1980- Mary Decker shatters the 4:20 record for the mile.
- Becomes the first woman to be honored with the Jesse Owens Award.
1984- Mary Lou Retton conquers the L.A. Olympics.
- At 16, she became the first woman to snag an all-around gold in gymnastics.
- The 5 medals were the most for any athlete competing in L.A.
- The first woman on the cover of the Wheaties box.
1986- Jackie Joyner-Kersee breaks 7,000 points in the heptathlon
- She was the first person, male or female, to do so
- Received the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the U.S.
- Sports Illustrated honors her as the greatest female athlete of the 20th century.
- She won 3 gold medals and set records for the 200 and 100 meter.
1988-Women's tennis and table tennis are added to
the Olympics.
1992-Women's badminton, bi-athalon, judo and short track speed skating are added to the Olympics.
1992- Zhang Shan became the first Asian and woman to win gold in skeet shooting.
- 4 years later, skeet was a men's only event until women's skeet was introduced in 2000.
1996- The Atlanta Games marked the first time NBC, national advertisers, and the media began targeting women in their marketing for the Olympics.
- NBC's pre-event teasers focused on women's sports.
- Sport's Illustrated put the U.S. women's team on the cover.
- Women's soccer, softball, beach volleyball, and mountain biking were added to the Olympics.
2002- Women break the U.S. Olympic bobsled draught.
- U.S. bobsledders had gone 46 years without winning a medal.
- First appearance of women's bobsled in the games.
- Jill Bakken and Voretta Flowers made a little extra noise as the first black athletes from any country to win a Winter Olympics gold medal.
2008- Misty May- Treanor & Kerri Walsh win their second straight gold medal in beach volleyball.
- Arrived in Beijing with a 101 match winning streak.
- Dara Torres, 41 years young, became the oldest women ever to swim at the Games while earning 3 silver medals in Beijing.
2012 London Olympics Achievements
- The first Olympics in history where there are more women than men on the U.S. team.
- The first Olympics in history where each competing country had at least one woman on their team.
- With the introduction of women’s boxing in 2012, London marks the first time in Olympic history that women can now medal in all the same events as men.
- The first year that female beach volleyball participants will be able to compete in clothing other than bikinis.
- Gabby Douglas became the first African American to win the all-around gold medal in gymnastics.
- 17-year-old Claressa Shields becoming the first U.S. woman to win a gold medal in Olympic women’s boxing.