Events for Women

1871 - Miss Carrie A. Moore demonstrates a variety of roller skating movements at the Occidental Rink in San Francisco. Later in the same day, she exhibits her skill on a velocipede.

1871 - the Empire City Rowing Club's 10th annual regatta features a rowing match among young women on the Harlem River in New York on Sept. 25. Five women row 17-foot workboats around a 2 mile course. Rowing the Glen, Amelia Shean wins the singles race in 18:32. Elizabeth Custarce and Annie Harris win the pairs race.

1872 - Mills College in Oakland, CA establishes women's baseball teams.

1873 - 10 young women compete in a mile-long swimming contest in the Harlem River. Miss Deliliah Goboess wins the prize, a silk dress worth $175.

1874 - Mary Ewing Outerbridge of Staten Island introduces tennis to the United States. She purchases tennis equipment in Bermuda (and had trouble getting it through Customs!) and uses it to set up the first US tennis court at the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club that spring.

1875 - Lizzie Ihling, the niece of famed American balloonist John Wise, makes a solo flight on July 5. The skin of the bag began to rip, sending the balloon falling to earth. Lizzie was not injuried.

1875 - The "Blondes" and "Brunettes" play their first match In Springfield, IL on Sept. 11. Newspapers heralded the event as the "first game of baseball ever played in public for gate money between feminine ball-tossers."

1875 - Wellesley College opens with a gymnasium for exercising and a lake for ice skating and the first rowing program for women.

1875 - English teenager Agnes Beckwith, accomplishes a long distance swim in the Thames River from London Bridge to Greenwich, a distance of about 6 miles.

1875 - The first roller-skating rink opens in London.

1876 - Mary Marshall, 26, shocks spectators when she beats Peter VanNess in the best of three walking matches (called Pedestrians) in New York City.

1876 - Maria Speltarini crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope in July, wearing 38-pound weights on each ankle.

1876 - Ten percent of the members of the newly created Appalachin Mountain Club are women.

1876 - Nell Saunders defeated Rose Harland in the first United States women's boxing match, receiving a silver butter dish as a prize.

1877 - Eliza Bennett swims across the Hudson River in August.

1878 - Woman pedestrian Ada Anderson walks 3,000 quarter-miles in 3,000 quarter hours over the course of a month in New York' Mozart Hall, kicking off a series of "lady walker" matches.

1879 - The first National Archery Championship is held, with 20 women participating.

1879 - Speed-walker Ada Anderson walks 2,700 quarter-miles in 2,700 quarter hours, as indoor Pedestrianism continues to attract attention.

1880 - Balloonist Mary Meyers makes her first ascent on July 4 at Little Falls, NY before a crowd of 15,000.

1880 - Distance swimmer Agnes Beckwith treads water for 30 hours in the whale tank of the Royal Aquarium of Westminster to equal a pervious mark set by Matthew Webb.

1881 - Bell Cook of California and Emma Jewett of Minnesota toured the country, competing in a series of 20-mile horse races. On Sept. 29, in Rochester, NY's Driving Park, the two compete, with Jewwtt winning for the first time when Cook was thrown from her horse with only half a mile to go. Jewett covered the 20 miles in 45:05 using a nunber of changes of mount.

1881 - Indoor tennis is played inside the 7th Regiment Armory in New York City on Nov. 26, with 12 courts put in use for women enthusiasts and their male partners.

1881 - Edith Johnson of England sets the world's endurance indoor swimming record at 31 hours. The record holds until 1928.

1882 - The National Croquet Association is formed to revise and standarize the rules.

1882 - At the YWCA in Boston, the first athletic games for women are held.

1883 - Mrs. M. C. Howell wins her first archery title. She will win the national championship for women 17 times between 1883 and 1907.

1883 - The first baseball "Ladies Day" is held on June 16 by the NY Giants, where both escorted and unescroted women are allowed into the park for free.

1884 - Women's singles tennis competition is added to Wimbledon. Maud Watson wins in both 1884 and '85.

1885 - The Association of Collegiate Alumnae publishes a study which concludes that "...it is sufficient to say that female [college] graduates...do not seem to show, ...any marked difference in general health for the average health ... of women engaged in other kinds of work, or in fact, of women generally...", refuting the widely held belief that college study impaired a woman’s physical health and ability to bear children.

1885 - Annie Oakley (Phoebe Ann Moses, 1860-1926), 25, is the sharp-shooting star of the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show. She could hit a moving target while riding a galloping horse; hit a dime in mid-air; and regularly shot a cigarette from her husband's lips.

1885 - More than $20 million has been invested in roller skating rinks in almost every city and small town around the country.

1886 - Mary Hawley Myers sets a world altitude record in a hot air balloon, soaring 4 miles above Franklin, PA, without benefit of oxygen equipment. Her first balloon ascent was in Little Falls, NY in 1880. Between 1880 and 1890 she completed more balloon ascents than any other living person.

1886 - The first known women's lacrosse game is played.

1887 - A women's field hockey club is started in Surrey, England.

1887 - Ellen Hansell is crowned the first Women's Singles tennis champion at the US Open.

1887 - Lottie Dod wins the women's Wimbledon Championship five times between 1887 and 1893.

1887 - First Women's French Tennis Championship is held.

1887 - Indoor baseball (the forerunner of softball) was invented by George Hancock at the Farragut Boat Club on Chicago's South Side. The first game was played on Thanksgiving Day. The basic equipment included a huge 17-inch ball and a stick-like bat. No gloves were worn, and the catcher wore no mask. It quickly became the indoor winter sport of choice for boys and girls in the area.

1887 - Rose Coghlin ties two men in a mixed trap shooting match held at the Philadephia Gun Club. All three score 7.

1888 - The modern "safety" bicycle is invented with a light frame and two equal-sized wheels and a chain drive.

1888 - Women join (bi)cycling clubs in Chicago and tennis clubs in New York City.

1888 - Berta Benz becomes the first woman to drive on a 60 mile trip cross-country in Germany in a "motor-wagon" (a 3-horse-power car with solid rubber tires) with only her two teenage sons along in August.

1888 - The Amateur Athletic Union is formed to establish standards and uniformity in amateur sport. During its early years, the AAU served as a leader in international sport representing the US in the international sports federations.

1888 - AAU holds its first fencing championships. Professor J. Hartl of Vienna tours America with a women's fencing demonstration; women begin to fence at private clubs.

1888 - Lord Stanley, the Governor General of Canada, has an outdoor skating rink created in his back yard for his wife and 10 children (including 2 daughters) to skate and play hockey on. Lord Stanley will donate a silver bowl worth about $50 which will become the coveted Stanley Cup, to be won each year by the top amateur hockey team in Canada.

1889 - The first women's six-day bicycle race ends at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

1889 - Isobel Stanley is one of the first women hockey players in Canada. Her Governmnt House team played the Rideau ladies in what may be the first women's hockey game in Ottawa. There is a photograph in the National Archives of Canada commemorating the "action."

1890's - More than a million American women will own and ride bicycles during the next decade. It is the first time in American history that an athletic activity for women will become widely popular.

1890 - Miss Carrie Low and John Reid defeat Mrs. Reid and John Upham in golf's first mixed foursome.

1890's - The Bloomer Girls baseball era lasted from the 1890s until 1934. Hundreds of teams -- All Star Ranger Girls, Philadelphia Bobbies, New York Bloomer Girls, Baltimore Black Sox Colored Girls -- offered employment, travel, and adventure for young women who could hit, field, slide, or catch.

1890 - A women's baseball club plays a game against the Danville, IL Browns before 2,000 fans on Sunday, June 8. As the women leave town in carriages for Covington, IN, they are arrested and fined a total of $100 for disturbing the peace by playing baseball on Sunday in viloation of the local "Blue Laws." The men's team members are also arrested.

1890 - Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochran Seaman) becomes the first woman to travel around the world alone - she does it in just 72 days while a reporter for the New York World newspaper, returning on Jan. 25.

1890 - Fanny Bullock Workman (1859-1925), with her husband William, begins 10 years of bicycle tours. Cycling across the back roads of Europe and charting new pathways for fellow cyclists, the Workmans published their first travel book in 1895, after a tour of Algeria. They toured the Far East, cycling across Asian countries and the Indian Subcontinent in 1897 and 1898, publishing more travel accounts. For the rest of their careers they were mountaineers, completing eight Himalayan expeditions between 1898 and 1912.

1890 - Fay Fuller climbs the 14,410 foot Mt. Rainier in Washington.

1891 - Zoe Gayton arrives in Castleton, New York on March 20 after walking cross-country in 213 day, leaving the West Coast in Aug. 1890, averaging 18 miles per day. She won a $2,000 wager.

1891 - At least 60 women enter a rifle-shooting contest in Regina, Saskatchewan.

1891 - Mary French Sheldon (1847-1936) mounts her first expedition to East Africa. Her her travel accounts broke new, scientific and anthropological territory by focusing on the women and children in the territories she visited. She was one of only twenty-two women who were invited to join the Royal Geographic Society in 1892, an invitation withdrawn after contentious debate about women's presence in the Society. She eventually made four trips around the world.

1891 - On Feb. 11, two unnamed women's ice hockey teams play a match in Ottawa, Ontario.

1891 - The Shinnecock Hills Golf Club on Long Island opens its doors to women. Golf proved so popular that the club opened a 9-hole course for women two years later.

1891 - Beatrice Von Dressden, 14 of Buffalo, NY, makes her first parachute jump from a hot air balloon.

1892 - The journal Physical Education (a publication of the YMCA) devote an issue to women, saying that women need physical strength and endurance and dismis the popular idea that women are too weak to exercise.

1892 - Gymnastics instructor Senda Berenson Abbott adapts James Naismith's basketball rules for women and introduces the game to her students at Smith College, where she became the first director of physical education in Jan. Her rules confine each player to one-third of the court.

1892 - The Sierra Club of California welcomes women members as it organizes.

1892 - Louise Pound, (born Lincoln, NE June 30, 1872), enrolled at the University of Nebraska and earned a BA degree in 1892 and her MA in 1895. While in college she helped organize a girls' military company and she set a record at rifle target practice. She was the first woman named to the Lincoln Journal Sports Hall of Fame in 1954. She participated in tennis, golf, cycling, and ice skating, and also coached girls' basketball. She made pioneering contributions to American philology and folklore.

1892 - Hessie Donahue, who donned a loose blouse, bloomers and boxing gloves and sparred a few rounds as part of a vaudeville act, knocks out legendary heavyweight champion John L. Sullivan for over a minute after he accidentally landed a real blow on her during the act.

1893 to 1900 - The "Golden Age of the Bicycle", with the development of the modern-style "safety bicycle" with two equal- sized wheels, coaster brakes, and pneumatic tires creating a comfortable, faster and safer ride. A side effect is more common-sense dressing for women.

1893 - 16-year old Tessie Reynonds of Brighton rides her bycycle to London and back, a distance of 120 miles, in 8.5 hours. She wore the shocking "rationale" dress - a long jacket over knickers, which outraged some observers as much as her feat.

1893 - Formation of the Ladies Golf Union which sponsors the first British Ladies' championship, won by Lady Margaret Scott.

1893 - A women's ice hockey team is formed in Medicine Hat, Alberta.

1893 - Katharine Lee Bates climbs to the top of Pike's Peak and is inspired to compose a poem, "America, the Beautiul."

1894 - The first ladies golf tournament is held on the 7-hole Morristown, NJ course on Oct 17-18. Miss Hollard A. Ford won with a 97 scored on the double-7, 14 strokes under her nearest rival.

1894 - College girls at McGill University in Montreal begin weekly ice hockey games at an indoor rink - with 3 male students on "guard" at the door.

1894 - The first Australian women's national golf championship is held.

1895 - Annie Smith Peck is the first woman to reach the peak of the Matterhorn. She climbed in a pair of knickerbockers, causing a sensation with the press. She helps to found the American Alpine Club in 1902.

1895 - The first Women's Amateur Golf championship is contested among 13 golfers at the Meadow Brook Club, Hempstead, N.Y., on Nov. 9. The match is won by Mrs. Charles S. Brown with a 132 and the runner-up is Nellie Sargent.

1895 - The first organised athletics meeting is generally recognized as the "Field Day" at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, on Nov. 9. A group of "nimble, supple and vivacious girls" engaged in running and jumping events despite bad weather.

1895 - Frances Willard, president of the WTCU, publishes A Wheel Within a Wheel, a best-selling account of learning to ride a bicycle.

1895 - The first women's softball team is formed at Chicago's West Division High School. They did not have a coach for competitive play until 1899.

1895 - Volleyball is invented in Holyoke, MA. By the 1990's, volleyball is the second-largest participation sport in the United States with more than 42 million participants. There is indoor and outdoor competition for boys and girls, men and women and co-ed teams.

1895 - The American Bowling Congress is organized, establishing equipment standards and rules on Sept. 9. By the 1990's, bowling is the second-largest participation sport in the world, with more than 100 million athletes, 46% of whom are women who compete equally with men.

1895 - Mrs. Frank Sittig exhibits her new duplex riding skirt - which The New York Times judges to be "An ideal suit for cycling, to which even the most prudish could not object."

1896 - Women are buying 25-30% of all new bicycles.

1896 - Susan B. Anthony says that "the bicycle has done more for the emancipation of women than anything else in the world."

1896 - The first 6-day bicycle race for women starts on Jan 6 at Madison Square Garden in NYC.

1896 - The first women's intercollegiate basketball championship is played between Stanford and the University of California at Berkely. Stanford wins 2-1 on April 4 before a crowd of 700 women!

1896 - At the first modern Olympics in Athens, a woman, Melpomene, barred from the official race, runs the same course as the men, finishing in 4 hours 30 minutes. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympics, says, "It is indecent that the spectators should be exposed to the risk of seeing the body of a women being smashed before their very eyes. Besides, no matter how toughened a sportswoman may be, her organizm is not cut out to sustain certain shocks."

1897 - Lena Jordan becomes the first person to successfully execute the triple somersault on the flying trapeze. The first man to acomplish this didn't do so until 1909.

1897 - The first Women's French Tennis Championship is held.

1898 - Three women create a stir when they compete in a "century run" endurance contest in bicyling. Irene Bush of Brooklyn rides 400 miles in 48 hours; Jane Yatman of Brooklyn rides 500 miles in 58 hours; and Jane Lindsay rides 600 miles in 72 hours.

