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History of Women in Sports Timeline
Part 5 - 1980-1989
“All I can say is practice, you never know what you might do.”
- Mexico’s Soraya Jimenez, who won her nation’s
first Olympic women’s weightlifting gold medal at Sydney in 2000.
- 1980 - Mary Decker becomes the first woman to run a mile in under 4 and a half minutes in Philadelphia on Jan. 25. She is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for track.
- 1980 - Eleanor Conn and her husband Sidney are the first to fly a hot air balloon over the North Pole.
- 1980 - A total of 233 women compete in the Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid - just 21 had competed there in 1932.
- 1980 - Field hockey becomes a medal sport for women in the Olympics. The Zimbabwe women's field hockey team went undefeated to win the Olympic gold medal.
- 1980 - Grete Waitz beats her own time in the New York City Marathon with her third win in three years in a time of 2:25:41.
- 1980 - The Women's Sports Foundation establishes the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame.
- 1980 - Shirley Muldowney becomes the first driver to win two National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) points titles.
- 1980 - Althea Gibson is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.
- 1980 - Julie Krone, who will be come the winningest female jockey, gets her first professional ride on Jan. 30 at the Tampa Bay Downs racetrack - she wins the race.
- 1980 - Sally Little wins the LPGA Championship by 3 strokes over Jane Blalock.
- 1981 - Lynette Woodard, (Kansas 1977-81), who scored the most career points in the history of women's college basketball, earns her fourth Kodak All-America honors and wins the Wade Trophy, which honors the country's most outstanding player of the year.
- 1981 - Betty Ellis becomes the first woman to officiate at a professional soccer match.
- 1981 - Mary Meagher sets a new world record in the 100-meter butterfly with a mark of 57.93 at Brown Deer, WI, on August 16.
- 1981 - Sheila Young wins the World Cycling Championships.
- 1982 - Lorri Bauman of the Drake Bulldogs scores 50 points in a West Regional game won by Maryland Terrapins, 89-78, the most points ever scored in an NCAA women’s tournament game. Bauman scored 3,115 points in her career at Drake, second on the NCAA’s career list behind Mississippi Valley’s Patricia Hoskins with 3,122 points.
- 1982 - Shirley Muldowney wins the Top Fuel Winston World Chamiponship in drag racing for the third time. Her story is portrayed in the movie, Heart Like a Wheel. 1982 - She is the first driver to win three National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) points titles - the only person -- male or female -- to accomplish hat trick.
- 1982 - Erica Terwillegar, 19, wins a sliver medal in the international junior luge event, the first American to win a medal in world competition.
- 1982 - Kathy Whitworth, with 88 career victories - more than any other American, male or female, in professional golf history - is inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.
- 1982 - Grete Waitz of Norway again wins the New York City Marathon (her 4th win in 5 years). She would wins again in 1883, ‘84 and ‘85, and win a total of 9 out of 11 races.
- 1982 - East German Katarina Witt wins the first of six consecutive European figure skating championships.
- 1982 - The first NCAA college basketball championship for women is held using a 32 team field, with Louisianna Tech defeating Cheyney State 76-62.
- 1982 - Runner Mary Decker becomes the first woman to win the Jesse Owens Award, which is presented annually to the best US track and field athlete. She is the fastest woman at every distance between 800 and 10,000 meters.
- 1982 - Mary Decker is the Women’s Sports Foundation’s Amateur Sportswoman of the Year.
- 1982 - The NCAA adds nine women's national collegiate championships during the 1981-82 school year. Lacrosse is one of the original sports. Massachusetts wins the championship over Trenton State, 9 to 6.
- 1982 - Cheryl Miller scores 105 points in a basketball game for Riverside, CA Polytechnic High School.
- 1982 - The Supreme Court rules that Title IX coveres coaches and other employees as well as students.
- 1982 - Canadian athlete Debbie Brill proves that pregnancy and motherhood do not end a woman's athletic career. She sets a new indoor world broad jump record of 6'6-3/8" when her son is only five months old.
- 1983 - The National Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women is dissolved when women's sports come under the NCAA. The long-term effect of this will reduce the number of women coaches and adminsitrators.
- 1983 - Patty Sheehan wins the LPGA championship by two strokes over Sandra Haynie.
- 1983 - At the first-ever World Track and Field Championships in Helsinki, Mary Decker has gold-medal finishes in both the 1,500 and 3,000-meter races.
