National High School Records Through the Years

Girls Outdoor Record – 100 Meters

Margaret Johnson Bailes (Churchill High School, Eugene, Oregon)

Performance  – 11.30 seconds

Date – October 14, 1968

Place – Mexico City

Meet – Olympic Games

Previous Records – 11.1 hand time by Bailes August 18, 1968, 11.90 autotimed by Barbara Jones (St. Elizabeth’s, Chicago) March 16, 1955, at the Pan-Am Games in Mexico City

Bailes made the Olympic team as a 17-year-old junior at Churchill High School, finishing second to the reigning Olympic champion, Tennessee State’s Wyomia Tyus, both running 11.3 hand-timed. Bailes had beaten Tyus soundly a week earlier at the AAU Nationals, 11.1 to 11.3, equaling the hand-timed world record, but she later took ill leading up to the Games. At those Olympics, Bailes – her married name – won her first-round heat in an excellent autotimed 11.30, but in the ensuing rounds she faded to 11.34, 11.53 and 11.37, finishing ffth in the Final as Tyus repeated as champion. Bailes also made the 200 final and won a gold medal as a member of the Americans’ winning 4x100 team, which ran 42.88 for a world record. Not long after, Bailes and her husband moved to California, her running career at an end. Her Oregon all-time high school best was broken 54 years later by Mia Brahe-Pedersen, of Lake Oswego.  

National High School Records Through the Years appears once a week, compiled and written by a track historian, Jack Pfeifer (Lake Oswego, Oregon). Inquiries may be directed to him by email (jack.pfeifer@gmail.com).     

READ THE FULL SERIES OF FOR THE RECORD