Evelyn Ashford

Evelyn Ashford, born in 1957, American track-and-field athlete, who was one of the top female 100- and 200-meter sprinters in the 1980s. Ashford competed in four Olympic Games (1976, 1984, 1988, 1992), winning a total of four gold medals and one silver medal. Her achievements also included 16 United States national titles and four World Cup titles.

Ashford was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. Her father was a sergeant in the U.S. Air Force and the family lived at various military bases around the country while Ashford was growing up. After her family settled in Roseville, California, Ashford competed on the boys' relay team in high school. This helped earn her an athletic scholarship to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). As an undergraduate she quickly developed into the top female sprinter in the country, bursting onto the world sprint scene at the age of 19 with a fifth-place showing in the 100-meter dash at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montréal, Québec, Canada.

Ashford left UCLA in 1978 in order to train full time. She won her first major international titles with victories in both the 100- and 200-meter dashes at the 1979 World Cup championships in Montréal, beating the reigning world-record holder in each event. Unable to compete in the 1980 Olympics in Moscow because President Jimmy Carter prevented U.S. participation in protest over the invasion of Afghanistan by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Ashford set her sights on the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

At the 1984 games, Ashford overcame a pulled hamstring suffered at the 1983 world championships, winning the gold medal in the 100-meter dash with an Olympic-record time of 10.97 seconds. Later in 1984 she set a world record in the event with a time of 10.76 seconds at a meet in Zürich, Switzerland.

At the 1988 games in Seoul, South Korea, Ashford became the oldest sprint medalist in Olympic history by finishing second to Florence Griffith Joyner in the 100-meter dash. At the 1992 games in Barcelona, Spain, at the age of 35, Ashford made her fourth Olympic appearance, carrying the United States flag in the opening ceremonies and leading off the 4 x 100-meter relay for the gold medal-winning U.S. squad. In 1989 the Woman's Sports Foundation honored her with the Flo Hyman Award for her commitment to excellence in women's sports. Ashford retired in 1993.