Over a sixteen year period, American sprinter Evelyn Ashford (born 1957) won five Olympic medals. It is likely that she would have won more medals if the United States had not boycotted the 1980 Olympicswhen she was in her prime. She participated in the Olympics in 1976, 1984, 1988, and 1992. She raced not only against seconds, but also against years, as she raced in her fourth Olympics at age 35.
Ashford was born on April 15, 1957, in Shreveport, Louisiana. Her father, Samuel Ashford, was a career Air Force man, and so the family, which also included a brother and three sisters, moved often, following him from post to post. Her mother, Vietta, told People, about her daughter, "She was a start-and-stop sort of child. She only had two speeds, either she was running full tilt or sitting quietly, reading."
When Ashford was a young adolescent, her father was sent to Vietnam to fight in the war, and the rest of the family moved to Athens, Alabama. Then, while Ashford was in high school, her father was stationed at McClellan Air Force Base, and the family moved to Roseville, California, where she attended Roseville High School. "My father was in the Air Force, so we moved around a lot, and my high school didn't have a girls' track team," she explained, according to Frederick C. Klein of the Wall Street Journal. "One day the football coach saw me running with the other girls in P.E. class and noticed I was fast. He got me to run against some of his players, to motivate them, I guess. I beat 'em all. Pretty soon, watching the boys try to run against Evelyn at lunch time was the thing to do for the rest of the kids." She regularly beat the school's star football running back in the 50-yard dash. Even competing against boys from other schools, she was winning. In 1975, she placed third in the Junior National Track Championships. She was one of the first women offered an athletic scholarship to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and she accepted.
Became Olympian
One of the coaches at UCLA, three-time Olympian Pat Connolly, took an interest in Ashford. One day, she asked Ashford to run the 100-yard dash. The time was so fast that Connolly thought she had made a mistake using the stopwatch and asked Ashford to run it again. She told Ashford that she had a good chance of making the 1976 United States Olympic Team. "I thought the lady was nuts," said Ashford, as reported in A to Z of American Women in Sports. Connolly helped Ashford develop her speed, as well as her self-esteem and belief in her ability to win. Ashford placed third at the Olympic trials and earned herself a spot on the team. At the Olympics, in Montreal, Canada, Ashford finished fifth in the 100-yard dash, beating her more experienced teammate Chandra Cheeseborough, as well as East German Marlies Gohr, who through the years would become a chief rival.
Ashford had quickly been drawn into the world of competitive sprinting, and after her taste of the Olympics, she wanted more. She wanted to win a gold medal. In 1977, she dominated, winning sprint titles in both collegiate and national women's competitions. Then, when she went to the Dusseldorf World Cup, she continued to beat the American sprinters but was beaten by other runners. Ashford felt humiliated and determined. She said, "I had to find out if I had what it took to become a true world class sprinter," reported Great Athletes.
In 1978, Ashford married Ray Washington, a basketball coach at San Jacinto College, and in 1979, she decided to leave UCLA and take a job at a Nike shoe store in order to concentrate on her athletic training. Connolly agreed to continue to coach her, even though she was no longer at UCLA. Ashford set the American record for the 100-meters at 10.97 seconds. At the 1979 Montreal World Cup, Ashford took the world by storm, beating her rival, Gohr, who was the current world record holder and favorite to win, in the 100-meter race. She also beat another rival, Marita Koch, in the 200-meter race, with a time of 21.83 seconds. This established her as the favorite to win the 100-meter race at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow in the Soviet Union.
Olympic Dream Catastrophe
Politics shattered Ashfrod's world. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and in protest, United States President Jimmy Carter and the Unites States Olympic Committee (USOC) announced that the United States athletes would not be attending the Moscow Olympics. Over 50 other countries also participated in the boycott. Ashford was devastated - she had trained so hard. She was in prime condition and she was so upset that she considered leaving the sport. Ashford also suffered an injury, so she ran very little in 1980. That summer, she and her husband, Washington, went on a car trip across the United States. Ashford used the time to re-evaluate her career and determine what her goals were. By the end of the trip, she had made some decisions. She would continue to train with the hopes of attaining two gold medals in the 1984 Olympics. She also decided to have her husband become her head coach.
Her determination to succeed showed in her successes. In 1981, she won the 100-meter and the 200-meter events at the World Cup. At the National Sports Festival in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1983, Ashford ran in the 100-meters. "I wasn't thinking about anything; I just ran," she said in Sports Illustrated reported by Kenny Moore. "I didn't seem to wake up until the last 20 meters. When I crossed the line, I thought, 'That was nothing special. Maybe 11.1.'" But it was something special. Ashford had set a world record in 10.79 seconds. When she heard the time, she was very surprised, "I'm stunned," she said. "Just stunned … stunned." Colorado Springs is at 7,200 feet above sea level, providing slightly less air resistance. "Hey, it was a world record," she replied when asked about the air. "Nobody ever got through 100 meters faster. I finally got perfect conditions; I realize that. A pretty day, nice mountains, nice people. Sure, altitude helps. I can't deny that my two best times were done up here [her previous American record of 10.90 was set in Colorado Springs at the Olympic Training Center two years earlier], but I can run as well at low altitude." In 1984, she was chosen as Athlete of the Year.