1898 - Lizzie Arlington becomes the first woman to sign a professional baseball contract, appearing in her first professional game pitching for the Philadelphia Reserves.

1899 - Setting a new women's cycling endurance record, 125 pound Jane Yatman rides 700 miles in 81 hours, 5 mintes on Long Island. During the 3 and one half day trial, she rests less than 2 hours. Her record is beaten on Oct. 19 by Jane Lindsay who rides 900 mikes in 91 hours, 48 minutes.

1899 - Two teams of women ice hockey players play a game on the artifical ice at the Ice Palace in Philadelphia.

1900-1920 - Physical Education instructors strongly oppose competition among women, fearing it will make them less feminine.

1900 - The first 19 women to compete in the modern Olympics Games in Paris, France, play in just three sports: tennis, golf, and croquet. Margaret I. Abbott is the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal. An art student in Paris, she won the nine-hole golf tournament by shooting a 47.

1900 - May Sutton is America's first woman tennis player of international reknown. She wins the Pacific Southwest Championship at age 13.

1900 The first women's ice hockey league is organized in Quebec with three teams from Montreal, one from Quebec City, and another from Trois-Rivieres.

1901 - Field Hockey is introduced to women in the United State by Constance M. K. Applebee, a British physical education teacher. She presents a hockey exhibition at Harvard University.

1901 - Annie Taylor, 43, becomes the first person to go over Naigara Falls in a custom-built barrel and live. She couldn't swim. Her comment on being retreieved: "Nobody ever ought to do that again."

1901 - The ambidextrous May Kaarlus, 16, performs a sereis of amazing billard shots in New York City. Male experts try and fail to duplicate her shots.

1902 - Britian's Madge Syers opens the door for women figure skaters when she enters the all-male 1902 world championships and places second. Her second place finish causes officials to ban women from the championships until 1095 when a separate ladies event is held.

1902 - Mrs. Adolph Landenburg introduces the split skirt for horseback riding in Saratog Springs, NY.

1903 - Eleanor Roosevelt enrolls in the Junior League of New York where she teaches calisthenics and dancing to immigrants.

1903 - A women's curling team from Quebec City defeats a men's curling team from the Royal Caledonia in Scotland.

1903 - Cuban-born Aida de Acosta pilots a dirigible over Paris, just months before the Wright Brothers fly at Kitty Hawk, NC.

1904 - Lydia Scott Howell (who won the first of 17 archery championships in 1882), wins three gold medals in archery, which is an unofficial Olympic sport at the St. Louis games.

1904 - A women's ice hockey team from Dawson City play the team from Victoria in the new Dawson City Arena as Klondike gold rush fever swells the population of the Yukon.

1904 - Amanda Clement, just 16 years old, becomes the first female umpire to officiate a men's baseball game in Iowa for pay.

1904 - Bertha Kapernick becoms the first woman to give bronco riding exhibitions at the Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo. 1906 - Lula Olive Gill becomes the first woman jockey to win a horse race in California.

1906 - Skater Madge Syers becoms the first woman world figure skating champion, repeating in 1907.

1906 - Ada Evans Dean rides her horse to victory twice in Liberty, NY, after learning that her jockey was ill. She had never ridden in a horse race before.

1906 - The first provincial women's ice hockey tournament takes place in Banff, Alberta, with a six-team league.

1907 - The first organized bowling league for women begins in St. Louis, MO. The first of three women's bowling tournaments organized by the American Bowling Congress is held. The 1908 tournament is held in Cincinnati and the 1909 tournament in Pittsburgh.

1907 - Annette Kellerman is the first underwater ballerina at the New York Hippodrome. The Australian native attracts attention when she appears at Boston's Revere beach in a one-piece bathing suit.

1908 - The national anthem of baseball, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, is written about a young girl's love of the game.

1908 - Madge Syers is the first woman Olympic figure skating gold medalist at the London Games.

1908 - Edith Berg becomes the first woman to go up in an airplane. She was a passenger in the Wright Brother's Flyer in a demonstration in France.

1908 - In England, Muriel Matters, a suffragette and balloonist, flies over the British Houses of Parliament, dropping hundreds of flyers urging "votes for women."

1909 - On Jan. 11, a dozen woman-driven cars left New York in a long distance race for Philadelphia. Mrs. J. Newton Cuneo won in a Lancia, followed by 8 eight other cars. Four cars didn't make it past Burlington, NJ, in a series of mishaps.

1909 - On Aug. 31, Mrs. Adolph Ladenburg introduces the split skirt for horseback riding in Saratoga, NY.

1909 - Annie Smith Peck, 57, becomes the first person to climb 21,000 foot Mount Huascaran, the highest peak in Peru on Sept. 2. Her last climb was Mount Madison, NH at age 82.

1910 - Dr. Clelia Duel Mosher debunks several popular myths of female health, including one claiming women breathe differently than men, which makes them unfit for strenuous excersie.

1910 - On March 8, Baroness Raymonde de Laroche passes her qualifiying tests to become the first woman in the world to be issued a pilot's license.

1910 - Blanche Stuart Scott, 19, becomes the first woman to fly a plane solo in Hammondsport, NY on Sept. 2. Earlier that year she completes a cross-country trip in an Overland automobile with a woman journalist along to record the trip.

1910 - Australia's Annette Kellerman is arrested for swimming in Boston Harbor in an "indecent" one-piece swimsuit for exposing her legs.

1910-11 - Nan Jane Aspinall rides across the country on horseback alone, from San Fransicso to New York.

1911 - Harriet Quimby makes her professional aviator debut with a moonlight flight over Staten Island before a crowd of 20,000 spectators to become the first woman to make a night flight on Sept. 5.

1911 - Charlotte Granville, an English sportswoman and a member of the Royal Aero Club of England and Areo Club of Frabcxe, is denied membership to the Aero Club of New York. A veteran of over 50 flights, she commented, "How perfectly stupid!"

1911 - The first women's flying school is founded in France, run by qualified pilot Jane Herveux.

1911 - Annie Smith Peck plants a "Votes for Women" banner on top of Mt. Coropuna in Peru when she becomes the first woman to climb it (at the age of 61).

1911 - Helene Britton becomes the first woman owner of a major league team, the St. Louis Cardinals, from 1911 to 1917.

1912 - Harriet Quimby is the first woman to pilot an airplane across the English Channel on April 16. For most of the flight she was in fog, depending on her compass.

1912 - The first women's foil National Championship is won by Adelaide Baylis.

1912 - Mrs. Edwards and Faurlein Kussin meet in the boxing ring at a bout on March 7.

1912 - Swimming and diving debut at the Stockholm Olympic Games, with 57 women from 11 nations competing in those sports plus tennis.

1912 - Dora Keen successfully reaches the peak of Alaska's 13,690 foot Mount Blackburn, in the first expedition to go up the southeast face, to feature a prolonged night ascent, and the first to succeed without a Swiss guide.

1912 - Many young American college women take up the lastest sports craze: wall scaling.

1913 - Katherine Stinson becomes the first woman to fly the mail from the fairgound outside Helena, MT into the city. She was the first woman to loop the loop, and the first to loop the loop at night.

1912 - Eleanora Sears completes her first marathon walk of 108-miles in 19 hours and 50 minutes.

1913 - Women's ice hockey is played at the University of Saskatchewan.

1914 - Miss Georgia “Tiny” Broadwick, demonstrating air-jumping techniques to the US Army in San Diego, CA, pulled her release manually, becoming the first person to make an intentional free-fall parachute jump from an airplane on June 21.

1914 - The American Olympic Committee formally opposes women's athletic competition in the Olympics. The only exception is the floor exercise, where women are allowed to only wear long skirts.

1914 - Women's basketball rules change to allow half-court play, expanded from the original one-third court rules. Full court play for women doesn't come in until the 1970's.

1914 - The first national swimming championships are held with women allowed to register by the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU).

1915 - The British government appoints Gertrude Bell (born in England in 1868) a diplomat in Baghdad because of her knowledge of the territory. She was the first European woman to travel in remote parts of the Middle East. She traveled, often alone, and wrote about her journeys and the excavations she saw.

1915 - Percy Page organizes the Edmunton Grads, the most successful women's basketball team with 502 wins and only 20 losses from 1915-1940.

1915 - Katherine Stinson becomes the first woman to do multiple loops while flying.

1915 - In a stunt, aviator Ruth Law drops a grapefruit from her plane for Brooklyn Dodger outfielder Casey Stengel to catch. Having forgetten to take the baseball into the place with her, she makes a lost minute substitution.

1916 - Evelyn Burnett wins the first US Platform Diving Championship.

1916 - A group of 40 women form the Women's International Bowling Congress, which will become the oldest and largest women's sports organization in the world.

1916 - Women take up trap-shooting in the US.

1916 - Kay Curtis institutes synchronized swimming as an integral part of the University of Wisconsin's physical education program.

1916 - Sisters Adeline and Augusta Van Buren become the first women to ride motorcycles across the country, leaving Brooklyn on July 5 and arriving in San Francisco on Sept. 12. They are also the first women to conquer the 14,100-foot summit of Pikes Peak on motorcycles.

1916 - Women start playing organized ice hockey at the University of Minnesota. (Men began in 1914.)

1916 - Ruth Law flies non-stop from Chicago to Hornell, NY, setting the American nonstop cross-country record for both men and women, flying 590 miles in just 6 hours. She had installed axillary gas tanks, upping her fuel capacity from 8 to 53 gallons and added a rubber gas line to her open "pusher" type Curtiss plane.

1916 - 100 women compete in the first "Championship of the World" bowling tournament on Nov. 26-19 in St. Louis. The total purse was $222. The Women's National Bowling Association is organized as a result of the success of the tournmant.

1917 - Katherine Stinson breaks Ruth Law's distance record by flying 610 miles (976 km) nonstop.

1917 - Charlotte (Eppie) Epstein, a court reporter, rents one of NYC's only chlorinated pools (in the basement of Brooklyn's Hotel Terrain) and founds the Women's Swimming Association of New York, dedicated to competitive training for women.

1917 - Lucy Diggs Slowe wins the singles title at the first American Tennis Association (ATA) national tournament, becoming the first female African-American national champion in any sport.

1917 - The American Physical Education Association forms a Committee on Women's Athletics to draft standardized, separate rules for women's collegiate field hockey, swimming, track and field, and soccer.

1918 - Eleanora Sears (a great-great-granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson born in 1881) takes up squash, after excelling at polo (which she rode astride, shocking conventions of the day), baseball, golf, field hockey, auto racing, swimming, tennis, yachting and speedboat racing. She accumulated 240 trophies during her athletic career. She demonstrated that women could play men's games and was a prime liberator of women in sports.

1918 - Lillian Leitzel, 36, a 90-pound acrobat and aeriast with Ringling Brothers & Barnumn &and Baily beat the 1878 world's record (12) for one-armed chin-ups - she performed 27 one-armed chin-ups hith her right arm; swiching hands, she did 19 more.

1918 - The first annual Women's National Bowling Association tournamnet is held in Cincinnati. OH at the Armory Building in March.

1919 - Anna Low is the first Chinese-American woman aviator.

1920's - The skimpy fashions of the '20's put a new emphasis on athletic bodies and narrow the gap between health and glamour. Advertisers, like Grape-Nuts, say, "Grandmother went bathing - girls like Molly go in to swim."

1920 - The first horeshoe pitchinbg tournament for women is held in Asbury Park, NJ, with Marjorie Voorhees the winner.

1920 - The first American women's field hockey team to compete internationally is the All-Philadelphia team. Their application to the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp is denied, but they pay in an English tournamnet (loosing both games).

1920 - Female swimmers become the first American women to achieve full Olympic status. Ethelda Bleibtrey (1902-78), held the world record in the 100-yard backstroke when women's swimming was added to the Olympic program. The only three events were the 100-meter and 300-meter freestyles and the 4 by 100-meter freestyle relay, so she entered all three and won three gold medals.

1920 - 14-year old Aileen Riggin wins the first women's Olympic springboard diving competition. US women will dominate Olympics springboard diving, winning all the gold, silver and bronze medals from 1920 - 1948.

1920 - Theresa Weld Blanchard wins the first US medal in the Winter Olympics, a bronze for figure skating. She is scolded for putting a salchow (jump) into her program!

1920 - The Dick-Kerr's Ladies Professional Soccer Team tours the US, outscoring their male opponents 35-34 with a 3-3-2 record.

1920 - At the Summer Olympics, France's Suzanne Lenglen abandoned the customary tennis garb for a short, pleated skirt, sleeveless silk blouse, and matching sweater. She won two gold and a bronze medal and became the first female celebrity athlete.

1920 - Marjorie Voohies wins the first national tournament for female horseshoe pitchers.

1920's - The Lake Placid Club (NY) organizes skiing events for college women.

1921 - Helen Meany wins the first US Springboard Diving Championship, repeating in 1922, 1926, and 1927. She also wins the US Platform Chapionship in 1921-23, 1925 and 1928.

1921 - In Monaco in May, the first all-woman Olymiades Feminines Games are held.

1921 - A group of French women stage their version of international games for women, the Jeux Olympiques Feminine du Monde. 300 women from five countries compete in track and field and basketball. The games are repeated in 1922 and 1923.

1921 - In October, Alice Milliat and members of the Femina Sport from the Federation Sportive Feminine Internationale.

1921 - Bessie Coleman becomes the first black licensed pilot in the world.

1921 - Adrienne Bolland becomes the first woman to fly over the Andes, taking off from Mendoza, Argentina, and landing 10 hours later in Santiago de Chile. She flew at an altitude of 14,750 feet on bitter cold, having to avoid mountain peaks that were higher than the altitude her airplane could fly.

1921 - Phoebe Fairgrave becomes the first woman to do a double parachute jump, cutting away her first 'chute and opening a second. In the 1930s she organized a group of women fliers who barnstormed the country urging communities to paint the name of their town or city in large white letters on a rooftop to aid pilots in navigation. She was the first woman to hold a government aviation post, serving as technical advisor to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1921 - The National Women's Athletic Association is organized.

1921 - Gertrude "Trudy" Ederle, 14, wins an international 3-mile swim in New York Bay against 50 of the best swimmers of England and America.

