Nadia Elena Comăneci was born in Onești, Romania. She was an active child, and while in kindergarten, her mother enrolled her in the local gymnastic team. At 6, the gymnastic coach Béla Károlyi identified her potential, and she became one of the first students at his and his wife’s experimental gymnastics school. At 9, she began competing with her hometown team and became the youngest gymnast to win the Romanian Nationals. The following year, in her first international competition, she won her first all-around title and gold for her team. Over the next few years, she won gold medals in several national and international competitions, including the European all-around title and a score of 10 at the American Cup. At 14, at the 1976 summer Olympics in Montreal, Comăneci made history when she was awarded the first perfect score of 10 in Olympic gymnastics for her routine on the uneven bars. In the remainder of the Olympic games, she received six more 10 and earned gold medals for the individual all-around, the balance beam, and uneven bars routines; she won a bronze medal for her floor exercises and a silver medal with her team. The following year, she won the European all-around title again. Afterward, the Romanian Gymnastics Federation separated her from her long-time coaches, the Károlyis, and sent her to train in Bucharest’s sports complex. This change, combined with the physical and psychological struggles of puberty, affected her performance and mental health, and she tried to commit suicide. After Comăneci finished fourth place at the 1978 World Championships, she was allowed to reunite with her coaches. Under their guidance, her health and performance improved, and in 1979, she made history by winning her third consecutive European all-around title. Later that year, just before the World Championships, she was hospitalized for blood poisoning. She left the hospital against the doctor’s order to compete in the tournament. She won a score of 9.95 for her beam routine and helped her national team receive its first gold. Afterward, she returned to the hospital for a surgical procedure. In the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, 19 years old Comăneci won two gold medals for her floor and beam exercises and two silver medals for the individual all-around and the team all-around. In 1981, the Gymnastics Federation organized a tour throughout the US titled Nadia ’81. On the last day of the tour, her coaches, Béla and Márta Károlyi, defected and sought asylum in the US. They offered Comăneci to join them, but she chose to return home to Romania. On her return, the Romanian officials, who feared that she would defect, began to monitor her, preventing her from leaving the country, with only a few exceptions, like the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, where she served as an observer. That same year, she officially retired from competitive gymnastics. On November 27, 1989, Comăneci defected Romania. She crossed the Hungary–Romania border and traveled to Austria, where she took a plane to the US. In 1991, she settled in Oklahoma, where she helped her then-friend and later husband, the fellow gymnast Bart Conner, to establish the Bart Conner Gymnastics Academy. She remains involved with the gymnastics world, serving in various positions, such as the honorary president of the Romanian Gymnastics Federation, the sports ambassador of Romania, the honorary president of the Romanian Olympic Committee, and a member of the International Gymnastics Federation Foundation. With her husband, she manages their Gymnastics Academy, founded a production company named Perfect 10, runs several sports equipment shops, and serves as editor of the International Gymnast Magazine. Comăneci is also a philanthropist, raising contributions for several charities, and funded the construction and operation of the Nadia Comăneci Children’s Clinic in Bucharest. Read more...

