hasJackie Joyner-Kersee’s life may sound like a movie, and with good reason—her underdog tale is anything but typical. She is, in fact, exceptional: a four-time Olympian who has taken home three medals from the Olympics in the heptathlon and long jump. She attributes her unprecedented success to her unwavering optimism and her conviction that she will eventually be surpassed in sports just as quickly as she had risen in them.
In this new edition of the Olympian-focused interview series Influential, she tells BBC special correspondent Katty Kay, “When I broke the records in 1988, it did not occur to me they would not be broken again.” “I wanted to give everything I had when I quit the sport. I left knowing that I had given everything I had because I didn’t want to go back and think, “I coulda, shoulda, woulda,” Joyner-Kersee adds.
She started preparing for the seven-event heptathlon with coach Bob Kersee, whom she later married, not long after graduating from college. At the time, she was known as Jackie Joyner. Joyner-Kersee competed for Team USA at the Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984, Seoul in 1988, Barcelona in 1992, and Atlanta in 1996. She took home medals in all four, three of them gold.
