Honour for athlete

Press, 27 January 1988, Page 26

Honour for athlete

NZPA-AP New York Track and field star, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, considered the finest all-round woman’s athlete since Babe Didrikson Zaharias, has been named as the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for 1987. Joyner-Kersee’s victory, coming one day after sprinter Ben Johnson of Canada was selected Male Athlete of the Year, completed a sweep by track and field athletes of AP’s year-end honours. It was only the third time in the 57year history of the awards that athletes from the same sport were chosen in the same year. The first was in 1945, when golfers Zaharias and Byron Nelson were named, and the second was in 1981 when tennis players John McEnroe and Tracy Austin were selected. In balloting by 244 sports writers and broadcasters from throughout the United

States, Joyner-Kersee received 128 first-place votes, 68 seconds and 16 thirds for a total of 880 points, with points allotted on a 5-3-1 basis. Last year, Joyner-Kersee, aged 25, equalled the world outdoor record in ' the women’s long jump, clearing 24 feet, 5.5 inches (745.5 cm at the Pan American Games in Indianapolis in August, then won the long jump and heptathlon gold medals in the World Outdoor Championships at Rome in September. In the long jump, she sailed 736 cm, beating East German, Heike Drechsler, with whom she shares the world record, and took the heptathlon with 7128 points, 564 more than her closest competitor. It was only the third time the 7000point total had been surpassed in the heptathlon — and Joyner-Kersee is the only one to do it.