1922 - Glenna Collett (Vare) wins the first of her record-making six US National Amateur golf championships (1922, 1925, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1935). She also holds the record for the most times in the finals (8). The Vare Trophy for the lowest scoring average is named in her honor.

1922 -The U.S. Field Hockey Association, the National Governing Body for field hockey in the United States, is established.

1922 - Miss J. I. Cave wins the first title at the Women's British Open Squash Championship.

1922 - The National Amateur and Athletic Federation (NAAF) is founded, committed to boys and girls being on an "equal footing with the same standards, the same program and the same regulaltions."

1922 - "Women as Athletes" appears as a heading in the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature.

1922 - The Federation Sportive Feminine Internationale hold the first of four Women's Olympic games. It included 11 track and field events and drew over 2,000 fans. Six countries participated, including the USA.

1922 - Lilian Gatlin becomes the first woman to fly across the continent in 27 hours and 11 minutes on Oct. 23.

1922 - The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) adds track and field events open to women.

1922 - Sybil Bauer swims the 100-yard backstroke in 1 minute 17.6 seconds.

1922 - First women's Australasian Tennis Championship is held.

1924 - The first Winter Olympic Games in Chamonix, France; figure skating is the only event for women.

1923 - 22% of US colleges have varsity sports teams for women.

1924 - Janet Allen is elected president of the Ladies' Ontario Hockey Association in Canada.

1924 - Publication of The Sportswoman magazine begins; it continues until 1936.

1924 - Alexandra David-Neel of England is the first European woman to travel to the forbidden city of Tibet.

1924 - Sybil Bauer becomes the first woman to break an existing men's world swimming record when she won the 100-meter backstroke in 1:23.2 at the Olympic Games.

1924 - Aileen Riggin becomes the first athlete to win Olympic medals in both swimming and diving. At the 1920 Antwerp Games, the 14-year-old from Brooklyn Heights, NY, won the first women's Olympic springboard diving competition. Four years later, in Paris, she won a silver in the springboard and a bronze in the 100-meter backstroke, making her the first athlete, male or female, to medal in both the Olympic swimming and diving competitions. She will go on to become one of America's first female sportswriters.

1924 - Women's foil is added to the events at the first Summer Olympic Games in Paris.

1924 - American Helen Wills brings home gold in both singles and doubles tennis at the Paris Olympic Games.

1924 - Gertrude Ederle wins three medals at the Paris Olympics: a gold in the 4x100-meter relay and bronze in the 100 and 400 freestyle.

1924 - Ruth Law (1901-60) is the first woman to quality for an international hydroplane license.

1924 - The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) holds the first national basketball tournmant for women with six teams.

1924 - Ora Washington becomes the first black American woman to win the American Tennis Association's singles title, a title she held for 12 years.

1925 - The Society of Women Geographers is organized by Helen Chalmers Adams, Marguerite Harrison, Blair Niles (Mary Blair Rice Beebe) and Grace Seton.

1925 - For the first time since 1665, a woman jockey wins the Newmarket Town four-mile race. Eileen Joel, 18, raced against four other women and three men to ride Hogier home by three lengths in the oldest racing event in history.

1926 - New York City native Gertrude "Trudy" Ederle, 19, becomes the first woman to swim the English Channel in 14 hours, 31 minutes, beating the best time to date by 2 hours on Aug. 6. (She had won a gold medal and 2 bronzes for swimming at the 1924 Olympics.)

1926 - Just three weks after Ederlie's successful Channel crossing, American Mrs. Clemington Corson of New York made the swim in 15.5 hours. Her record time also beat all the men simmers to date.

1926 - The first national speed skating championships for women are held by the Amateur Skating Union.

1926 - The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) sponsors the first-ever national women's basketball championship, using men's rules.

1926 - Kinue Hitomi (1907-31), Japan's foremost woman athlete, wins two gold medals at the second World Women's Games.

1926 - The International Table Tennis Federation is formed, holding the first world championship with 9 nations competing.

1926 - Suzanne Lenglen of France plays Helen Wills, a 20-year-old American, in the only match between two tennis greats. Lenglen won, 6-3, 8-6.

1927 - Elizabeth Graham, a female goalie from Queens University, wore the first goalie face mask - a wire fencing mask to protect her face during collegiate games. [In 1959 Montreal goalie Jacques Plante begins wearing a face mask in every game he plays.]

1927 - The International Federation of Women's Field Hockey Associations (IFWHA) is formed to provide competition for teams from the US, England, Scotland and Ireland.

1927 - American Helen Wills wins her first of eight singles tennis titles at the All-England Club from 1927-38. She holds the No. 1 world ranking for eight years, not losing a set from 1927-33. In her career, she captured a total of 31 career Grand Slam titles, including 19 in singles.

1928 - Nellie Zabel Willhite solos on Jan. 13, becoming South Dakota's first licensed woman pilot - and probably the first pilot who was almost completely deaf. She was outstanding air show performer in the tight, fast maneuvering necessary in balloon target racing in which pilots would fly into balloons to burst them.

1928 - Helene Mayer of Germany wins the gold medal for Fencing in the Amsterdam Olympics. She would hold three world championships (1929, 1931, 1937).

1928 - Sonja Henie (1912-69) wins the first of three consecutive Olympic gold medals (1932 + 1936) in figure skating. She was known as the "Pavalova of the Ice" for her ballerina-like approach to skating and her meticulous choreography, inspiring thousands of young women to take up figure skating. When she retired from amateur competition in 1936, she had won nearly 1,500 medals and trophies.

1928 - Lottie Schoemmel sets a new women's indoor smimming edurance records at 32 hours.

1928 - Eleanora Sears helps found the US Women's Squash Racquets Association. She was its first singles champion, later served as president, and was captain of the US national team.

1928 - The Summer Olympic Games open gymnastics and five track and field events to women. Official rules stipulate that women wear shorts that came with in about 4 inches of the knee. American Betty Robinson becomes the first woman to win a gold medal in track and field at the Olympics for the 100-meter race.

1929 - Tuskegee Institite in Alabama formsone of the first women's college track teams, offering scholarships to promising women athletes, and adding women's event to their Tuskegee relays track meets.

1929 - The Intercollegiate Women's Fencing Association (IWFA) is founded by Bryn Mawr, Cornell, New York University, and the University of Pennsylvania.

1929 - 20 women compete in the first major air race for women, the National Air Race, which began in California on Aug. 13 and ended at Cleveland Municipal Airport on Aug. 20. Competitors weren't allowed to use any navigational aids except road maps, so flying was limited to daylight hours. The race was won Louise Thaden.

1929 - The Ninety-Nines, a club for women pilots, forms with Ameilia Earhart as the first president. The name comes from the number of pilots who join out of the 126 licensed women pilots.

1929 - Rose Jacobs bowls a perfect 300 game in a Rainbow League match in Schenectady, NY.

1930 - Ruth Nichols sets a transcontinental speed record of 13 hours and 21 minutes, beating the record set by Charles Lindbergh.

1930 - Anne Morrow Lindbergh is the first woman to earn a glider pilot's license.

1930 - 17-year old Stella Walsh from Cleaveland, OH, sets her second world record in a week by running the 220-yard dash in 26 and 4/5 seconds.

1930 - On April 20, Charles and Anne Morrow Lindburgh set a transcontinental speed recprd. flying from Los Angeles to New Yprk in 14 hours, 45 minutes. Anne was 7 months pregnant at the time.

1930 - Kinue Hitomi is the captain of the Japanese team at the Prague Women's Games, winning all of Japan's 15 points and 2 golds, 1 silver and 1 bronze, as well as a gold medal as the best all-around athlete. (She died in 1931 at age 24 of tuberculosis.)

1930 - Amy Johnson, an Englishwoman, sets a speed record flying from London to India of 13 days, while on her way to Austrailia, becoming the first woman to fly that distance solo.

1930 - Jennie Kelleher of Wisconsin is the first woman to bowl a perfect 300 game.

1931 - Roberta C. Ranck wins the first US All-Around Gymnastics Championship.

1931 - Lili de Alvarez shocks social propriety by playing at Wimbledon in shorts instead of the longish, hampering dresses that were the de rigueur tennis dress on June 24.

1931 - Women begin competing in skiing events at the world championships sponsored by the International Ski Federation.

1931 - Baseball Commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis bans women from professional baseball (the bans lasts until 1992), after 17-year-old pitcher Virne Beatrice "Jackie" Mitchell strikes out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in an exhibition game for the Chattanooga Lookouts. Landis voids Mitchell's contract, saying baseball is "too strenuous" for women.

1931 - Phoebe Omlie scores the highest number of points in the first air race between men and women in Cleaveland, Ohio.

1931 - Helene Madison is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for swimming.

1931 - Gloria Hollister Anable sets a new deapth record for a woman, descending 1,208 feet below the ocean in a bathysphere.

1931 - Katherine Cheung is the first woman of Chinese ancestry to earn a pilot's license.

1931 - The first international women's archery competition is held. Janina Spychajowa- Kurkowska of Poland wins the women's singles title. She won six more world titles in archery, more than any other man or woman in history.

1932 - Speed skating for women is demonstrated at the Winter Olmpics in Lake Placid, NY.

1932 - Babe Didrikson scores enough points at the AAU national meet to win the team championship single-handedly. She won 6 gold medals and broke 4 world's records, totalling 30 points. The entire second place team won just 22. She is named the Associated Press Woman Athlete of the Year for track and field.

1932 - The US Women's Lacrosse Association is formed, holding its first tournament the next year.

1932 - Jacqueline Cochran gets her pilot's license after two and a half weeks of flight lessons. At her death in 1980 she held more speed, altitude, and distance records than any pilot, male or female, in the world.

1932 - The first Curtis Cup Match is staged in May at England's Wentworth Golf Club and drew fifteen thousand spectators. The US team narrowly beat the British team. After years of trying organize an international women's competition, the Curtis Cup match would be staged every two years, alternating between the US and England.

1932 - Amelia Earhart, 34, becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic in a red Lockheed Vega in 15 hours and 39 minutes.

1932 - American Helene Madison becomes the first woman to swim the 100 yard freestyle in a minute at the Los Angeles Olympics. "Babe" Didrikson becomes the first woman to win medals in three events at the Summer Games. Olympic rules restrict women competitors to three events.

1932 - Two black American women, Louise Stokes and Tidye Pickett qualify for the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, but are not allowed to compete.

1932 - In April, Florence Clasr, 32, becomes the first woman to drive a dog sled team to the summit of Mount Washington, NH, and back.

1933 - Helen Jacobs is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for tennis.

1933 - At the Chicago National Solfball Tournament, the male and female champions are honored equally.

1933 - Pope Pius XI condemns women who attend boxing matches. He states that it isn't possible to preserve the "dignity and grace peculiar to women" when they "admire spectacles of brutal violence."

1933 - Jockey Judy Johnson, an Englishwoman, rides three winners in a single day on Oct. 7 at Commack, LI, again on Nov. 12, and wins two more races the next day.

1933 - Babe Didrikson makes her first professional basketball appearance, scoring 9 points for the Brooklyn Yankees in a 19-16 win over the Long Island Ducklings.

1934 - Mary Hirsch becomes the first woman to be a licensed trainer of thoroughbreds.

1934 - Balloonist Jeannette Piccard and her husband, Jean, set an altitude record of 57,600 feet into the stratosphere. Her altitude record is unbroken until Valentina Tereshkova goes into space in 1963.

1934 - Phyllis Dewar of Moose Jaw becomes the first Canadian woman to win four gold medals for swimming at the 1934 British Empire Games, a record that stands until 1966.

1934 - The Modern Mermaids, a synchronized swim team, perform at the Chicago World's Fair.

1934 - Virginia Van Wie is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for golf.

1934 - Anne Morrow Lindburgh becomes the first woman to win the National Geographic Society's Hubbard Gold Medal for distinction in exploration, research and discovery.

1935 - Jacueline Cochran becomes the first woman to enter the Bendix Transcontinental Air Race.

1935 - Laura Ingalls is the first woman to fly across the country non-stop from Brooklyn to Burbank.

1935 - Amelia Earhart becomes the first person to fly non-stop between Hawaii and Oakland, CA.

1935 - Helen Wills Moody is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for tennis.

1935 - Glenna Collett Vare (born in 1903), won her last championship, defeating the teenaged as Patty Berg before an estimated crowd of 15,000 who came to watch the Grande Dame of golf. Vare dominated the sport in the 1920s, winning 59 of 60 consecutive matches. Women golfers of the day competed for the fun of it since there were no money prizes for women.

1936 - Sonja Henie wins the last of her ten consecutive world skating championships, begun in 1927. She revolutionized skating by choreographing her programs in time to music and by wearing short-skirted costumes, allowing her the freedom to execute more complicated movements.

1936 - Ruth Hughes Aarons (1910-80) wins the world singles table tennis championship, the first American to do so.

1936 - Sally Sterns becomes the first woman coxwain of a male rowing team at Rollins College.

1936 - Louise Thaden and co-pilot Blanche Noyes win the prestigious trans-continental air race for the Bendix Trophy, after women are allowed to enter for the first time in 1935. Laura Ingalls comes in second, and Amelia Earhart, with co-pilot Helen Richey, placed fifth, giving women three of the top five race finishes.

1936 - Kit Klein of the US becomes the first woman World Champion of Speedskating. (To qualify, a skater must win three of the four contested distances - 500, 1500, 3000 and 5000 meters).

1936 - Alpine skiing events for women are featured at the Garmisch Partenkirchen Games.

1936 - Women's tennis champion Helen Wills Moody and Howard Kinsey, a former Davis Cup player, volley a tennis ball 2, 001 times without a miss, in 1 hour, 18 minutes. Mr. Kinsey breaks off the volley to teach a lesson.

1936 - Formation of the All American Red Heads Basketball Team, who use men's rules and compete against men's teams. The team toured for more than fifty years, playing only men's teams and winning 85-90% of all their games.

1936 - Alice Marble, wins the first of 12 US Open championships. Her aggressive serve-and-volley style -- unusual for a woman -- that set new standards for tennis. In her last three years as an amateur, she won 23 of 24 tournaments and 120 of 122 matches.

1936 - Helen Stephens Moody is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for track.