Debra Janine Thomas was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, and grew up in San Jose, California. She began skating at the age of five, and at the age of nine, she participated in her first competition, winning first place. It encouraged her to enter competitive skating and take formal lessons. She signed on with coach Alex McGowan, who trained until her retirement. As a black girl in a white-dominated sport, Thomas often encountered discrimination, and judges favored the white contestants and gave better scores to her less-skilled competitors. That has not prevented her from skating, and at the age of 12, she won the silver medal at the national novice finals. Her career took off four years later when she was selected as the Los Angeles Figure Skating Club’s representative. While most professional athletes do not attend college or take a gap year, Thomas continued her training and began her academic education as an engineering student at Stanford University. In her freshman year, 18 years old Thomas won the US national title, becoming the first black skater to hold a national title in ladies’ singles figure skating. This year, she also won first place at the World Championships. In recognition of her achievements, she received the ABC’s Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year award of 1986. Despite suffering an Achilles tendinitis in both of her ankles, Thomas reached second place in the 1987 US Nationals and reclaimed her champion title the following year. At 21, Thomas competed in the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada, winning the bronze medal and making history as the first black athlete medalist at this competition. After the Olympics, she added another World Championship to her record before retiring from amateur skating to focus on her studies. She continued to skate as a performer for Stars on Ice and won the World Professional Championships three times. In 1991, at 24, after receiving her bachelor’s degree, she retired from skating to further her education at Northwestern University Medical School. Afterward, she specialized in orthopedic surgery and completed her residency at Charles R. Drew University. After a one-year fellowship at Centinela Hospital’s Dorr Arthritis Institute in Inglewood, Thomas worked at Carle Clinic in Urbana, Illinois, and in 2010 she opened her own practice in Richlands, Virginia. In 2012, she had a psychiatric attack and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Then, her private practice failed, she got divorced, lost custody of her son, and declared bankruptcy. She had to close her practice and sell her Olympic medal to cover some of her debt. In recent years she has been living with her partner in Virginia. In her short six years as a competitive figure skater, Thomas has changed the face of the sport by breaking stereotypes and promoting racial equality. Read more...

Florence Delorez Griffith Joyner was born in Los Angeles, California. When she was 4 years old, her parents divorced, and she moved with her mother and 10 siblings to a public housing project in the Watts section of the city. At the age of 7, Griffith joined the Sugar Ray Robinson Organization, soon participating in track and field competitions. At the age of 14, she won the Jesse Owens National Youth Games, repeating her success in the following year. Griffith attended Jordan High School, running for its track team, graduating after setting new school records in 100 and 220-yard sprints. During this time, she expressed her fashion sense with her handmade clothes and decorative fingernail, which later became her trademark. After high school, Griffith studied business at the California State University (CSU) at Northridge. She left after a year to work at a bank to support her family, not before helping the CSU track team win the national championship. Two years later, at the age of 21, she enrolled at the University of California at Los Angeles after her former coach found her financial aid. In this same year, she was qualified for the 100-meter trials for the 1980 Summer Olympics, though the US Government boycotted those Olympic Games. Griffith continued to compete for her school, graduating in 1983 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. At 25, Griffith got qualified for the 200-meter distance at the 1984 Summer Olympics, in which she won the silver medal. At the games, she attracted the attention of the spectators for her bold spandex racing suits. After the games, Griffith continues to run and compete part-time while working at a bank. In 1987, at the age of 28, she married the Olympic triple jump Al Joyner. At the time, she returned to practice professionally toward the 1987 World Championships in Rome, where she finished second in the 200-meter sprint and ranked second in that year’s Track and Field News world rankings. Though Griffith’s strength was in the 200-meter sprint, she decided to work on her 100-meter abilities. She worked with her coach and her husband, and when she came to the US Olympic Trials, she set a new 100-meters record with a 10.49 seconds’ sprint. At the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, Griffith won three gold medals – in the 4×100 meter, the 100-meter, and in the 200-meter, in which she broke the world record with 21.34 seconds – a record that still stands. She also won a silver medal with her teammates at the 4×400-meter relay. Griffith’s fashion choices were the center of discussion, especially her six-inch nails painted red, white, blue, and gold. Following her Olympic success, Griffith signed numerous endorsement deals, mainly in Japan. She also received many accolades, such as Female Athlete of the Year by The Associated Press and Athlete of the Year by Track and Field magazine. In 1989, at the age of 30, Griffith announced her retirement. In the following years, she established a foundation for underprivileged children, and in 1993 she served as co-chair of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness. In 1996, after five years off the track, Griffith decided to set a new world record at the 400-meter sprint in the hope of becoming a triple-world-record holder. She began to train toward the 1996 Summer Olympics but had to withdraw because of an Achilles tendon. Two years later, Griffith had died of suffocation during an epileptic seizure. She was 38 years old. Read more...