Olympic Gold
During the quarterfinals in the 100-meter dash at the 1984 Olympic trials, Ashford felt a pull in her leg with only ten minutes before the gun would go off for the start of the race. Worried about possible injury, she went to the trainer's tent where her leg was taped in a rush. She had to place in the top three in order to make the cut onto the team. The gun went off, and Ashford raced to a third place finish, making the team despite her injury. She went on to become the fastest woman in the world; winning two gold medals at the Los Angeles Olympics. First, she raced in the 100-meters. "I didn't feel that much in control," she reportedly said in the August 13, 1984, edition of Sports Illustrated. "I felt that my legs were moving too fast for my body." She won with an Olympic Record of 10.97. As Ashford stood on the platform to receive her first gold medal, she burst into tears of joy and relief. She had worked long and hard to get there. "The response in the Olympic stadium today tells me that I'm very much appreciated. Running fast and being good at what I do are reward enough for me right now," she said in Sports Illustrated. The other gold medal was for racing as part of the 4x100 relay team, which also included Alice Brown, Jeanette Bolden, and Chandra Cheeseborough. The only thing that could have made the experience better for Ashford was if she were racing against some of her toughest rivals. In 1984, the Soviet Union and 13 communist allies boycotted the Olympics, so Ashford had not yet had an Olympic competition against some of her toughest opponents. However, later in the year, Ashford beat Gohr with a world record time of 10.76.
Then, Ashford took some time off to have a baby. Raina Ashley Washington was born on May 30, 1985. It was Ashford's first time off from racing in a long time, and she took advantage of it. "I slept late, watched the soap operas and ate what I wanted," she told the Wall Street Journal. "I gained 40 pounds while I was having my baby." A month after the birth, Ashford was back to training, and in 1986, she won the 55-meter dash in the Vitalis Olympic Invitational in 6.6 seconds.
Training continued to pay off, and in 1988, she won another gold in the 4x100 meter relay. However, Florence Griffith Joyner edged her out of the race for gold in the 100-meter dash, and she accepted the silver medal. At the time, she was one of only three women to win three Olympic gold medals, sharing the honor with Wyomia Tyus and Wilma Rudolph.
Defied Age
Amazingly, after 12 years of Olympic competition, Ashford did not stop. Her body did not seem aware that it was supposed to age. Ashford placed third at the qualifying trials for the 1992 Olympic team, granting her a ticket to her fourth Olympics. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm excited!" Ashford told the press, as reported in Runners World. "I'm 35. I'm not supposed to be running like this." She was honored by her teammates by being chosen to carry the United States flag in the Olympic opening ceremonies. Ashford went on to participate in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, and at age 35, she won her final gold medal, again in the 4x100 relay.
Following the Barcelona Olympics, Ashford retired from sprinting after 16 years of Olympic competition. She worked occasionally as a television commentator and served as a co-chairperson of Athletes for Literacy.
In 1989, the Flo Hyman Award was presented to Ashford in one of President George H. W. Bush's first official receptions as president in conjunction with the third annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day, sponsored by the Women's Sports Foundation. The award is named for Flo Hyman, an Olympic volleyball star, who worked to develop Title IX, a bill that forbids sexual discrimination in educational institutions. Ashford spoke at a luncheon on Capital Hill in conjunction with receiving the award. "I'm a product of Title IX," she said, according to the Washington Post. "Because Title IX had passed, they had to let me run on the boys track team. Because of that, I was able to go to college." She also used her time at the podium to denounce the rampant use of drugs and steroids among track and field competitors. Ashford has inspired many people with her determination and enthusiasm, and in 1997, she was named to the International Women's Hall of Fame.
Books
Edelson, Paula, A to Z of American Women in Sports, Facts on File, Inc., 2002.
Great Athletes, Salem Press/Magill Books, 2001.
Molzahn, Arlene Bourgeois, Top 10 American Women Sprinters, Enslow Publishers, Inc., 1998.
Plowden, Martha Ward, Olympic Black Women, Pelican Publishing Company, 1996.
Periodicals
People, August 6, 1984.
Runner's World, September 1992.
Sports Illustrated, July 11, 1983; August 13, 1984.
Wall Street Journal, February 7, 1986.
Washington Post, February 2, 1989; February 3, 1989.