1936 - Gynmastics for women is added to the Olympic program at the Berlin Games.

1937 - The US nation championship in cycling begin with competition for women with Doris Kopsky taking top honors.

1937 - Trainer Mary Hirsch's thoroughbred, No Sir, races in the Kentucky Derby.

1937 - The US becomes the first country to win the men's (Swaythling Cup) and women's (Marcel Corbillon Cup) team table tennis championships in the same year.

1937 - Conchita Cintron (born Chile 1922) begins fighting bulls in Mexico at age 15. During her 13-year career she slew 800 bulls. She retired in 1951. She is recognized as the first woman to compete at a high professional level as a bullfighter.

1937 - Katherine Rawls is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for swimming.

1938 - Patty Berg, 20, wins the National Women's Amateur Golf title and was voted the outstanding woman athlete of the year in an Associated Press poll.

1938 - The Philadelphia Girls' Rowing Club is formed.

1939 - The first synchronized swimming competition in the United States is a dual meet between Wright Junior College and the Chicago Teacher's College.

1939 - Eleanor Holm, a 1936 Olympian, performs at the World's Fair in New York, popularizing synchronized swimming nationwide.

1939 - Alice Coachman wins the first of 10 national high jump championships.

1939 - Alice Marble is a triple champion at Wimbledon in singles, doubles and mixed doubles.

1939 - Alice Marble is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for tennis, a feat she repeats in 1940.

1940 - At the 23rd annual Women's National Bowling Association tournament held in Syracuse, NY, 1185 5-women teams compete for the championship.

1940 - Belle Martel of Van Nuys, California, becomes the first woman boxing referee when she officiated at eight bouts in San Bernardino, CA.

1941 - The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) adopts synchronized swimming as an official competitive sport for duet and team events. The first Synchronized Swimming Championship is held March 1 in Wilmette, IL.

1941 - Betty Hicks Newell Marble is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for golf.

1942 - Gloria Callen is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for swimming.

1943 - Judy Johnson rides Lone Gallant at Plimlico, marking the first time a woman rides professionally in Maryland. She finishes 10 of a field of 11.

1943 - Phillip K. Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs, establishes the All-American Girls Softball League, the forerunner of the All-American Girls Baseball League (AAGBL).

1943 - In its June 14th issue, Time estimates there are 40,000 semi-pro women's softball teams in the US.

1943 - Patty Berg is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for golf.

1944 - In Datyon, OH, Ann Baumgartner (Carl), a WASP test pilot for the armed services, is the first woman to fly the top-secret experimental YP-59 experimental jet airplane, flying 350 mph at 35,000 feet.

1944 - Swimmer Ann Curtis becomes the first woman to win the James E. Sullivan Memorial Award, presented annually by the Amateur Athletic Union since 1930. The Sullivan Award is named after the former AAU president and given to the athlete who, “by his or her performance, example and influence as an amateur, has done the most during the year to advance the cause of sportsmanship.” An athlete cannot win the award more than once.

1944 - Ann Curtis is also named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for swimming.

1945 - Babe Didrikson Zaharias is named the Associated Press Woman Athlete of the Year for golf, 13 years after winning for track and field in 1932. She repeats in 1946 and 1947. The Babe won a total of 114 golf tournaments, 83 amateur golf tournaments, 31 on the P.G.A. tour, with a string of seventeen consecutive major women's tournaments.

1946 - Alice Coachman becomes the first woman of color to be a member of the US All-American Track and Field Team. By 1948, 9 of 12 members of the women's team would be black.

1946 - The Women's Professional Golf Association is formed. Patty Berg wins $1,500 in the first US Women's Golf Open.

1947 - Babe Didrikson Zaharias becomes the first American woman to win the British Women's Amateur Golf Tournment.

1947 - Aviator Margie Hurley becomes the first woman to break the 300 mph airspeed barrier.

1947 - Ann Shaw Carter is the first licensed helicopter pilot.

1947 - Althea Gibson won the first of ten consecutive American Tennis Association national championships.

1947 - Barbara Washburn becomes the first woman to climb 20,320-foot Mount McKinley.

1948 - Gretchen Fraser takes the gold in the women's slalam at the Winter Olympics, becoming the first American skier to take a gold in the slalom and a silver in the alpine combined.

1948 - Canadian Barbra Ann Scott wins the Olympic, World, and European figures skating titles.

1948 - Alice Coachman becomes the first black American female gold Olympic medalist, in the high jump.

1948 - Patty Berg becomes a founder and the first president of the Ladies' Professional Golf Association. [In 1979 the LPGA established the Patty Berg Award for outstanding contributions to women's golf.]

1948 - Amy Johnson sets the record for the decade for speed by flying 671 mph (1,073 kph).

1948 - The Girls Rodeo Association is formed in San Angelo, TX with 74 founding members. Margaret Owen is crowned the first GRA World Champion. The GRA changes its name to the Women's Professional Rodeo Association in 1982.

1948 - Fanny Blankers-Koen is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for track.

1948 - Louise Suggs officially joins the LPGA Tour after a brilliant career as an amateur, with three pro major wins to her credit.

1948 - Roller Derby is broadcast live on television from New York City with women skaters.

1949 - The US Volleyball Association begins sponsoring the women's open title.

1949 - Bobbie Rosenfeld is named the Canadian Woman Athlete of the Half Century. She excelled at most sports, including ice hockey and softball, and was an 1928 Olympic track and field gold medalist.

1949 - Wilson Sporting Goods agrees to sponsor the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA).

1949 - Louise Suggs wins the US Women's Open by 14 strokes, setting an LPGA 72-hole scoring record, which stood until 1953 when Suggs lowered it to 288 with a win at the Tampa Open.

1949 - Marcenia Lyle Alberga is the first woman to play a full season in a professional men's baseball league.

1949 - Marlene Bauer, 15, wins the first US Golf Association Girls' Junior Championship out of a field of 33 girls under 18 years at the Philadelphia Country Club. She became the youngest athlete ever to be named AP Athlete of the Year, Golfer of the Year and Teenager of the Year.

1949 - Wantha Davis, riding Northeast, defeats Johnny Langdon on Grey Spook in a match race in Tijuana, Mexico.

1949 - Marlene Bauer is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for golf.

1950 - Florence Chadwick, 31, swims the English Channel, beating the record set by Gertrude Ederle in 1926.

1950 - Six women are selected as charter members of the Women's Golf Hall of Fame.

1950 - Babe Didrikson Zaharis is named “Women Athlete of the Half Century” by an AP poll for her outstanding performances in golf, basketball, baseball, javelin, tennis, diving, bowling, 80 meter hurdles, shot-put, high jump & discus. She won won $14,800 during the LPGA's first season, a record one-year amount.

1950 - Joan Pflueger wins the Grand American Trapshoot at Vandalia, OH against an all-male field. The 18 year old from Miami outshot contestants from the other 47 states (and Cuba), breaking 100 straight clay pigeons. She is the first woman champion in the 51 year history of the meet.

1950 - Margaret Dobson of Portland, OR, is the women's Fast Pitch Tournament batting champion for softball with a .615 batting average.

1950 - Kathyrn Johnson, 12, the first girl to play Little League Baseball, plays for the King's Dairy team in Corning, NY, during the summer season.

1950 - Althea Gibson becomes the first African-American— male or female—to play in a major United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA) event.

1951 - Babe Zaharias sets a one-year earnings record for women golfers with $14,800 in winnings. She is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for golf.

1951 - Pat McCormick becomes the first diver to ever win all five national championships. She took a gold in springboard diving and a gold in platform diving at the Helsinki Summer Games, as well. She also wins AAU's James E. Sullivan Memorial Award.

1951 - The US solo and duet champions, Beulah Gundling, Connie Todoroff and Shirley Simpson, demonstrate synchronized swimming at the first Pan American Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

1951 - Florence Chadwick, a 32-year old typist from California, becomes the first woman to swim the English Channel in both directions and is also the first to swim from England to France against the tide.

1951 - Althea Gibson becomes the first black player to comete at Wimbledon.

1951 - Maureen Connolly is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for tennis; she is named again in 1952 and 1953.

1951 - Louise Suggs, a founder and charter member of the LPGA, becomes the association's first Hall of Famer. During her pro career, Suggs won 50 LPGA events, eight of which were majors.

1951 - Betty Chapman cecomes the first black American professional softball player as an outfielder on the Admiral Music Maids of the National Girls Baseball League out of Chicago.

1952 - The romantic comedy, Pat and Mike, features Katherine Hepburn as an all-around athlete who competes against real-life athletes of theera, Babe Zaharis and Betty Hickes in golf, and Aloce Marble and Gussie Moran in tennis.

1952 - Patricia McCormick from Big Spring, TX, becomes the first North American woman bullfighter on Jan. 20 in Juarez, Mexico.

1952 - Women compete in "open" equestrian events at the Olympics for the first time, meaning men and women compete together.

1952 - A 10k cross-country or nordic ski event for women is added to the Oslo Winter Olympics.

1952 - Andrea Mead Lawrence becomes the first US woman to win two gold medals in one Olympics, in the slalom and giant slalom. She skiied the Olympic flame into the stadium at the Squaw Valley Olympics in 1960.

1953 - Maureen "Little Mo" Connolly, 16, becomes the first woman to score a Grand Slam - winning all four major world (US Open, Wimbledon, French & Australian Opens) tennis matches in a single season, with her US singles title at Forest Hills on Sept. 7.

1953 - Tenley Albright becomes the first US skater to win the world figure skating crown.

1953 - Jacqueline Cochran becomes the first woman to fly faster than sound.

1953 - The U.S. Women's Open comes under the auspices of the USGA.

1953 - International basketball competition begins for women, with the USA women's basketball team winning the gold medal in the World Championships.

1954 - Babe Zaharias is named the AP's Top Woman Athlete for a sixth time. Two months before her death of cancer in 1955, she gives a 4-foot high trophy to be awarded to the AP's Woman Athlete of the Year so that other women would have more than press clippings to show for their efforts. It is named the Babe Didrikson Zaharias trophy in her honor and memory.

1954 - B. Byer of Cape Moreton, Australia, catches a 1,052-pound white shark. It is the largest white shark ever caught by a woman.

1954 - Canadian Marilyn Bell, 16, becomes the first person to swim across Lake Ontario.

1954 - The Iowa Girls' High School Athletic Union is formed under the direction of Wayne Cooley, which successfully works to establish a state-wide program for girls sports equal to that for boys. By 1974 almost 500 Iowa schools have full girls' programs, which included equal coaches salaries, better media coverage, and end of season championships for girtls and boys.

1954 - Nera White, a 6’ 1” foward from Tennessee, helps her team win the first of 10 AAU championships in 11 years, including eight straight from 1962-69.

1955 - 13 women form the Whirly Girls, the first female association of helicopter pilots.

1955 - The International Women's Fishing Association of Palm Beach, FL, was founded to promote angling competitions for girls and women.

1955 - The Pan American Games in Mexico City include synchronized swimming as an official event for the first time. The US wins all three events.

1955 - Willa Worthington McGuire wins her third world water-skiing overall title, repeating her feat from 1949 and 1950.

1955 - Louise Boyd becomes the first woman to fly over the North pole.

1955 - The first LPGA championship is held.

1955 - Patty Berg is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for golf.

1956 - Larissa Latynina, a Ukrainian native, wins the all-around title and three other gold medals, plus a silver and a bronze in gymnastics at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.

1956 - Australian swimmer Dawn Fraser wins the gold in the 100-meter freestyle at the Melbourne Olympics, the first of a career total of eight medals—four gold and four silver, four in individual events and four in relays—and 39 world records. She will be the first woman to win four Olympic gold medals and the first swimmer to win an event in three straight Olympiads (1956, 1960 and ‘1964).

1956 - Althea Gibson becomes the first black to win a Grand Slam singles title when she wins the French championships. The next year, she makes more history by winning Wimbledon and the U.S. Nationals, the first black to win either.

1956 - Pat McCormick becomes the first woman to win back-to-back springboard and platform diving events at the Olympics. Tenley Albright, who overcame polio as a child, becomes the first American woman to win a Olympic gold medal in figure skating. Nell Cecelia Jackson, a 1948 Olympian, becomes the first black coach of the women's track team. She is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for diving.

1956 - Willye White, 16, a member of the US Olympic team at the Melbourne Games, wins a silver medal in the long jump, becoming the first American female ever to medal in that event.

1956 - The Uber Cup, signifying the winner of the Ladies International Badminton Chamionship, is initiated.

1957 - With her first Wimbledon title and first U.S. Championship, Althea Gibson becomes the top-ranked female tennis player in the world.

1957 - Louise Suggs wins the Vare Trophy for the best scoring average for a woman golfer.

1957 - Althea Gibson is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for tennis, a feat she repeats in 1958.

1957 - Nera White leads the US women's basketball team to a gold medal at the world championships in Brazil.

1958 - Maria-Teresa de Filippis of Italy is the first woman to compete in a European Grand Prix auto race.

1958 - Women are admitted to the international cycling championships.

1959 - Patty Berg hits the first "hole-in-one" for a woman in a golf tournament.

1959 - Maria Bueno is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for tennis.

1960 - At the Winter Games in Squaw Valley, CA, Carol Heiss performs the first double jump in women's figure skating.

1960 - Wilma Rudolph, during the Olympic Games in Rome, becomes the first American woman to win 3 track and field gold medals - in the 100 meter dash, the 200 meter dash, and the 400 meter relay. She was nicknamed the "Black Gazelle" for her graceful running style. She is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for 1960 and 1961.

1960 - Larissa Latynina wins three golds, two silvers and a bronze medal for gymnastics at the Rome Olympic medal count while three months pregnant.

1960 - Mamie Rollins sets a new record for women's 70-yard hurdles at 8.7 seconds.

1960 - Marion Ladewig, of Grand Rapids, MI, wins the first women's pro bowling tournament, the Professional Women's Bowling Association Championship in North Miami Beach, FL.

1960 - Donna de Varona is the youngest member of the 1960 US Olympic swimming team at 13.

1961 - Mickey Wright wins the first woman's golf "grand slam," with the LPGA championship, the US Open, and the Titleholders tournament.

1961 - On Feb. 15, golfer Louise Suggs defeats 10 men at the $10,000 Palm Beach par-3 invitational.

