Carol LeGrant Lewis (born August 8, 1963) is an American former

track and field Track and field (or athletics in British English) is a sport that includes Competition#Sports, athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name used in North America is derived from where the sport takes place, a ru ...

athlete who specialized in the

long jump The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a takeoff point. Along with the triple jump, the two events that measure jumping for distance as a gr ...

. She is the 1983 World Championship bronze medalist, and a 4-time US Champion. Her best long jump of 7.04 meters in 1985 is the former American record. She is the sister of 9-time Olympic gold medalist

Carl Lewis Frederick Carlton Lewis (born July 1, 1961) is an American former track and field athlete who won nine Olympic gold medals, one Olympic silver medal, and 10 World Championships medals, including eight gold. Lewis was a dominant sprinter and lo ...

, and former professional soccer player Cleveland Lewis. She is also the daughter of retired American hurdler Evelyn Lawler.Carol Lewis biography
Sports-reference. Retrieved on 2009-06-17.

Career

Born in

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of Alabama, United States. It is the county seat of Jefferson County, Alabama, Jefferson County. The population was 200,733 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List ...

, Lewis qualified for the 1980 U.S. Olympic team but was unable to compete due to the

1980 Summer Olympics boycott The 1980 Summer Olympics boycott was the largest boycott in Olympic history and one part of a number of actions initiated by the United States to protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviet Union, which hosted the 1980 Summ ...

. She received one of the 461

Congressional Gold Medal The Congressional Gold Medal is the oldest and highest civilian award in the United States, alongside the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It is bestowed by vote of the United States Congress, signed into law by the president. The Gold Medal exp ...

s created especially for the spurned athletes. She first competed internationally at the

Liberty Bell Classic The Liberty Bell Classic was a track and field athletics event organized by the Athletics Congress as part of the 1980 Summer Olympics boycott and held at Franklin Field at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia on July 16 and 17, 19 ...

, an alternate event for boycotted athletes, where she won a silver medal with a jump of 6.60 meters. She won the

Dial Award The Dial Award was presented annually by the Dial Corporation Henkel Corporation, doing business as Henkel North American Consumer Goods and formerly The Dial Corporation, is an American company based in Stamford, Connecticut. It is a manufac ...

that year in recognition of her achievements. While at

Willingboro High School Willingboro High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school that serves students in ninth through twelfth grades from Willingboro Township in Burlington County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, operating as the lone secondary schoo ...

in New Jersey, setting the high school indoor long jump record at in 1981. She later went to the

University of Houston The University of Houston (; ) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas, United States. It was established in 1927 as Houston Junior College, a coeducational institution and one of multiple junior colleges formed in ...

, following in the footsteps of her older brother. At Houston, she won 2

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

long jump championship titles in 1983: 21-11 3/4 and 1985: 22-1 She also joined her brother on the

Santa Monica Track Club The Santa Monica Track Club (also known as SMTC) was formed by Joe Douglas as a post-collegiate track club. By the 1980s, the team came to be a major player in worldwide Track and Field competition, with team members setting numerous World and Nat ...

. Lewis won the

USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships The USA Track & Field Outdoor Championships is an annual track and field competition organized by USA Track & Field, which serves as the American national championships for the sport. Since the year 1992, in the years which feature a Summer Oly ...

for the first time in 1982, the first of four National championships. Her 6.81m jump from that competition is the current United States,

North American North America is a continent in the Northern and Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the sou ...

and Pan American Junior record. Further success came in 1983, with a win at the NCAA Outdoor Championships and bronze medal at the

1983 World Championships in Athletics The 1st World Championships in Athletics (; ) were run under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations and were held at the Olympic Stadium (Helsinki), Olympic Stadium in Helsinki, Finland between 7 and 14 August 1983 ...

.Graffit-e
.

. Retrieved on 2009-06-17. After winning the Olympic Trials, she represented the

United States at the 1984 Summer Olympics The United States was the host nation of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California. It was the nineteenth time that ''Team USA'' participated, having boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics. 522 competitors, 339 men and 183 women, took part ...

and managed to finish in ninth place at the age of twenty. The following year she won the NCAA Outdoor Championships for a second time and took bronze at the World Cup in Athletics. In

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

in August that year, Lewis reached her peak, setting a personal best and breaking the American record in the long jump twice at the same track meeting. Her record of 7.04 m stood for two years until it was beaten by

Jackie Joyner-Kersee Jacqueline Joyner-Kersee (born March 3, 1962) is an American former track and field athlete who competed in both the heptathlon and long jump. She won three gold, one silver, and two bronze Olympic medals at four different Olympic Games. Joyne ...

. Lewis competed at the

1987 IAAF World Indoor Championships The 1st IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics were held in Indianapolis, United States from March 6 to March 8, 1987. The championship had previously been known as the World Indoor Games, which were held once before changing the name. Bein ...

, finishing in ninth position with a best jump of 6.23 m. She qualified for her third Olympics in

1988 1988 was a crucial year in the early history of the Internet—it was the year of the first well-known computer virus, the Morris worm, 1988 Internet worm. The first permanent intercontinental Internet link was made between the United State ...

, failing to qualify for the final by just one centimeter. Following her retirement from track and field, she went on to work as a commentator for various events for

NBC Sports NBC Sports is an American programming division for NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, that is responsible for sports broadcasts on their broadcast network NBC, the Cable television, cable channels NBC owns, and on Peacock (streaming service) ...

. She commentated on the track events for the

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

and

2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and officially branded as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes fro ...

.Hiestand, Michael (2006-02-20)
Gumbel's comments don't ring true for NBC pioneer Lewis
''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (often stylized in all caps) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth in 1980 and launched on September 14, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headq ...

''. Retrieved on 2009-06-17. In 2000, Lewis began competing in two-woman bobsled and, although she failed to make the 2002 US Olympic team, she served as

Shauna Rohbock Shauna Linn Rohbock (born April 4, 1977) is a retired Olympic medal-winning bobsledder, former professional soccer player, and is a staff sergeant in the Utah Army National Guard.

's brakeman at the 2002 World Cup in

Calgary Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...

Personal bests

*All information taken from IAAF Profile.Biography Lewis, Carol

IAAF World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation and International Association of Athletics Federations and formerly abbreviated as the IAAF, is the international sports governing body, governing body for the sport ...

. Retrieved on 2009-06-17.

National titles

*4-time United States long jump champion – 1982, 1983, 1985 and 1986 *4-time United States Indoor long jump champion –1983, 1984, 1985 and 1991 *2-time NCAA long jump champion – 1983 and 1985

International competitions

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Carol 1963 births Living people American female long jumpers Olympic track and field athletes for the United States Athletes (track and field) at the 1984 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 1988 Summer Olympics Track and field athletes from Birmingham, Alabama African-American track and field athletes World Athletics Championships medalists Track and field broadcasters Houston Cougars women's track and field athletes Congressional Gold Medal recipients Sportspeople from Willingboro Township, New Jersey Track and field athletes from New Jersey Willingboro High School alumni 21st-century African-American sportswomen 21st-century American sportswomen 20th-century African-American sportswomen 20th-century American sportswomen Universiade medalists in athletics (track and field) FISU World University Games gold medalists for the United States NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships winners NCAA Division I Indoor Track and Field Championships winners Carl Lewis