- 1983 - More than 600 women enter the first all-female triathalon (swim-bike-run) in California.
- 1983 - Grete Waitz wins the inaugural world marathon championships in Helsinki, beating a field of the world’s best female marathon runners.
- 1983 - Jan Stephanson beats JoAnne Carter and Patty Sheehan by one stroke to win the US Women's Open.
- 1983 - Mary Decker wins her third Women's Sports Foundation Sportswoman of the Year Award (she is also named in 1980 and 1982). She also becomes the sixth woman to win AAU's James E. Sullivan Memorial Award.
- 1983 - Tamara McKinney becomes the first American female skier to win the over-all World Cup championship.
- 1983 - Martina Navratilova is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for tennis; she repeats in 1986.
- 1983-84 - Martina Navratilova becomes the third grand slam winner in tennis, under the new regulations.
- 1984 - The US Supreme Court weakens Title IX in Grove City College vs. Bell effectively dening the application of Title IX to non-federally funded sub-units of educational institutions such as college departments of physical education and athletics.
- 1984 - Billie Jean King makes history again, becoming the commissioner of World Team Tennis, the first woman head of a professional athletic league.
- 1984 - Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to walk in space.
- 1984 - The first Tour de France for women is held in cycling in July over a distance of 616 miles. Marianne Martin of the US wins with an elasped time of 29:39:2. Countrywoman Deborah Shumway comes in third behind the second-place Helen Hage of the Netherlands.
- 1984 - Georgeann Wells-Blackwell, a 6-7 center from Columbus, Ohio, (she will be a 1986 graduate of West Virginia) is the first woman to dunk a basketball in a collegiate game (vs. Charleston on Dec. 21.)
- 1984 - Dorothy Hamill wins the first of four straight World Professional Figure Skating championships.
- 1984 - Joan Benoit of the US wins the first women's Olympic marathon. Women's cycling, synchronized swimming, and rhythmic gymnastics are added to the Olympic calendar. Mary Lou Retton, 16, wins the first-ever all-around title for the US in women's gymnastics. Connie Carpenter-Phinney wins a gold medal in cycling in the women's road race covering 79.2 kilometers
- 1984 - Three separate women's shooting events are added at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles: women's air rifle, women's three-position rifle, and sport pistol. Pat Spurgin becomes the first markswoman in history to capture a gold (air rifle). Ruby Fox (pistol) and Wanda Jewell (rifle) also win medals for the U.S. in 1984.
- 1984 - 1.8 million girls participate in high school sports.
- 1984 - Kelly McCormick earns an Olympic swimming silver medal, followed by a bronze in 1988. She is the daughter of Olympic medalist Pat McCormick; they are the only mother-daughter medal winning combination in the history of the Olympics.
- 1984 - Nawal El Moutawakel captures the gold in the 400-meter hurdles at the Los Angeles Olympic Games. She becomes the first woman from an Islamic nation to win an Olympic medal and the first Moroccan of either sex to win the gold.
- 1984 - Stacy Chanin swims three laps around Manhattan Island - 83 miles in 33:29 hours.
- 1984 - Victoria Roche becomes the first girl to play in the Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA.
- 1984 - Senda Berenson Abbott, Bertha Teague and Margaret Wade become the first women to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
- 1984 - Dr. Kathyrn Sullivan becomes the first American woman to "walk" in space on Oct. 11.
- 1984 - Lyn Lemaire founds Ultrasport magazine.
- 1984 - Camille Duvall, the "Golden Goddess, " wins the first of five consecutive pro world slalom waterskiing championships. During these years, Duvall held more titles in slalom than all her female competitors combined. She became the first female waterskier to earn $100,000 in prize money and endorsements in a single year.
- 1984 - The US women's softball squad wins the championship in the first Women's International Cup played in Los Angeles, beating China, 1-0.
- 1984 - The first New York Triathalon is held in August, with Jann Girard of Austin, TX winning.
- 1984 - Vera Komarkova laeds an expedition to Cho Oyu in Tibet, the world's sixth hightest mountain. She and her partner are the first women to reach the summit.
- 1984 - Mary Lou Retton is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for gymnastics. She appears on the cover of Sports Illustrated and earns SI co-Sportsman of the Year honors.
- 1984 - Connie Carpenter wins the first women's cycling event in Olympic history at the Los Angeles Games. She is the first US woman to compete in both the Winter and Summer Olympics, having competed at the 1972 Sapporo Games in 1,500 meter speedskating event. She retired after the Games with 12 national cycling titles and four world championships medals.