1961 - Wilma Rudolph, track, wins AAU's James E. Sullivan Memorial Award. After she retired from competition, she finished college and then took part in a special program to help ghetto children learn athletics from star performers.

1962 - Dawn Fraser is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for swimming.

1962 - The National Women's Rowing Association is formed in California.

1963 - Helen Shablis of the USA is the first woman's Tenpin Bowling World Champion.

1963 - the LPGA championship tournament is televised for the first time, with a record purse of $9,000, going to winner Mickey Wright. She is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for golf, repeating in 1964. Mickey Wright set the LPGA record with 13 victories this year.

1964 - Volleyball is added to the Olympic Games.

1964 - Willye White, the only American woman to compete on five Olympic track and field teams, wins her second silver at the Tokyo Games in the 4x100-meter relay. During a career as a member of 39 international track and field teams, White held the American record in the long jump for 16 years. She was also a member of three US 4x100 world-record relay teams.

1964 - Ukrainian native Larissa Latynina completes her Olympic career in gymnastics with more medals than any athlete in Olympic history: nine gold, five silver and four bronze.

1964 - Althea Gibson becomes the first black woman to earn her LPGA player's card.

1964 - Jerrie Mock is the first woman to fly successfully around the world in a Cessna 18. She set seven new records during the flight which lasts 29 days, traveling nearly 22,860 miles.

1964 - Mickey Wright is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for golf again this year with 11 victories on the year.

1965 - Margo Oberg, who was the youngest winning competitor in the women's no-age limit class at a San Diego surfing event at age 11, wins her first national event at age 12. She was the only girl competing against a beach full of boys.

1965 - Donna De Varona, a 1964 Olympic swimmer, becomes the first woman sports broadcaster on national TV for ABC. She is also a founder of the Women's Sports Foundation.

1965 - Golfer Kathy Whitworth is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year, an award she earns again in 1966.

1965 - The Women's Golf Open is televised nationally for the first time.

1965 - The first international women's softball tournament is held in Melboourne, Australia, with the home country beating the US in the final, 1-0.

1966 - Billie Jean King wins her first Wimbledon single title, repeating in 1967 and '68.

1966 - The first intercollegiate women's basketball tournmanet is played in Pennsylvania.

1966 - Roberta Gibb of the US, becomes the first woman to finish the Boston Marathon, a feat she repeats in 1967 and 1968. She finished in the top third behind about 125 of the 500 men.

1966 - Joyce Hofman wins her second straight world amateur surfing championship in Sydney Australia - becoming the first woman to win the title twice.

1966 - The first National Women's Rowing Association nationals are held in Seattle, with 45 boats entered.

1966 - LPGA player Kathy Whitworth wins the first of her 7 LPGA Player of the Year awards (1966-69, 1971-73).

1967 - The first woman’s season champion in the World Cup of ski racing is Canada’s Nancy Greene, who wins the final race of the season by seven-hundredths of a second. She repeats as world champion in 1968, and wins an Olympic gold medal in the giant slalom at the Winter Games in Grenoble, France, as well.

1967 - Billie Jean King is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year, an honor she earns again in 1973.

1967 - K. (Katherine) Switzer registers to run the Boston Marathon. Race officials try to tear her number from her back during the race.

1968 - The Olympic Committee conducts gender tests for the first time in international sports at the Winter Games in Grenoble, France.

1968 - Swimmer Debbie Meyer wins AAU's James E. Sullivan Memorial Award. The year before she was named the Woman Athlete of the Year - by the Soviet news agency, TASS!

1968 - Anna Lewis becomes the youngest person to win a world rodeo championship when she wins the Womens's Pro Rodeo Association barrel racing at age 10.

1968 - Enriquette Basilio becomes the first woman to light the Olympic flame at the Mexico City Summer Games.

1968 - Debbie Meyer becomes the first female to win three individual gold medals in Mexico City. At age 16, she set Olympic records in the 200-meter, 400-meter and 800-meter freestyle races.

1968 - Wyomia Tyus becomes the only woman to win two consecutive Olympic gold medals in the 100-meter dash at Mexico City; the first in Tokyo. She won 8 national AAU championships and was inducted in the US Olympic Hall of Fame in 1985.

1968 - Peggy Fleming is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for skating.

1968 - Margo Oberg wins her first World Championship in surfing.

1968 - Kathy Whitworth and Carol Mann both win 10 LPGA events during the year.

1969 - Diane Crump becomes the first woman jockey to ride in a parimutuel horse race in North America.

1969 - Barbara Jo Rubin becomes the first woman jockey to win at a US thoroughbred track.

1969 - Sharon Sites Adams becomes the first woman to sail solo across the Pacific in the 31-foot Sea Harp.

1969 - Debbie Meyer is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for swimming.

1969 - 17-year old Ruth White becomes the first black woman to win a major US fencing title and the youngest, when she is named the national fencing champion.

1970 - Just 294,000 American high school girls take part in interscholastic sports.

1970 - Pat Palinkas is the first woman to play in a professional football game. She held the ball for the place kickers on the Orlando Panthers team.

1970 - Diana Crump becomes the first woman to ride in the Kentucky Derby aboard Fathom on May 2.

1970 - The US's Mary Jo Peppler is voted the outstanding volleyball player in the world at the International Games in Bulgaria.

1970 - Cathy Rigby wins a silver medal in balance beam at the world championships, becoming the first American man or woman to win a medal in international competition.

1970 - Australian Margaret Smith Court becomes the second grand slam tennis winner. In her career, Smith-Court would win 24 Grand Slam singles titles, of a record 62 total Grand Slam titles

1970 - Chi Cheng is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for track.

1971 - Canadian Debbie Brill becomes the first woman to high jump six feet.

1971 - The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women is formed to plan, govern, and promote the growing number of college tournament for women athletes.

1971 - Billie Jean King becomes the first woman athlete to win more than $100,000 in a single season in any sport. She is the only woman to have won US singles titles on grass, clay, carpet and hard court.

1971 - Cheryl White, 17, becomes the first black woman to ride a horse, Ace Reward, at the Thitsledown Race Track in Cleaveland.

1971 - The five-player, full-court game and the 30-second shot clock is introduced to women's basketball.

1971 - Jockey Mary Bacon becomes the first woman to ride to 100 wins on California Lassie on June 30 at the Thitsledown Race Track in Cleaveland.

1971 - Evone Goolagong is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for tennis.

1971 - Austria’s Annemarie Moser-Pröll, 17, becomes the youngest woman to win a World Cup in overall points title for downhill skiing. During her 12 year career, she wins a record 62 World Cup races, includuing 36 downhill victories, to become the most accomplished female downhill skier.

1971 - Althea Gibson is inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

1972 - At the Munich Olympics, Shirley Babashoff, 15, wins the first of her eight Olympic medals in swimming. She won 27 national championships, and was a member of five world-record-setting relay teams.

1972 - Congress passes Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subject to discrimination under any education program or activities receiving Federal financial assistance.” When President Nixon signs the act on July 23 about 31,000 women are involved in college sports; spending on athletic scholarships for women is less than $100,000; and the average number of women's teams at a college is 2.1.

1972 - There are 817,073 girls participating in high school sports.

1972 - Laura Blears Ching, the International Surfing champion, is the first woman to go up against men in a surfing meet in Hawaii.

1972 - AAU changes the rules of the Boston Marathon, letting women run with official numbers for the first time. Nina Kuscik is one of only nine women to finish the race. She comes in ahead of 800 men in the field of runners.

1972 - Immaculata College claims its first of three straight national titles with a 52-48 victory over West Chester State College, in the first-ever women's college basketball season to culminate with an official national championship.

1972 - Billie Jean King is named the Sportswoman of the Year by Sports Illustrated, the first time the award is given to a woman.

1972 - Olga Korbut is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for gymnastics.

1973 - Joan Lind wins the national title for single sculling.

1973 - There are 1.3 million girls participating in high school sports.

1973 - US Tennis Association announces that men and women will receive equal prize money at the US Open.

1973 - Marcia Frederick is the first American to win an Olympic gold medal and the gymnastics title. She wins on the uneven parallel bars.

1973 - Robyn Smith becomes the first woman jockey to win a stakes race when she rides North Sea to victory at Aqueduct.

1973 - Billie Jean King wins the "battle-of-the-sexes" tennis match against Bobby Riggs on Sept. 20 in Houston in front of more than 30,000 people and a world-wide TV audience of more than 50 million. It firmly connected women's rights to women's sports and inspired millions to demand equal rights, equal treatment, and equal pay.

1973 - Linda Meyers becomes the first US world champion in archery.

1973 - Golfer Kathy Whitworth finsihes the year with 7 wins and $82,862 in prize money.

1973 - Jean Balukas, 14, a native of Brooklyn, wins her first US pocket billiards championship, a title she also wins in 1974 and 1975.

1973 - Billie Jean King is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for tennis.

1973 - Marion Ladewig, a native of Grand Rapids, MI, is voted the Greatest Woman Bowler of All Time. Ladewig started bowling at age 22, winning the first women's pro bowling tournament in 1960, the Professional Women's Bowling Association Championship in North Miami Beach, FL. Between 1949 and '63, Ladewig led the nation in high average for a woman four times, won the US Open Championship eight times, was a five-time World's Invitational Champion, and was voted Bowler of the Year nine times. No other person, man or woman, has won that award so many times.

1974 - Lanny Moss is the first woman to manage a professional men's baseball team. She was hired by the minor league Portland Mavericks.

1974 - Carol Polls becomes the first licensed woman boxing judge in the US.

1974 - Ann Meyers is the first high school player to make the women's national basketball team.

1974 - Little League Baseball admits girls (after losing a lawsuit). Bunny Taylor is the first girl to pitch a no-hitter.

1974 - The first issue of Women's Sports magazine is published.

1974 - The inaugeral season of the first women's professional football league kicks off with seven US teams.

1974 - Women begin competing for the world rowing championship.

1974 - Winston Cup racing reporter Pat Singer (who edited the Auto Racing Monthly in the early 1970's) gets her first garage pass at the Rockingham, NC, NASCAR track. This allowed her into auto racing's version of the pro sports locker room four years before Sports Ilustrated's Melissa Ludtke wins her lawsuit for equal access in major league baseball.

1974 - Chris Evert is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for tennis; she repeats in 1975, 1977, and 1980. Chris Evert is ranked the number 1 American for the first of 5 consecutive years. Over her professional career, Evert would compile a win-loss record of 1309-146, and be the first woman to earn $1 million in her career.

1974 - Donna de Varona co-founds the Women's Sports Foundation, serving as the organization's first president from 1979 to '84.

1975 - On Jan. 27, the first-ever nationally televised women's college basketball game sees Immaculata defeat the University of Maryland, 85-63.

1975 - Olympian and national team member Debbie Green becomes volleyball's youngest All-American at 16.

1975 - Margaret Murdock out-guns all her competition, to be come the first woman to win a gold medal in the over-all shooting events at the Pan-American Games.

1975 - The US women's lacrosse team beats the British team for the first time in lacrosse history in England.

1975 - Margo Oberg, age 22, returns to surfing when it becomes a professional sport. She wins the Hang Ten International in Malibu, the first professional women's surfing contest, and the circuit's next two pro world titles. She will win her last title in 1981.

1975 - Marion Bermudez, 23, is the first US woman to compete in the formerly all-male Golden Gloves boxing tournament in Mexico City. She won her first match against a man. She is also a national karate champion and has competed against men in that sport, as well.

1975 - Title IX goes effect on June 21.

1975 - Tammy Wilson and partner John Fowler roller skate nonstop for 178 hours in Montgomery, AL.

1975 - In an endurance match, Sandy Gross and Rita Santarpia play continuous tennis for 30 hours and 30 minutes in Beltsville, MD.

1975 - The first girl to win the All-American Soap Box Derby is Karen Stead, age 11.

1975 - The International Women's Professional Softball League forms. Player contracts ranged from $1,000 to $3,000 per year, but the league disbands in 1980 because of financial problems.

1975 - Kathy Whitworth of Texas is inducted into the LPGA Hall of Fame. She was the LPGA's player of the year from 1966 to 1973 (except for 1970). During her 33-year career (1962 to 1985), she won 88 championships, the best record of any professional woman golfer. She was the LPGA Player of the Year seven times, won six majors, and was a seven-time winner of the Vare Trophy, as the female golfer with the lowest scoring average.

1975 - Junko Tabei of Japan is the first woman in the world to reach the top of Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain. On May 16, leading an all-female Japanese expedition, she reaches the summit. She has also climbed to the top of the highest mountains in 20 of the 167 countries of the United Nations.

1975 - Mary Jo Peppler is named the International Volleyball Association's Coach of the Year.

1976 - Ann Meyers becomes the first female recipient of a full athletic scholarship at UCLA. She will lead the Bruins in rebounding, assists, steals and blocked shots during each of her four seasons. She will became the only player (male or female) in school history to record a quadruple-double (20 points, 14 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 steals).

1976 - Rowing, handball, and basketball become Olympic events for women. Joan Lind becomes the first American woman to win a (silver) medal as a single sculler.

1976 - Margaret Murdock becomes the first woman member of the US Olympic shooting team, sharing the podium with team member Lanny Bassham (the declared winner) after they posted equal gold medal-winning scores at the Montreal Summer Games.

1976 - At the Innsbruck Olympic Games, Sheila Young becomes the first American to win three medals at a Winter Olympics, taking gold in the 500, silver in the 1,500 and bronze in the 1,000 in speedskating. Later that year she wins her second skating/cycling world championships double before retiring from competition.

1976 - West German Rosi Mittermaier, 25, turns in the greatest performance in one Olympics by a female alpine skier when she captures the gold in the women’s downhill, the slalom and took the silver in the giant slalom at the Innsbruck Olympics.

1976 - Dorothy Hamill wins Olympic gold by scoring eight 5.8’s, a 5.9 in technical merit and all 5.9’s in artistic interpretation.

1976 - The Connecticut Falcons beat the San Jose Sunbirds in the first Women's Professional Softball World Series championship.

1976 - Natalie Dunn, 20, becomes the first US woman to win the world title in figure roller-skating; she repeats in 1978.

1976 - The New York Times reports there are more than 10,000 women weight-lifters, up from just a few hundred in 1974.