Alice Coachman was born in Albany, Georgia. While in elementary school, her teacher and aunt noticed her athletic skills and encouraged her to practice sports despite her parents’ objections. As a girl in the segregated south, Coachman had no access to athletic training facilities or the opportunity to compete in organized sports events (due to color and gender). Determine to develop her natural talent, Coachman used everything available to her – running with no shoes in fields and dirt roads and making high jump crossbars out of rope and sticks. During high school, Coachman caught the attention of the boys’ track coach, who took her under his wings and coached her. Within a year, she was spotted by a recruiter from Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, and at 15, she got a scholarship. Her unusual jumping style, combined western roll, and straight jumping techniques helped her win the national championships in the next nine years. In 1939, at the age of 16, she started her scholarship at the Tuskegee Preparatory School, which in addition to studying and practicing, required mending uniforms and cleaning the school’s sports facilities. During this period, she won high jumps companions and national championships in the 50-meter dash, 100-meter dash, and the 400-meter relay team. She also won three conference championships as a guard on the women’s basketball team. At 23, Coachman received her degree in dressmaking and continued her education at Albany State College, where she studied Home Economics and science. In her late teens and early 20s, the years that were supposed to be the pick of her career, the Olympic Games were canceled because of WW2. Her first global stage appearance was made possible at the 1948 Olympic Games in London. On her Olympic tryouts, Coachman qualified to the US team with a high jump of 5 feet 4 inches, breaking the previous record by ¾ inch. At the Olympics high jump finals, she reached first place with a leap of 5 feet and 6⅛ inches on her first try, becoming the first black woman to win the gold medal and the only American woman to win a gold medal at the 1948 Games. On her return to the US, Coachman became a celebrity, she met President Truman and former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and various parades were held in her honor. Following the Olympic Games, 24 years old Coachman retired from her athlete career, with 34 national titles under her belt. She finished her degree at Albany State College and became a teacher and track-and-field instructor. In 1952, at the age of 29, she made history again when she signed as Coca-Cola Company’s spokesperson, becoming the first African-American woman to endorse an international product. In 1994, at 71, she established the Alice Coachman Track and Field Foundation. This non-profit organization supports young athletes in starting their careers and helps Olympic veterans adjust to life after retainment. Coachman died at the age of 90 of cardiac arrest. Read more...

Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir’s story is told in the Saga of Erik the Red and the Saga of the Greenlanders, the 13th-century Icelandic chronicles, known collectively as the Vinland Sagas. As the story goes, Gudrid was born in the late 9th century in Snæfellsnes, Iceland, to an early Christian family when paganism was the norm. As a child, she grew up with friends of her father, a traditional custom of the period. At 15, her father declined a marriage proposal she received since the guy’s father was a slave. Instead, she joined her father on a voyaged to Greenland to join the new Viking settlement of Erik the Red – the first settler in Greenland. On her arrival to Greenland, Gudrid married a Norwegian man named Thorir, but he died the following winter during a famine that hit the colony. Then, she married Thorstein Eiriksson, the son of Erik the Red and the younger brother of Leif Erikson, the first European man to set foot in the Americas. Gudrid joined her new husband on his quest to retrieve the body of his brother Thorvald from Vinland, the Viking settlement in the coastal area of North America (Canada of today). Before sailing west, they decided to spend the winter in Lysufjord, Norway, where Thorstein died during a plague that struck the area. The legend tells that her dead husband’s ghost appeared to her, telling her that she was destined for greatness and that a church would be built at her farm in Iceland. At 17 years old and twice widowed, Gudrid returned to the settlement in Greenland. There she married a man named Thorfinn Karlsefni. She urged her new husband to travel to Vinland, and the couple joined an expedition that included sixty men, five women, and a selection of livestock. The new settlers arrived safely in North America, reaching the New World 500 years before Columbus. Gudrid and her husband lived in Vinland for three years, leaving because of hostile encounters with the indigenous peoples. During this time, Gudrid gave birth to her son Snorri Thorfinnsson, who became the first European born in the Western Hemisphere. On their return to Iceland, Gudrid and her family settled on a farm called Glaumbær, where Gudrid had another child. In her 40s-50s, Gudrid embarked on another voyage, this time a foot pilgrimage to Rome, returning as a nun. She lived the rest of her life reclused at a church. Throughout her life, Gudrid crossed the North Atlantic Sea eight times, traveling farther than any other Viking. Read more...

