Madeline Manning-Jackson

Madeline Manning was the first U.S. 800 m runner of truly world class. Her career at the top spanned 14 years and, despite the fact that she chose not to compete for six of those years, she won an Olympic and a Pan American title (1967), six AAU championships outdoors and three indoors, and won the 800 m at the 1967 Universiade. In 1968, while attending Tennessee State, she won the 800 m gold medal in Mexico with a new Olympic record.

Four years later in München, as Mrs. Madeline Manning-Jackson and representing the Cleveland Track Club, she was eliminated in the semi-finals, of the Olympic 800 m. In 1976 she again failed to make the finals, which seemed to indicate that her Olympic career was at an end. Although technically true, only the boycott prevented her from making a fourth Olympic appearance at Moscow.

In 1980, then Mrs. Mims, although competing again as Madeline Manning, the 32-year-old won the “Olympic Trials” in 1:58.3, which was the second best mark of her life. During the course of a long and distinguished career, Madeline Manning-Jackson-Mims set numerous U.S. records and her 1:57.9 set in 1976 stood as an American record until Mary Decker ran 1:57.6 in July 1983. She later became a very well-known gospel and jazz singer and was inducted in 2005 into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame.

Personal Bests: 400 – 52.2 (1972); 800 – 1:57.90 (1976); 1500 - 4:14.04 (1980); Mile – 4:54.4 (1975).