1976 - Krystyna Choynowski-Liskiewicz of Poland is the first woman to sail around the world solo, finishing on March 28.

1976 - Kitty O'Neil breaks the woman's world land-speed record by almost 300 mph, setting the new mark at 612 mph.

1976 - After winning three medals in speed skating at the Winter Olympics, Sheila Young of Michigan wins both the United States and world sprint cycling titles.

1976 - Shirley Babashoff becomes the all-time Olympic medal leader among US women. She wins one gold and two silver medals in 1972, along with one gold and four silver in 1976.

1976 - Margaret Murdock's silver three-position rifle victory at the Olympic Games makes her the first markswoman in history to win an Olympic medal. The event was open, with men and women competing against each other.

1976 - Nadia Comaneci is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for gymnastics.

1976 - Shirley Muldowney becomes the first woman to win a national event in the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Top Fuel division.

1977- Mary Shane, the first woman to be hired by major league baseball on Jan. 4, is the new TV play-by-play commentator for the Chicago White Sox.

1977 - The first varsity women's soccer program begins at Brown University.

1977 - Camdian Comdy Nichols, 19, swims the English Channel in both directions in just 19 hours and 55 minutes.

1977 - Janet Guthrie, a 39-year-old physicist, becomes the first woman to participate in the Indianaoplis 500 auto race on May 29. She qualifies for the race in 1978 (finishing in eighth place) and 1979, as well.

1977 - Lucy Giovinco, a college student, becomes the first US bowler to win the Women's Bowling World Cup with a 620 in a 3-game round.

1977 - Marie Ledbetter becomes the first woman to win the World Accuracy Title at the 12th annual Parachuting Championship in Rome. In 8 jumps from 2,500 feet, her total accumulated distance off target is only 3.3 inches.

1977 - At 13, Lise Ann Russell becomes the youngest amatuer to qualify and compete in a LPGA event, the Coca Cola Classic in May.

1977 - Lucy Harris becomes the first woman to be drafted by an NBA team (New Orleans Jazz).

1978 - The Amateur Sports Act of 1978, prohibiting gender discrimination in open amateur sports, makes training facilities and money more available to women and minorities.

1978 - 1.6 million American high school girls are taking part in interscholastic sports.

1978 - Shirley Muldowney becomes the first woman first woman to win the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) points title.

1978 - Ann Meyers signs a contract to try out for the Indiana Pacers, the first woman to sign a contract with an NBA team. She later plays for the New Jersey Gems of the Women's Professional Basketball League.

1978 - Swimmer Tracy Caulkins wins AAU's James E. Sullivan Memorial Award.

1978 - Melissa Ludtke of Sports Illustrated file a lawsuit; a US District Court judge rules that male and female reporters should have the same access to athletes, even if it means entering locker rooms while athletes are dressing.

1978 - Norwegian Grete Waitz wins the New York City Marathon in 2:32:30, two minutes faster than the existing world record.

1978 - Betty Cook becomes the first woman to complete in one day the 580-mile run down the Gulf of California from San Felipe to La Paz. Averaging just over 50 mph, she completed the offshore boat race in 12 hours and 45 minutes.

1978 - 13-year old Penny Dean sets an English Channel swimming record time of 7 hours 40 minutes.

1978 - The first game of the Women's Professional Basketball League (WBL) is played between the Chicago Hustle and Milwaukee Does on Dec. 8.

1978 - New York State becomes the first state to offer an amateur competition for female and male athletes when the Empire State Games debut in Syracuse. Competition is divided into three categories: high school athletes, an open category for college students and young adults, and a masters level for older adults.

1978 - Nancy Lopez is the first female golfer to win Rookie of the Year and Player of the Year in the same year. She wonnine tournaments and $189,813, a record for any rookie, male or female. She is also named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for golf.

1978 - Carol Blazejowski, "Blaze," a three-time All-American forward at Montclair State. Is the first recipient of the Wade Trophy. She sets a collegiate scoring record (male or female) in Madison Square Garden with 52 points in a single game. She led the nation in scoring in '76-77 (33.5 ppg) and in '77-78 (38.6 ppg). Her total points at Montclair State were 3,199 points, a career scoring average of 31.7 points per game, the highest in the history of women's college basketball.

1979 - Lyn Memarie is the first woman to complete the Hawaii Ironman Triathalon in 12:55:38.

1979 - Grete Waitz becomes the first woman ever to run a marathon in under 2:30, winning her second New York City Marathon with a new world mark (2:27:33).

1979 - Softball debutes at the Pan-American Games with the United States Women's National Team winning the gold medal.

1979 - Crystal Fields, an 11-year-old from Cumberland, MD, becomes the first girl to win the annual baseball Pitch, Hit, and Run competition against boys in finals held in Seattle in conjunction with the All-Star Game.

1979 - Beth Heiden becomes the first US women's world overall champion in speed skating. She follows this with a world title in cycling and the NCAA championship in cross-country skiing.

1979 - Tracy Austin, age 16, wins the US Open singles tennis championship, becoming the youngest player to win the title. She is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for tennis; repeating in 1981.

1979 - Dr. Sylvia Earle becomes the first person in the world to dive to a depth of 1,250 feet. She led an all-woman team of scientists in an experiment in undersea living, staying for two weeks in a submerged capsule in the Caribbean Sea.

1979 - Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli, a 12-time world Cycling champion, begins competing. In her career, she will break 36 world records, and win 37 French national titles.

1979 - Ann Meyers, first woman to sign a contract with a men’s NBA team, is the first player taken in the Women’s Professional Basketball League draft. She is named the league’s first MVP at the end of the season.

1979 - Billie Jean King wins her 20th Wimbledon title.

 

1980 - Mary Decker becomes the first woman to run a mile in under 4 and a half minutes in Philadelphia on Jan. 25. She is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for track.

1980 - Eleanor Conn and her husband Sidney are the first to fly a hot air balloon over the North Pole.

1980 - A total of 233 women compete in the Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid - just 21 had competed there in 1932.

1980 - Field hockey becomes a medal sport for women in the Olympics. The Zimbabwe women's field hockey team went undefeated to win the Olympic gold medal.

1980 - Grete Waitz beats her own time in the New York City Marathon with her third win in three years in a time of 2:25:41.

1980 - The Women's Sports Foundation establishes the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame.

1980 - Shirley Muldowney becomes the first driver to win two National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) points titles.

1980 - Althea Gibson is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.

1980 - Julie Krone, who will be come the winningest female jockey, gets her first professional ride on Jan. 30 at the Tampa Bay Downs racetrack - she wins the race.

1981 - Lynette Woodard, (Kansas 1977-81), who scored the most career points in the history of women's college basketball, earns her fourth Kodak All-America honors and wins the Wade Trophy, which honors the country's most outstanding player of the year.

1981 - Betty Ellis becomes the first woman to officiate at a professional soccer match.

1981 - Mary Meagher sets a new world record in the 100-meter butterfly with a mark of 57.93 at Brown Deer, WI, on August 16.

1981 - Sheila Young wins the World Cycling Championships.

1982 - Lorri Bauman of the Drake Bulldogs scores 50 points in a West Regional game won by Maryland Terrapins, 89-78, the most points ever scored in an NCAA women’s tournament game. Bauman scored 3,115 points in her career at Drake, second on the NCAA’s career list behind Mississippi Valley’s Patricia Hoskins with 3,122 points.

1982 - Shirley Muldowney wins the Top Fuel Winston World Chamiponship in drag racing for the third time. Her story is portrayed in the movie, Heart Like a Wheel. 1982 - She is the first driver to win three National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) points titles - the only person -- male or female -- to accomplish hat trick.

1982 - Erica Terwillegar, 19, wins a sliver medal in the international junior luge event, the first American to win a medal in world competition.

1982 - Kathy Whitworth, with 88 career victories - more than any other American, male or female, in professional golf history - is inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.

1982 - Grete Waitz of Norway again wins the New York City Marathon (her 4th win in 5 years). She would wins again in 1883, ‘84 and ‘85, and win a total of 9 out of 11 races.

1982 - East German Katarina Witt wins the first of six consecutive European figure skating championships.

1982 - The first NCAA college basketball championship for women is held using a 32 team field, with Louisianna Tech defeating Cheyney State 76-62.

1982 - Runner Mary Decker becomes the first woman to win the Jesse Owens Award, which is presented annually to the best US track and field athlete. She is the fastest woman at every distance between 800 and 10,000 meters.

1982 - Mary Decker is the Women’s Sports Foundation’s Amateur Sportswoman of the Year.

1982 - The NCAA adds nine women's national collegiate championships during the 1981-82 school year. Lacrosse is one of the original sports. Massachusetts wins the championship over Trenton State, 9 to 6.

1982 - Cheryl Miller scores 105 points in a basketball game for Riverside, CA Polytechnic High School.

1982 - The Supreme Court rules that Title IX coveres coaches and other employees as well as students.

1982 - Canadian athlete Debbie Brill proves that pregnancy and motherhood do not end a woman's athletic career. She sets a new indoor world broad jump record of 6'6-3/8" when her son is only five months old.

1983 - The National Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women is dissolved when women's sports come under the NCAA. The long-term effect of this will reduce the number of women coaches and adminsitrators.

1983 - At the first-ever World Track and Field Championships in Helsinki, Mary Decker has gold-medal finishes in both the 1,500 and 3,000-meter races.

1983 - More than 600 women enter the first all-female triathalon (swim-bike-run) in California.

1983 - Grete Waitz wins the inaugural world marathon championships in Helsinki, beating a field of the world’s best female marathon runners.

1983 - Mary Decker wins her third Women's Sports Foundation Sportswoman of the Year Award (she is also named in 1980 and 1982). She also becomes the sixth woman to win AAU's James E. Sullivan Memorial Award.

1983 - Tamara McKinney becomes the first American female skier to win the over-all World Cup championship.

1983 - Martina Navratilova is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for tennis; she repeats in 1986.

1983-84 - Martina Navratilova becomes the third grand slam winner in tennis, under the new regulations.

1984 - The US Supreme Court weakens Title IX in Grove City College vs. Bell effectively dening the application of Title IX to non-federally funded sub-units of educational institutions such as college departments of physical education and athletics.

1984 - Billie Jean King makes history again, becoming the commissioner of World Team Tennis, the first woman head of a professional athletic league.

1984 - Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to walk in space.

1984 - The first Tour de France for women is held in cycling in July over a distance of 616 miles. Marianne Martin of the US wins with an elasped time of 29:39:2. Countrywoman Deborah Shumway comes in third behind the second-place Helen Hage of the Netherlands.

1984 - Georgeann Wells-Blackwell, a 6-7 center from Columbus, Ohio, (she will be a 1986 graduate of West Virginia) is the first woman to dunk a basketball in a collegiate game (vs. Charleston on Dec. 21.)

1984 - Dorothy Hamill wins the first of four straight World Professional Figure Skating championships.

1984 - Joan Benoit of the US wins the first women's Olympic marathon. Women's cycling, synchronized swimming, and rhythmic gymnastics are added to the Olympic calendar. Mary Lou Retton, 16, wins the first-ever all-around title for the US in women's gymnastics. Connie Carpenter-Phinney wins a gold medal in cycling in the women's road race covering 79.2 kilometers

1984 - Three separate women's shooting events are added at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles: women's air rifle, women's three-position rifle, and sport pistol. Pat Spurgin becomes the first markswoman in history to capture a gold (air rifle). Ruby Fox (pistol) and Wanda Jewell (rifle) also win medals for the U.S. in 1984.

1984 - 1.8 million girls participate in high school sports.

1984 - Kelly McCormick earns an Olympic swimming silver medal, followed by a bronze in 1988. She is the daughter of Olympic medalist Pat McCormick; they are the only mother-daughter medal winning combination in the history of the Olympics.

1984 - Nawal El Moutawakel captures the gold in the 400-meter hurdles at the Los Angeles Olympic Games. She becomes the first woman from an Islamic nation to win an Olympic medal and the first Moroccan of either sex to win the gold.

1984 - Stacy Chanin swims three laps around Manhattan Island - 83 miles in 33:29 hours.

1984 - Victoria Roche becomes the first girl to play in the Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA.

1984 - Senda Berenson Abbott, Bertha Teague and Margaret Wade become the first women to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

1984 - Dr. Kathyrn Sullivan becomes the first American woman to "walk" in space on Oct. 11.

1984 - Lyn Lemaire founds Ultrasport magazine.

1984 - Camille Duvall, the "Golden Goddess, " wins the first of five consecutive pro world slalom waterskiing championships. During these years, Duvall held more titles in slalom than all her female competitors combined. She became the first female waterskier to earn $100,000 in prize money and endorsements in a single year.

1984 - The US women's softball squad wins the championship in the first Women's International Cup played in Los Angeles, beating China, 1-0.

1984 - The first New York Triathalon is held in August, with Jann Girard of Austin, TX winning.

1984 - Mary Lou Retton is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for gymnastics. She appears on the cover of Sports Illustrated and earns SI co-Sportsman of the Year honors.

1984 - Connie Carpenter wins the first women's cycling event in Olympic history at the Los Angeles Games. She is the first US woman to compete in both the Winter and Summer Olympics, having competed at the 1972 Sapporo Games in 1,500 meter speedskating event. She retired after the Games with 12 national cycling titles and four world championships medals.

1985 - Libby Riddles becomes the first woman to win the Iditarod on March 20th, five hours ahead of her nearest competitor.

1985 - Old Dominion beats Georgia 70-65 for the women's NCAA basketball crown.

1985 - Lynette Woodward (a member of the gold-medal winning Olympic basketball team in 1984) and Jackie White become the first women to play for the Harlem Globetrotters. Woodard will spend two seasons travelling with the Globetrotters before playing in Italy (1987-89) and Japan (1990-93).

1985 - Nancy Lopez is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for golf.

1985 - Lynn Jennings wins her first national cross-country championship, the first of nine national cross country championships and three world championships. In her career, Jennings has won 39 US championships, including seven national titles in the 10,000 and five in the 3,000.

1985 - Michelle Akers, a charter member of the US women’s national soccer team, scores the team’s first goal in Denmark. Akers, a four year all American at the University of Central Florida, was a three-time All-American in high school in Seattle.