- 1985 - Libby Riddles becomes the first woman to win the Iditarod on March 20th, five hours ahead of her nearest competitor.
- 1985 - Patricia Cooksey becomes the first (of two) women jockeys mounted in the Preakness at Pimlico Race Course in Maryland.
- 1985 - Old Dominion beats Georgia 70-65 for the women's NCAA basketball crown.
- 1985 - Lynette Woodward (a member of the gold-medal winning Olympic basketball team in 1984) and Jackie White become the first women to play for the Harlem Globetrotters. Woodard will spend two seasons travelling with the Globetrotters before playing in Italy (1987-89) and Japan (1990-93).
- 1985 - Nancy Lopez is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for golf.
- 1985 - Lynn Jennings wins her first national cross-country championship, the first of nine national cross country championships and three world championships. In her career, Jennings has won 39 US championships, including seven national titles in the 10,000 and five in the 3,000.
- 1985 - Michelle Akers, a charter member of the US women’s national soccer team, scores the team’s first goal in Denmark. Akers, a four year all American at the University of Central Florida, was a three-time All-American in high school in Seattle.
- 1986 - Three-point field goal is introduced in women's basketball.
- 1986 - Judy Bell is nominated to become the first woman member of the USGA's Executive Committee; she is elected in 1987.
- 1986 - Nancy Lieberman-Cline becomes the first woman to play in a men's professional basketball league when she joins the USBL's Springfield Fame.
- 1986 - Susan Butcher wins the Iditarod Race, a feat she repeats in 1987, 1988, and again in 1990.
- 1986 - Jackie Joyner-Kersee becomes the first woman to break the 7,000 mark in the Olympic heptathalon, winning the first of two gold medals (the second comes for the 1992 heptathalon). She also wins AAU's James E. Sullivan Memorial Award.
- 1986 - The Women's Professional Volleyball Association (WPVA) is created.
- 1986 - Pilot Jenna Yeager is one of three crew members of the Voyager, the first aircraft to circumnavigate the globe non-stop, without refueling in nine days.
- 1986 - Pat Bradley becomes the first woman golfer to win over $2 million in a single year.
- 1986 - Debi Thomas becomes the first black woman to win the US figure skating singles championship.
- 1986 - Anita DeFrantz is appointed by the International Olympic Committee to lifetime membership. She is the fifth woman ever named to a seat on the 93-member IOC, and both the first African-American and the first American woman to serve. She served as captain of the US rowing team at the 1976 Montreal Games and won the bronze medal in women’s eight, the first women’s rowing event at the Olympics.
- 1986 - The Women's Professional Volleyball Association (WPVA) is formed.
- 1987 - The first annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day is celebrated in the United States.
- 1987 - The first Women's World Hockey Tournament is held at the Centennial Arena in North York, Ontario, Canada. Teams from Canada, Ontario, the US, Sweden, Switzerland, Holland and Japan compete. Team Canada wins the championship and the first McCallion Cup.
- 1987 - Tania Aebi becomes the first US woman to sail around the world solo in a trip which takes 27 months.
- 1987 - Julie Krone, the winningest female jockey wins her final three races at Lone Star Track in Grand Prairie, Texas on April 25.
- 1987 - The first Women's Professional Volleyball event is held in Newport Beach, CA on May 16-17.
- 1987 - Jackie Joyner-Kersee becomes the first woman athlete to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated (aside from the swimsuit edition).
- 1987 - Gayle Sierens becomes the first woman to do a play-by-play for a National Football League game, Kansas City vs. Seattle on December 27.
- 1987 - Jackie Joyner-Kersee is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for track.
- 1987 - Lynne Cox becomes the first person to swim the Bering Strait from Alaska to the former Soviet Union.
- 1987 - Lisa Andersen wins the US amateur surfing championship. After turning pro later that year, she wins the Association of Surfing Professionals Rookie of the Year title.
- 1987 - Tennis player Martina Navratilova is honored as the recipient of the Women's Sports Foundation's Flo Hyman Award. The Flo Hyman Memorial Award is given by the Women's Sports Foundation in honor a captain of the 1984 Olympic Silver Medalist United States Women's Volleyball Team.
- 1988 - Picabo Street, age 16, wins the national junior downhill and Super G skiing titles.