Junko Tabei was born in Miharu, Japan, the fifth of seven children. Living in the countryside during WW2, they suffered from poverty, and due to lack of proper nutrition, she, like many other Japanese children of her generation, grew up frail and small. At the age of 10, she discovered the wonders of mountain climbing on a class trip to Mount Nasu. She wanted to develop the hobby, but her family could not afford it. In 1958, at the age of 19, she attended Showa Women’s University, where she studied English and American literature, intended to become a teacher. On weekends, she climbed the mountains in the area, which rekindled her dream to be a mountaineer. After graduation, she worked as an editor at the Journal of the Physical Society of Japan and joined various men’s climbing clubs. Soon she climbed all the tallest mountains in Japan. At 27, she married Masanobu Tabei, a mountaineer she had met while climbing. At the time, climbing was a male-dominated sport, especially in Japan, where women were expected to stay in the domestic sphere. Tabei, who often was the only woman on the climbing trips, encountered many forms of sexism. Sometimes men refused to climb with her, while others suspected her motives for climbing. She decided to create a safe space, and in 1969, at the age of 30, she founded the Women’s Mountaineering Club (Joshi-Tohan Club) under the slogan “Let’s go on an overseas expedition by ourselves.” It was the first all-women climbing club in Japan. The club had its first expedition to Annapurna III in Nepal the following year. As not all members were able to reach the peak, two were selected to complete the mission. When Tabei and her fellow mountaineer, Hiroko Hirakawa, reached the top, they became the first two women and first-ever Japanese to ascent the mountain. On their return, the club set their next goal – Mount Everest. They assembled a team of 15 women that became known as the Japanese Women’s Everest Expedition. After receiving the permit to climb the mountain, they had to wait four years for their scheduled date. Meanwhile, they fundraised for the expedition, being denied many times because of their gender. Eventually, they secured a small amount of funding, and each of the team members had to pay 1.5 million yen ($5,000). To cut expenses, Tabei made a lot of the equipment by herself, sewing trousers from curtains and gloves from the cover of her car. In the spring of 1975, at 36 and having two children at home, Tabei, alongside her teammates, began her journey to Everest. Overnight at the 9,000 feet Camp II, an avalanche hit their location. She and four other climbers got buried under the snow. Their Sherpa guides rescued them. For two days, she could not walk, but once recovered, she had resumed the expedition. Initially, the team planned to send two teammates to the final climb, but because of the lack of oxygen bottles, only one could complete the mission, and Tabei was that one. On 16 May 1975, Tabei, accompanied by a Sherpa guide, reached the top of the mountain, becoming the first woman to climb to the summit of Everest. On her return to Japan, Tabei was welcomed by both media and the public. Thousands of people waited for her at the Tokyo airport, receiving recognition from the Japanese government and the King of Nepal. Afterward, she continued her mountaineering pursuits, financing her expeditions by giving speeches, guiding mountain-climbing tours, and teaching children music and English. By 1992, 53 years old Tabei climbed the highest mountain on each continent and became the first woman to ascend the Seven Summits– Kilimanjaro, Mt. Aconcagua, Denali, Mt. Elbrus, Mount Vinson, and Puncak Jaya. She also continued to lead all-female mountaineering expeditions around the world. In 2000, at the age of 61, she completed her postgraduate studies at Kyushu University and became an environmental activist. She focused on the ecological damage in Mt. Everest by climbers’ waste. She led clean-up climbs in Japan and the Himalayas and served as the director of the Himalayan Adventure Trust of Japan – an organization dedicated to preserving mountain environments. In 2012, Tabei was diagnosed with stomach cancer, but she continued to climb as long as her body enabled her. She died at the age of 77. Read more...