1986 - Three-point field goal is introduced in women's basketball.

1986 - Judy Bell is nominated to become the first woman member of the USGA's Executive Committee; she is elected in 1987.

1986 - Nancy Lieberman-Cline becomes the first woman to play in a men's professional basketball league when she joins the USBL's Springfield Fame.

1986 - Susan Butcher wins the Iditarod Race, a feat she repeats in 1987, 1988, and again in 1990.

1986 - Jackie Joyner-Kersee becomes the first woman to break the 7,000 mark in the Olympic heptathalon, winning the first of two gold medals (the second comes for the 1992 heptathalon). She also wins AAU's James E. Sullivan Memorial Award.

1986 - The Women's Professional Volleyball Association (WPVA) is created.

1986 - Pilot Jenna Yeager is one of three crew members of the Voyager, the first aircraft to circumnavigate the globe non-stop, without refueling in nine days.

1986 - Pat Bradley becomes the first woman golfer to win over $2 million in a single year.

1986 - Debi Thomas becomes the first black woman to win the US figure skating singles championship.

1986 - Anita DeFrantz is appointed by the International Olympic Committee to lifetime membership. She is the fifth woman ever named to a seat on the 93-member IOC, and both the first African-American and the first American woman to serve. She served as captain of the US rowing team at the 1976 Montreal Games and won the bronze medal in women’s eight, the first women’s rowing event at the Olympics.

1986 - The Women's Professional Volleyball Association (WPVA) is formed.

1987 - The first annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day is celebrated in the United States.

1987 - The first Women's World Hockey Tournament is held at the Centennial Arena in North York, Ontario, Canada. Teams from Canada, Ontario, the US, Sweden, Switzerland, Holland and Japan compete. Team Canada wins the championship and the first McCallion Cup.

1987 - Tania Aebi becomes the first US woman to sail around the world solo in a trip which takes 27 months.

1987 - Julie Krone, the winningest female jockey wins her final three races at Lone Star Track in Grand Prairie, Texas on April 25.

1987 - The first Women's Professional Volleyball event is held in Newport Beach, CA on May 16-17.

1987 - Jackie Joyner-Kersee becomes the first woman athlete to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated (aside from the swimsuit edition).

1987 - Gayle Sierens becomes the first woman to do a play-by-play for a National Football League game, Kansas City vs. Seattle on December 27.

1987 - Jackie Joyner-Kersee is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for track.

1987 - Lynne Cox becomes the first person to swim the Bering Strait from Alaska to the former Soviet Union.

1987 - Lisa Andersen wins the US amateur surfing championship. After turning pro later that year, she wins the Association of Surfing Professionals Rookie of the Year title.

1987 - Tennis player Martina Navratilova is honored as the recipient of the Women's Sports Foundation's Flo Hyman Award. The Flo Hyman Memorial Award is given by the Women's Sports Foundation in honor a captain of the 1984 Olympic Silver Medalist United States Women's Volleyball Team.

1988 - Picabo Street, age 16, wins the national junior downhill and Super G skiing titles.

1988 - The first women's sailing event is raced in the doublehanded division at the Olymipcs. The US wins Olympic gold in the event.

1988 - Katarina Witt becomes only the second woman to win back-to-back Olympic gold medals since Sonja Henie, with her second gold at the Sarajevo Games in figure skating.

1988 - Florence Griffith Joyner (1959-98) is voted the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year and wins the AAU Sullivan Award as the nation's top amateur athlete.

1988 - South Korean golf rookie Se Ri Pak, who won two majors and took women's golf to its highest level of popularity in 20 years, is named Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year.

1988 - Pearl Sinn becomes the first woman to win two USGA Championships in the same year - the Women's Amateur and the Women's Amateur Public Links.

1988 - Stacy Allison of Woodburn, OR, is the first American woman to climb Mt. Everest.

1988 - Tennis reappears at the Olympic Games for the first time since the 1928 Games; Steffi Graf wins the gold medal at Seoul.

1988 - Kristin Otto, 22, wins six gold medals for swimming at the Seoul Games. She took the gold in the 50 free, 100 free, 100 backstroke, 100 butterfly, 4x100 freestyle relay and 4x100 medley relay -- to claim the most extensive collection of gold medals ever won by a woman in a single Olympics.

1988 - Congress enacts the Civil Rights Restoration Act over President Ronald Reagan's veto. It prohibits sex discriminations throughout educational institutions receiving federal funds, restoring Title IX.

1988 - 77,735 women bowlers compete in the Women's International Bowling Congress Championship tournament in Reno, Nevada, the most in any bowling match in the world.

1988 - Jockey Julie Krone becomes the first woman to compete in the prestigious Breeders’ Cup.

1988 - Helen Thayer reaches the North Pole by traveling on foot and skis, accompan ied only by her huskey.

1988 - Track and Field athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee is honored as the recipient of the Women's Sports Foundation's Flo Hyman Award.

1989 - Swimmer Janet Evans wins AAU's James E. Sullivan Memorial Award.

1989 - Women's epee competition is held at the World Fencing Championships (Denver, CO) for the first time.

1989 - Cyclist Susan Notorangelo is the first woman to finish the Race Across America and places seventh over-all in the race.

1989 - Shirley Muldowney becomes the first drag racing driver to post sub-five second runs in three consecutive national events; she is the only woman to have won the Labor Day NHRA US Nationals, the sport's premier event.

1989 - Julie Croteau becomes the first woman to play NCAA baseball on first base for Division III St. Mary's (MD) College.

1989 - Susan Butcher, a four-time winner of the Iditarod (1986-88 and 1990), is named outstanding woman athlete of the world for 1989.

1989 - Stacy Allison and Peggy Luce of Washington state became the first and second U.S. women to reach the top of Mt. Everest.

1989 - Steffi Graf is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for tennis.

1989 - Phyllis Holmes of Greenville College in Illinois becomes the first woman president of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA).

1989 - Judith Davidson is named athletic director for CentralConnecticut State University, becoming the only woman athletic director at a Division I school in charge of all sports including men's football and basketball.

1989 - Chris Evert becomes the first tennis player, male of female, to reach 1,000 wins.

1989 - Victoria Bruckner is the first girl to play in the Little League World Series, playing first base, batting cleanup and pitching in the final game.

1989 - Juli Furtado, a member of the US Ski Team from 1980 to '87, until knee injuries forced her out of the sport, wins the national cycling championship.

1989 - Ann Trason runs the Western States 100, one of the world's longest ultramarathons. Her winning time of 18 hours, 47 minutes and 46 seconds beating the second place finisher by more than an hour and a half.

1989 - Paula Newby-Fraser, Triathlete, is voted the top female athlete of the 1980s by the Los Angeles Times.

1989 - Track and Field athlete Evelyn Ashford is honored as the recipient of the Women's Sports Foundation's Flo Hyman Award.

1989 - By the end of the decade, the number of women playing tennis had risen from 4 to 11 million.

1990 - Title IX gets a boost from the Supreme Court.

1990 - The number of women playing college sports has jumped to 160,000.

1990 - Bernadette Locke becomes the first female Division I coach of a men's basketball team when she joins the University of Kentucky as an assistant coach to Rick Pitino in June.

1990 - Juli Inkster of Los Altos, California, becomes the first woman to win the only professional golf tournament in the world in which women and men compete head-to-head. She wins the Invitational Pro-Am at Pebble Beach in a one-stroke victory.

1990 - Triathlete Paula Newby-Frasier is named the Women's Sports Foundation's "Professional Sportswoman of the Year." In her career she is an eight-Time Ironman Triathlon World Champion (1996, 1994, 1993, 1992, 1991, 1989, 1988, 1986).

1990 - Sara Lee becomes the first corporation to make a major commitment solely to female athletics on the collegiate level with a $6 million donation to the NCAA.

1990 - Jean Driscoll wins the first of seven straight wheelchair Boston Marathons in a world-record time of 1:43:17. She will set the record in each of the next four years.

1990 - Team Canada skates to a 5-2 victory over the US women's team in the first International Ice Hockey Federation Women's World Championship in Ottawa, Ontario.

1990 - LPGA golfer Beth Daniel is named the AP Female Athlete of the Year. She became the third player in LPGA history to cross the $5 million mark in career earnings in 1996.

1990 - Martina Navratilova becomes the first woman in history to win Wimbledon nine times.

1990 - Life magazine names Billie Jean King as one of the "100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century" for her work to promote women's participation in athletics and sports.

1990 - Juli Furtado wins the world mountain bike cross-country championship.

1990 - Susan Butcher sets a record with her Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race run of 11 days, 1 hour and 53 minutes and 23 seconds.

1990 - Tennis player Chris Evert is honored as the recipient of the Women's Sports Foundation's Flo Hyman Award. The Flo Hyman Memorial Award is given by the Women's Sports Foundation in honor a captain of the 1984 Olympic Silver Medalist United States Women's Volleyball Team.

1991 - NCAA elects Judith Sweet as its first woman president.

1991 - Pilot Patty Wagstaff wins the US National Aerobatics Championship.

1991 - Susie Maroney completes the fastest return crossing of the English Channel, from Britain to France and back, in 17 hours 13 minutes.

1991 - The women's Final Four of college basketball is televised live for the first time. Tennesse edges Virginia 70-67 for its third NCAA title in the first OT game in the tournament's 10-year history.

1991 - Amy Alcott wins the Dinah Shore tournament with a record 8-shot victory over Dottie Mochrie.

1991 - The US Women's Soccer team wins the first-ever women's world championship, beating Norway.

1991 - Jo Ann Fairbanks became the first American female referee to serve at an international soccer event when she was a lineswoman in the women's qualifying rounds for the North and Central American and Caribbean regional soccer tournament in Haiti.

1991 - Kim Zmeskal becomes the first American woman to win an all-around world championship in gymnastics.

1991 - Goalie Jenny Hanley of Hamline University in Minnesota becamethe first woman to play on a men's college hockey team.

1991 - Manon Rheaume makes ice hockey history when she becomes the first woman to play in a major Junior game - coming in as the relief goalie.

1991 - Monica Seles is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for tennis; she repeats in 1992.

1991 - Silken Laumann wins the world championship in single sculls.

1991 - Algerian-born Hassiba Boulmerka becomes the first woman from an Arabic or African nation to win a world track championship with her gold in the 1,500 meters at the Tokyo world track and field championships.

1991 - Disabled skier Diana Golden is honored as the recipient of the Women's Sports Foundation's Flo Hyman Award.

1992 - Hassiba Boulmerka wins the Olympic gold in the 1500 at the Barcelona Games in the 1,500 meter.

1992 - Team Canada wins its second International Ice Hockey Federation Women's World Championship in Finland.

1992 - Just under 2 million girls participate in high school sports.

1992 - Lyubov Egorova, a native of Siberia, competes for the unified team Albertville Olympics, medaling in all five Nordic Skiing events, winning a total of three golds and two silvers.

1992 - A League of Their Own, a movie by director Penny Marshall about the first year of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League, was a box office hit, due in large part to the many women who went to see female sports role models on the screen.

1992 - Nera White is inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

1992 - Judo and the women's biathlon become Olympic events for women. Two additional women's sailing divisions - singlehanded and windsurfer - are added.

1992 - Chinese skeet shooter Zhang Shan is the first woman to earn a gold medal in a mixed shooting event. By the 1996 Atlanta Games, the rules are changed so men and women compete separately.

1992 - Bonnie Blair wins both the the 500-meter and 1,000-meter Olympic speed skating events, becoming the first woman to win two Olympic 500s and the first American woman to win consecutive Winter Olympic championships. She also wins AAU's James E. Sullivan Memorial Award.

1992 - Juli Furtado wins the world title in downhill mountain biking.

1992 - Anita Defrantz becomes chair of the IOC’s Committee on Women and Sports, playing a key role in getting women’s soccer and softball added to the 1996 Atlanta Games as medal sports.

1992 - Evelyn Ashford, in the Barcelona Games at the age of 35, crowns her Olympic career with a gold medal in the 4 x 100-meter relay, becoming the oldest American woman to earn an Olympic track and field medal.

1992 - Manon Rheaume continues to make ice hockey history as the first woman to play goalie in a pre-season game for the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightening against the St. Louis Blues.

1992 - Lyn St. James is the first woman to race on the IndyCar circuit, taking Rookie of the Year honors.

1992 - The NCAA delays imposing 10% cut in athletic scholarships for women until the release of it's gender-equity study.

1992 - Velo News names Juli Furtado Cyclist of the Year, making her the first woman to earn that honor. At her retirement in 1997, she was a two-time world champion, three-time World Cup champion and five time national champion in mountain biking .

1992 - The US Supreme Court hands down a unanimous decision in Franklin v Gwinnett County Public Schools, permiting students to sue for monetary damages for sexual harassment and other forms of sex discrimination at schools and colleges on Feb. 26.

1992 - Lynn Jennings wins her third consecutive world cross-country championship. She also wins a bronze medal for the US at the 1992 Olympics in the 10,000 meter race. She ran her first Boston Marathon at age 17 (unofficially, because no one under 18 was supposed to run) in 1978, coming in third among the women.

1992 - The first two women are inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. They are Nera White, a 10-time Most Valuable Player in Amateur Athletic Union tournaments in the 1950s and 1960s, and Lusia Harris-Stewart, a member of the first U.S. Olympic women's basketball team in 1976.

1992 - Girls win all three divisions in the All-American Soap Box Derby, for the first time ever.

1992 - Golfer Nancy Lopez is honored as the recipient of the Women's Sports Foundation's Flo Hyman Award.

1993 - Julie Krone becomes the first woman jockey to win a Triple Crown race, riding Colonial Affair in the Belmont Stakes.

1993 - Manon Rheaume becomes the first woman to play goalie in a professional hockey game for the Atlanta Knights of the International Hockey League in Salt Lake City on Dec. 13.

1993 - Ann Meyers becomes the first woman inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.

1993 - Sheryl Swoopes is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for basketball. In fact, she is named 1993 National Player of the Year by nine organizations, including USA Today and Sports Illustrated.

1993 - Sherry Davis becomes the first woman public address announcer in major league baseball, working for the San Francisco Giants.

1993 - Basketball player Lynette Woodard is honored as the recipient of the Women's Sports Foundation's Flo Hyman Award.

