
all-time world list. She also moved to 5th on the all-time world list
in the long jump that year with a leap of 7.24m at Zurich. In 1986,
Joyner-Kersee caught up with, and moved well past, the rest of the
world's heptathletes, setting a new standard for the event. At the
Goodwill Games in Moscow on 6-7 July, she broke the world record by over
200 points, amassing a total of 7148 points and in the process became
the first heptathlete to better 7000 points.
A month later at Houston,
she improved the world record again, with a score of 7158 points. She
continued this dominance in the event in early 1987 and became an
overwhelming favourite to win the World Championships in Rome later that
year. She absolutely blitzed her opposition in Rome, winning with a
score of 7128 points and so dominating the competition that she produced
the best performances in four of the seven events. Including the 200m (see photo above) in a time of 22.95sec.
Her long jump performances had also been steadily improving and three
weeks before Rome, she equalled the 7.45m world record held by Heike
Drechsler (East Germany). At the World Championships in Rome, the
expected clash of the two co-world record holders was spoiled by injury
to Drechsler's left knee and Joyner-Kersee easily won her second title
with a leap of 7.36m. (Ron Casey)
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