Simone Ashley Manuel was born and raised in Texas. Both of her parents were student-athletes, as well as her two big brothers. Growing up in an athletic family, Manuel was introduced to different sports from an early age, having her first swimming lesson at 4. A quick learner with a natural talent for swimming, Manuel was advanced to her age and trainקג with older children. At 11, she joined the First Colony Swim Team in Houston and became the top-ranked swimmer in her age group in both 50-meter and 100-meter freestyle events. At 12, after already winning several competitions, Manuel felt ignored at practices and that she was treated differently because of her skin color and almost quit swimming. In 2011, at the age of 15, Manuel made her international debut in the FINA World Junior Championships, finishing fourth in the 100-meter freestyle. In the next couple of years, she competed and won in various national and international events, including the Junior Pan Pacific Swimming Championships and the World Aquatics Championships in Barcelona, Spain. There, she won the gold medal while breaking the American junior swimmer record of the 25-second barrier in the 50-meter freestyle. In 2014, Simone graduated high school and enrolled at Stanford University, studying communications. She joined the Stanford Cardinal women’s swimming team and broke the team’s record in the 50, 100, and 200-yard freestyle. In the following year, when she is 19 years old, Simone became a two-time American and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) champion, winning the 50- and 100-yard freestyle and setting a new record in the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 46.09. At the age of 20, Manuel competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, winning four medals – gold in the 100-meter freestyle, gold in the 4×100-meter medley, silver in the 50-meter freestyle, and silver in the 4×100-meter freestyle relay, becoming the first African-American woman to win an individual gold in Olympic swimming. In 2018, Manuel graduated college and signed with the swimsuit manufacturer TYR Sport Inc. In the following year, she made history when she swept the 50 and 100 freestyles at the world swimming championships while breaking the American record in the 100 with a time of 52.04 seconds. Read more...

Sheila Crump was born in Pennsylvania and grew up in Illinois. She found her love for music at an early age, becoming an accomplished violinist by 9. In 1970, at the age of 21, she received her B.A. in music performance and education from the University of Illinois and moved to Washington, DC, with her first husband, Robert Johnson. There, she worked as a violin instructor at a private school and gave private violin lessons to supplement her income. Within four years, her private lessens business grew, and when she had 100 students, she left her position at school and founded a youth orchestra called Young Strings in Action, which performed both in the US and abroad. In 1980, Johnson and her husband founded Black Entertainment Television (BET), a cable network that approached African American viewers. She closed her music business and became the network’s community relations manager and the producer of teenagers’ talk shows. By the late 1990s, BET took a raunchy direction, and Johnson became concerned about its sexually explicit content and how it portrays and influences young women. In 1999, she began to pursue other business opportunities and sold BET to Viacom for an overall sum of $3 billion, making her, at the age of 53, the first black woman billionaire in the US. In 2005, Johnson married William T. Newman, Jr., divorcing her first husband three years earlier. She purchased a 350-acre estate in Middleburg, Virginia, and built the Salamander Inn & Spa, founding Salamander Hospitality LLC, a hotel resort and spa management firm. During this period, Johnson became the majority owner of the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, serving as its President and Managing Partner. A woman of varied interests, Johnson is also involved in the film industry. Since 2008, she has produced numerous films, all with humanitarian messages – Kicking It, A Powerful Noise, She Is the Matador, The Other City, and the critically acclaimed film The Butler. Throughout the years, Johnson spent much of her time and fortune on philanthropic work. She donated money to various institutes, including the United Negro College Fund, Howard University, and the Parsons School of Design. She founded the Sheila Crump Johnson Institute at the State University of New York to support the college community diversity and co-founded the WE Capital consortium to aid female-led enterprises. Johnson sits on the boards of many organizations; among them are the Americans for the Arts, the University of Illinois Foundation, the Curry School of Education, VH1’s Save the Music Foundation, and the Greater Washington Partnership. Read more...

