It’s safe to say that Frank Lane is unknown by today’s generations of sports fans, but he has an exalted place among United States Olympians. Lane was a member of the first U.S. team that competed at the 1896 Olympics in Athens. On 6 April 1896, he toed the line in the first heat of the 100 meter dash, winning the heat, and becoming in the process the first American to compete in the modern Olympic Games. Lane went to the finals of the 100 m but finished only third in his only Olympic event. Frank Lane competed in the first Olympics while in his junior year at Princeton. Of the four Princetonians on the first U.S. Olympic team, Lane was probably the one least well known athletically, as he never won any sort of major championship. After graduation in 1897 he went to medical school at Washington University in St. Louis. He practiced medicine as an ophthalmologist, becoming the head of that department at Rush Medical College and the Presbyterian and Illinois Central Hospitals in Chicago.
Personal Best: 100 – 12.2 (1896).
United States