Alice Coachman biography
Alice Coachman, (born November 9, 1923, Albany, Georgia, U.S.—died July 14, 2014, Albany), American athlete who was the primary black girl to win an Olympic gold medal.
Coachman first attracted consideration in 1939 by breaking Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) highschool and school ladies’s high-jump data whereas barefoot. She gained the AAU outside high-jump championship for the following 9 years, additionally profitable three indoor high-jump championships. She excelled within the sprints and basketball as nicely; competing at Tuskegee Institute (1940–46) she gained nationwide track-and-field championships within the 50- and 100-metre dashes, the 4 × 100-metre relay, and the working excessive soar, and, as a guard, she led the Tuskegee basketball workforce to a few consecutive convention championships.
At Albany State College in Georgia, Coachman continued excessive leaping in a private model that mixed straight leaping and western roll strategies. At the 1948 Olympics in London, her teammate Audrey Patterson earned a bronze medal within the 200-metre dash to turn out to be the primary black girl to win a medal. In the high-jump finals Coachman leaped 5 ft 6 1/8 inches (1.68 m) on her first strive. Her nearest rival, Britain’s Dorothy Tyler, matched Coachman’s soar, however solely on her second strive, making Coachman the one American girl to win a gold medal in that 12 months’s Games. Altogether she gained 25 AAU indoor and outside titles earlier than retiring in 1948.