Caitlyn Marie Jenner was born William Bruce Jenner in Mount Kisco, New York. As an undiagnosed dyslectic boy, Jenner struggled at school but found an outlet in sports. After high school’s sophomore year, Jenner’s family moved to Newtown, Connecticut, where he began his athletic career, playing basketball and gridiron football and practicing waterskiing independently, winning the East Coast all-over champion three times. After graduating, Jenner earned a football scholarship at Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa, and studied physical education. A few months into freshman year, Jenner had a knee injury and was forced to stop playing football. His coach recognized his talent and encouraged him to switch to track. In 1970, at the age of 21, Jenner debuted as a decathlete, reaching 5th place in the Drake Relays decathlon. Less than two years later, he participated in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, West Germany, finishing in 10th place. In the next Olympics in Montreal, Canada, 27 years old Jenner won the gold medal in the decathlon and set a new world record with a score of 8,634 points. Following his Olympic success, Jenner became a television sports commentator and a spokesperson for Wheaties breakfast cereal. In the next few decades, he made television commercials, starred in several television programs, published numerous books, became a motivational speaker, and headed the aircraft company Bruce Jenner Aviation. In 2007, Jenner’s fame renewed when he starred on the reality show Keeping Up with the Kardashians alongside his (then) wife Kris Kardashian and their children. In 2015, at the age of 66, Jenner revealed that she identifies herself as a woman and adopts the name Caitlyn Marie Jenner. Her transition was documented in the reality series I Am Cait. Her coming out as a trans woman and her public gender reassignment process became a cultural milestone, breaking many stereotypes and prejudices for American people. Jenner became a transgender rights activist advocating for transgender rights. Read more...

Wilma Rudolph was born and raised in Tennessee. She was born prematurely, and as an infant, she suffered from several illnesses, including scarlet fever, pneumonia, and polio that made her temporarily paralyzed at the age of five. During her early years, Rudolph was homeschooled, spending most of her efforts strengthening her leg. She had to wear a leg brace and travel to Nashville for treatments every week. By the age of 12, she overcame her disability and was able to walk without any leg support. One of Rudolph’s ways to restore her leg strength was playing basketball with her brother. She fell in love with the game, and in high school, she was a starter on the girls’ basketball team, breaking the school’s record in her sophomore year. Her athletics abilities caught the attention of Tennessee State University’s track and field coach. At the age of 14, Rudolph participated in a summer training program at the university and began competing on the collegiate level. In 1956, at the age of 16, she qualified to compete at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, where she won a bronze medal in the 4×100 relay race. At 18, during her senior year of high school, Rudolph became pregnant and had her first child, but this did not prevent her from attending college and continuing competing. She enrolled at Tennessee State University on a full scholarship, studying Education. She won one race after another, earning numerous gold medals and setting a world record in the 200-meter dash. In the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy, she competed in three events (100-meter sprint, 200-meter sprint, and 4 × 100-meter relays), winning first place in all of them and breaking two world records. Rudolph, who became the first American woman to win three gold medals in a single Olympics, became known as “the fastest woman in the world.” Following her return to the US, she got invited to compete in various games, including the Drake Relays, the Penn Relays, the New York Athletic Club track events, and the Millrose Games – the first woman to participate. She also won the 100-meter and 4 x 100-meter-relay races at the US-Soviet meet of 1962. When she was only 22 years old, she retired from track competition. She married her high school sweetheart and the father of her child and returned to the university to finish her degree and began to work as a second-grade teacher. Rudolph continued to be involved in sports, coaching track at the same high school she had attended, and promoting women in sports throughout the country. She worked with nonprofit organizations that supported children’s athletic development and became a goodwill ambassador for the US State Department. In 1981, Rudolph founded the Wilma Rudolph Foundation for training youth athletes, and in 1987 she became the director of the women’s track program at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, also serving as the consultant on minority affairs for the president of the university. In July of 1994, Rudolph was diagnosed with brain and throat cancer. She died five months later at the age of 54. Read more...