- 1988 - The first women's sailing event is raced in the doublehanded division at the Olymipcs. The US wins Olympic gold in the event.
- 1988 - Katarina Witt becomes only the second woman to win back-to-back Olympic gold medals since Sonja Henie, with her second gold at the Sarajevo Games in figure skating.
- 1988 - Florence Griffith Joyner (1959-98) is voted the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year and wins the AAU Sullivan Award as the nation's top amateur athlete.
- 1988 - South Korean golf rookie Se Ri Pak, who won two majors and took women's golf to its highest level of popularity in 20 years, is named Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year.
- 1988 - Pearl Sinn becomes the first woman to win two USGA Championships in the same year - the Women's Amateur and the Women's Amateur Public Links.
- 1988 - Stacy Allison of Woodburn, OR, is the first American woman to climb Mt. Everest.
- 1988 - Tennis reappears at the Olympic Games for the first time since the 1928 Games; Steffi Graf wins the gold medal at Seoul.
- 1988 - Kristin Otto, 22, wins six gold medals for swimming at the Seoul Games. She took the gold in the 50 free, 100 free, 100 backstroke, 100 butterfly, 4x100 freestyle relay and 4x100 medley relay -- to claim the most extensive collection of gold medals ever won by a woman in a single Olympics.
- 1988 - Congress enacts the Civil Rights Restoration Act over President Ronald Reagan's veto. It prohibits sex discriminations throughout educational institutions receiving federal funds, restoring Title IX.
- 1988 - 77,735 women bowlers compete in the Women's International Bowling Congress Championship tournament in Reno, Nevada, the most in any bowling match in the world.
- 1988 - Jockey Julie Krone becomes the first woman to compete in the prestigious Breeders’ Cup.
- 1988 - Helen Thayer reaches the North Pole by traveling on foot and skis, accompan
ied only by her huskey.
- 1988 - Track and Field athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee is honored as the recipient of the Women's Sports Foundation's Flo Hyman Award.
- 1989 - Swimmer Janet Evans wins AAU's James E. Sullivan Memorial Award.
- 1989 - Women's epee competition is held at the World Fencing Championships (Denver, CO) for the first time.
- 1989 - In May Julie Krone became the first female jockey to stare out from the cover of Sports Illustrated, her silks covered in dirt.
- 1989 - Cyclist Susan Notorangelo is the first woman to finish the Race Across America and places seventh over-all in the race.
- 1989 - Shirley Muldowney becomes the first drag racing driver to post sub-five second runs in three consecutive national events; she is the only woman to have won the Labor Day NHRA US Nationals, the sport's premier event.
- 1989 - Julie Croteau becomes the first woman to play NCAA baseball on first base for Division III St. Mary's (MD) College.
- 1989 - Arantxa Sanchez, 17, becomes the youngest French Open Champion and the first Spanish woman to win a Grand Slam with a 7-6, 3-6, 75 victory over Styeffi Graf.
- 1989 - Susan Butcher, a four-time winner of the Iditarod (1986-88 and 1990), is named outstanding woman athlete of the world for 1989.
- 1989 - Stacy Allison and Peggy Luce of Washington state became the first and second U.S. women to reach the top of Mt. Everest.
- 1989 - Steffi Graf is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for tennis.
- 1989 - Phyllis Holmes of Greenville College in Illinois becomes the first woman president of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA).
- 1989 - Judith Davidson is named athletic director for CentralConnecticut State University, becoming the only woman athletic director at a Division I school in charge of all sports including men's football and basketball.
- 1989 - Chris Evert becomes the first tennis player, male of female, to reach 1,000 wins.
- 1989 - Victoria Bruckner is the first girl to play in the Little League World Series, playing first base, batting cleanup and pitching in the final game.
- 1989 - Juli Furtado, a member of the US Ski Team from 1980 to '87, until knee injuries forced her out of the sport, wins the national cycling championship.
- 1989 - Ann Trason runs the Western States 100, one of the world's longest ultramarathons. Her winning time of 18 hours, 47 minutes and 46 seconds beating the second place finisher by more than an hour and a half.
- 1989 - Paula Newby-Fraser, Triathlete, is voted the top female athlete of the 1980s by the Los Angeles Times.
- 1989 - Track and Field athlete Evelyn Ashford is honored as the recipient of the Women's Sports Foundation's Flo Hyman Award.
- 1989 - By the end of the decade, the number of women playing tennis had risen from 4 to 11 million.
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