Jean Driscoll

Jean Driscoll (born November 18, 1966 in Milwaukee , Wisconsin ) is a former American wheelchair athlete in the disabled sports . She won the Boston Marathon eight times and twelve medals in four Paralympic Games , including five golds.

Life

She had spina bifida from birth and began using the wheelchair in Milwaukee High School. She received a competitive athletics scholarship for wheelchair basketball from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , where she also began with athletics for people with disabilities . She competed in her first Paralympic Games in 1988 and won 4 medals in the sprint and relay. In 1989 she was persuaded by her trainer Marty Morse to run a 12 km race and after a successful performance in the 1989 Chicago Marathon . Here she qualified for the Boston Marathon 1990. Her professional career began here. They won Boston seven times in a row and in 2000 for the eighth time. In 1991 and 1994 she also improved the world record with 1:42:42. She won other medals at the Paralympic Games in 1992, 1996 and 2000. In 2012 she was awarded the Order of Lincoln Award by the Lincoln Academy of Illinois , the highest order of merit in the State of Illinois . After the end of her sporting career, she works as a motivational and PR speaker for institutions that want to present themselves as particularly handicapped accessible.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Arnd Krüger : American sport between isolationism and internationalism. Competitive sport. 18: 1, pp. 43-47 (1988) ; 2, pp. 47-50 . 17th January 2017
2. ↑ Interview with Jean Driscoll . In: Against the Wind . WANT . Archived from the original on July 16, 2008. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 24, 2017. 
3. ^ Significant Moments in Boston Marathon History. Boston Athletic Association. Retrieved January 24, 2017.
4. ↑ Laureates Alphabetically. The Lincoln Academy of Illinois. Retrieved January 27, 2017.
5. ↑ Jake Griffin: Notable guest attends Wheaton race. Daily Herald . June 13, 2004, accessed January 24, 2017.