National High School Records Through the Years

Girls Record – Outdoor Auto-timed 200-meter dash

Wilma Rudolph (Burt, Clarksville, Tennessee)

Performance  – 24.83 seconds

Date – November 29, 1956

Place – Melbourne, Australia

Meet – Olympic Games

Existing hand-timed Record – 24.2 by Rudolph at the Olympic Trials August 25, 1956, in Washington, D.C.

Wilma Rudolph became an international star at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, but it was not her first rodeo. When she was 16, she made the U.S. team in the 200 and took her first plane ride, across the Pacific to Melbourne, Australia. The Games were held in the American winter because they were held in the Southern Hemisphere. Rudolph finished second to New Yorker Mae Faggs in the Olympic Trials, and also ran the 75-yard dash at that summer’s Girls Nationals, finishing second to another Tennessee State runner, Martha Hudson, but she had already made a name for herself as a 14-year-old ninth-grader when she won five events at the 1955 Tennessee state meet. At the Games in the deuce, the New Yorker Mae Faggs advanced to the second round but Rudolph and Meredith Ellis – who at 15 was younger even than Rudolph – were eliminated. Autotiming was relatively new at the time, but 69 years ago this week Rudolph ran an excellent 24.83, finishing third in Heat 2. That remained the autotimed high school best 200 for U.S. girls until the 1960 Olympics. Rudolph also ran third leg on the U.S. 4x100 in Melbourne and, along with Faggs, Margaret Matthews and Isabelle Daniels, earned a bronze medal. “I think I passed two people on my leg,” Rudolph said later, “then handed it to Isabelle Daniels, who ran anchor. She ran a fine leg and just missed getting us into secod place.”

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).     

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