1994 - 23 women were selected for the first all-female team to race for the America's Cup. They are: Stephanie Armitage-Johnson, Amy Baltzell, Shelley Beattie, Courtenay Becker, Sarah Bergeron, Merritt Carey, Sarah Cavanagh, Elizabeth Charles, Leslie Egnot, Christie Evans, Jennifer Isler, Diana Klybert, Linda Lindquist, Stephanie Maxwell-Pierson, Susanne Leech Nairn, Annie Nelson, Jane Oetking, Merritt Palm, Katherine Pettibone, Marci Porter, Melissa Purdy, Hannah Swett, and Joan Lee Touchette.

1994 - Ground is broken for the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, TN, the first sports hall of fame devoted solely to women's athletics.

1994 - Amy Van Dyken is named the NCAA Swimmer of the Year.

1994 - A survey by Women's Sports and Fitness magazine finds that 82% of the most powerful women in Washington poitics had played organized sports when young.

1994 - Jean Driscoll, the best wheelchair marathoner in history, sets a new world record at the Boston Marathon with 1:34:22.

1994 -At the Lillehammer Games, Lyubov Egorova wins three gold and one silver, setting a records as having won either gold or silver in nine straight Nordic skiing races, a feat unmatched by anyone. She is second among all female Winter Games medal-winners with six golds and three silvers.

1994 - Bonnie Blair wins her fifth gold medal for speed skating at the Winter Olympics, giving her the most gold medals for any US woman. She is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for speed skating. She is also awarded the Women's Sports Foundation Individual Sportswoman of the Year for both 1994 and 1995 and the Babe Zaharias Female Amateur Athlete of the Year award for 1994.

1994 - Jockey Cindy Springman-Noll, a native of Muscatine, Iowa, earns the title of the nation's winningest female jockey for 1994.

1994 - 300% more girls play high school basketball than did in 1972.

1994 - Ann Trason, ultramarathon runner, is inducted into the Road Runner's Club Hall of Fame, with 20 career world-record performances and eight consecutive years as the UltraRunning Magazine UltraRunner of the Year.

1994 - Team Canada wins its third International Ice Hockey Federation Women's World Championship in Lake Placid, NY.

1994 - Bonnie Blair wins an astounding six gold medals at the World Cup speedskating competitionObihito, Japan.

1994 - Cassie Clark and Stephanie Brody becomes the first two women on a men's national junior weightlifting squad.

1994 - Minnesota is the first state in the US to have their state athletic association (MN State High School League) sanction high school girls ice hockey.

1994 - The Colorado Silver Bullets, an all-female professional baseball touring club, takes the field to play against men's professional, college, semi-pro and amateur teams.

1994 - Uta Pippig wins three consecutive Boston Marathons from 1994 to 1996, breaking the course record in 1994.

1994 - Martina Navratilova retires. During her career, she set records for most singles titles (167), most matches won (1438) and most Wimbledon titles (9).

1994 - Lisa Andersen wins first of her four world surfing titles, repeating in 1995, ‘96 and ‘97.

1994 - Tegla Loroupe of Kenya becomes the first African woman to win a major marathon, finishing the New York City race in 2:27:37. She repeats her victory in 1995.

1994 - Shawna Robinson becomes the only woman NASCAR driver to win a pole position in the Busch series. She was the second-best NASCAR rookie in 1992, and finished 23rd in points 1993.

1994 - Golfer Patty Sheehan is honored as the recipient of the Women's Sports Foundation's Flo Hyman Award.

1995 - Ila Borders, a southpaw at Southern California College, becomes the first woman to pitch in a men's collegiate baseball game.

1995 - Golfer Betsy King is inducted into the PGA Hall of Fame.

1995 - Chris Evret is inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame on July 16.

1995 - The US women wins the Team Handball event at the Pan American Games.

1995 - Julie Croteau becomes the first female assistant coach in men's collegiate division I baseball at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

1995 - Picabo Street becomes the first US woman to win the World Cup for downhill skiing.

1995 - Basketball player Anne Donovan is inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame. During her career at Old Dominion, she averaged 20.0 points and 14.5 rebounds per game as ODU goes 116-20. She was a 3-time Olympian and two-time gold medalist.

1995 - UConn caps an unbeated season, defeating Tennessee 70-64 for the NCAA women's championship. The Huskies, 35-0, become the winningest basketball team for one season in Division I.

1995 - Sheryl Swoopes has an athletic shoe named after her by Nike, the "Air Swoopes."

1995 - Kerri McTiernan is hired to coach men's basketball at Kingsboro Community College in Brooklyn, the first woman ever to coach a men's team at this level.

1995 - The University of Connecticut's women's basketball team has a perfect 35-0 season.

1995 - Rebecca Lobo is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for basketball.

1995 - "FloJo" - Florence Griffith Joyner - is inducted into the USA Track and Field Hall of Fame; she had been named Sportswoman of the Year in 1988, and the Most Outstanding Amateur Athlete in America in 1989.

1995 - Gymnist Mary Lou Retton is honored as the recipient of the Women's Sports Foundation's Flo Hyman Award. The Flo Hyman Memorial Award is given in honor a captain of the the 1984 Olympic Silver Medalist United States Women's Volleyball Team.

1996 - Germany's Uta Pippig becomes the first woman to win the Boston Marathon for a thrid consecutive year.

1996 - Aileen Riggin Soule sets 11 national and five world marks in the 90-94 age-group competition at the U.S. Masters Swimming Championships. She won the first women's Olympic springboard diving competition in 1920.

1996 - Women's soccer and women's softball become medal sports at the Olympic Games for the first time; both events are won by US teams. Beach volleyball and women's epee are added as well.

1996 - Dot Richardson hits the first home run in Olympic softball history, helping the U.S. softball team win the gold medal.

1996 - Spalding Sports introduces the first baseball glove specifically designed to fit a woman's hand.

1996 - Canada wins the first 3 Nations Cup for Women's Ice Hockey with the US and Finland in October.

1996 - The US synchonized swimming team receives a perfect score of 100 in the free routine to earn the first Olympic gold medal in team competition. Swimmer Amy Van Dyken wins four gold medals, becoming the first U.S. woman to do so in a single Olympic Games.

1996 - Basketball player Teresa Edwards is the first US player to compete in four Olympics.

1996 - Christina Sanchez, 24, becomes Europe's first qualified woman bullfighter.

1996 - After being ranked #1 for the 332nd week in her career, Steffi Graf passes Martina Navratilova as the record holder of most weeks with that ranking.

1996 - 2.4 million girls play high school sports, including 819 football players, 1,164 wrestlersand 1,471 ice hockey players.

1996 - Special Olympics athlete Loretta Claiborne is honored with ESPN’s ESPY Arthur Ashe Award for Courage. The youngest of six children in a poor, single-parent family, she was born partially blind and ran in 25 marathons, twice placing among the top 100 women in the Boston Marathon, and carrying the torch in the International Special Olympics where she has won medals in dozens of its events.

1996 - In the first major international championship, women’s pole vault is on the program of the European Indoor Track.

1996 - Professional boxer Christy Martin is the first woman fighter to be televised on pay-per-view.

1996 - Amy Van Dyken is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for swimming. The 23-year-old became the first American woman to win four gold medals at one Olympic Games with wins in the 400 medley relay, the 400 freestyle relay, the 100 butterfly and the 50 freestyle in Atlanta.

1996 - Becky Oakes is elected president of the National Federation of State High School Associations, the first woman to hold the position in the organization's 77-year history.

1996 - Bonnie Blair wins the Olympic Torch Award and is a Humanitarian World of Sports Hall of Fame inductee.

1996 - Swimmer Donna de Varona is honored as the recipient of the Women's Sports Foundation's Flo Hyman Award.

1997 - France’s Catherine Chabaud becomes the first woman to finish a nonstop solo round-the-world voyage in a time of 140 days.

1997 - Martina Hingis beats former champion Mary Pierce in the finals of the Australian Open. At 16 years, six months, she becomes the youngest woman to win a major in 110 years.

1997 - The International Women's Sports Hall of Fame's Class of 1997: Evelyn Ashford (track and field) and Diana Golden Brosnihan (skiing) in the contemporary category, pioneer Barbara Ann Scott-King (figure skating), and coach Gail Emery (synchorinized swimming).

1997 - American Anita DeFrantz becomes the first female vice-president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) executive committee.

1997 - Marion Jones becomes the first woman in 50 years to win three events at the US Track & Field Nationals. She is named the unanimous choice as female athlete of the year by Track & Field News in 1997 and 1998.

1997 - Team Canada skates to a 4-3 victory over the US women's team in the International Ice Hockey Federation Women's World Championship in Kitchener, Ontario.

1997 - The International Female Boxing Association is formed in April to promote women boxing throughout the world as a genuine, professional and athletic competition.

1997 - Triathlete Paula Newby-Frasier (34) races to victory at the Ironman Australia competition and becomes the first person to win 20 Ironman competitions. Her first victory was in 1986.

1997 - Maryland's women's lacrosse team wins its third consecutive Division 1 title.

1997 - Australian Susie Maroney becomes the first woman to swim the 104 miles between Cuba and Florida in 26 hours 22 minutes.

1997 - The inaugural Women's National Basketball Association season begins on June 21.

1997 - The NBA hires two female referees, Dee Kantner and Violet Palmer, the first to work regular-season games in a major men's pro sports league.

1997 - Liz Heaston of Willamette University, Salem, OR, kicks two extra points to become the first woman to play in a college football game.

1997 - Soccer player Mia Hamm wins the ESPY award for Most Outstanding Female Athlete and the Women's Sports Foundation Athlete of the Year Award.

1997 - Martina Hingis is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for tennis. She is the youngest Wimbledon champion of the century by defeating Jana Novotna in the finals.

1997 - Nawal El Moutawakel, the first woman from an Islamic nation to win an Olympic medal, is appointed Minister of Sport and Youth in Morocco and becomes the first Muslim woman ever elected as a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

1997 - North Carolina women's soccer team wins their 15th NCAA title with a 2-0 decision over the University of Connecticut.

1997 - Heather Fuhr is the Ironman Triathlon World Champion.

1997 - Tennis player Billie Jean King is honored as the recipient of the Women's Sports Foundation's Flo Hyman Award

1998 - A crowd of 24,597 shows up in Knoxville to watch the #1 Tennessee Lady Vols defeat the #3 UConn Huskies, 84-69, setting a collegiate women's basketball attendance record.

1998 - Alison Nicholas wins the U.S. Open by carding a 10–under-par 274, the lowest winning score in the tournament's 52–year history.

1998 - Women’s Ice Hockey (won by the US) and Women's Curling become Olympic medal sports in Nagano, Japan for the first time.

1998 - Fifteen-year-old Tara Lipinski edges teammate Michelle Kwan and ecomes the youngest woman ever to win the Olympic gold medal in figure skating.

1998 - Brandy Fisher of Potsdam, NY, a senior at the University of New Hampshire, wins the first-ever Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award as the nation's top collegiate women's ice hockey player. She leads the Lady Wildcats to the first ever national championship.

1998 - April Heinrichs, a 1991 Women’s World Cup team member, becomes the first woman named to the National Soccer Hall of Fame.

1998 - Jockey Cindy Springman-Noll, a mother and a college graduate, earns the title of the nation's winningest female jockey for 1998.

1998 - Basketball player Chamique Holdsclaw wins AAU's James E. Sullivan Memorial Award. She is named the AP Player of the Year for leading Tennessee's Lady Vol's to a 39-0 season and their third straight NCAA championship, as well as the Player of the Year award presented by the Atlanta Tipoff Club. Tennessee coach Pat Summitt wins her fourth Naismith coaching award, as well as is named Associated Press Coach of the Year.

1998 - US sprinter Marion Jones (10.83) dashes to victory in the women's 100 at the World Track and Field Championships.

1998 - Organizers for the Boston Marathon announce male and female race winners will get a $5,000 raise in 1998 and earn $80,000 each for winning the event.

1998 - Wanda Rucker becomes the first woman to win a Tournament Trail bass championship. Rucker's five-bass limit weighed 16 lbs., 4 oz., topping 342 other anglers.

1998 - Cynthia Cooper scores 25 points, helping the Houston Comets win the first WNBA Championship Game by defeating the New York Liberty, 65-51, before a sellout crowd at the Summit.

1998 - Five ECAC member schools -- New Hampshire, Providence, Maine, St. Lawrence and Niagara -- offer scholarships for women to play ice hockey. The Minnesota Gophers offer 10 scholarships.

1998 - Canada wins the second 3 Nations Cup ice hockey tournament held in Finland.

1998 - Kenya's Tegla Loroupe runs the fastest women's marathon ever when she wins the 1998 Rotterdam Marathon in a time of 2 hours, 20 minutes and 47 seconds.

1998 - The US National Women's Basketball Team wins the gold medal at the 1998 World Championships in Berlin.

1998 - Christina Sanchez, 26, is the first female matador to fight in Madrid's famed Les Ventas ring.

1998 - There are 1,900 girls who wrestled during the 1997-98 school year. In the first year the National Federation of State High School Associations tracked girls in wrestlting (1984-85), just 6 were counted.

1998 - The IAAF announces women's pole vault and the hammer throw will be added to the 1999 World Championships and 2000 Olympics, meaning for the first time women will compete in the same number of field events as men.

1998 - USA Hockey reports the number of women's and girls' teams registered with the organization is 1,077 for 1997-98, up dramatically from 149 in 1990-91. Women's ice hockey is among the fastest growing sports.

1998 - Ann Trason completes ultrarunning's Grand Slam: the Western States 100, the Vermont 100, the Leadville trail 100 and the Wasatch Front 100. She completes five 100-mile races in only 14 weeks.

1998 - The Marylebone Cricket Club, the game's last bastion of male exclusivity and cricket's former world governing body, votes to admit women as members for the first time.

1998 - The LPGA rookie Se Ri Pak, 20, of South Korea wins her first major championship and becomes the youngest woman to win the LPGA Championship, firing a final round 68 at the DuPont Country Club in Wilmington, DE. She is named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for golf.

1998 - Tennessee Vols junior basketball player Chamique Holdsclaw is awarded the Honda Broderick Cup, which is awarded to the nation's top female athlete.

1998 - Houston forward Sheryl Swoopes scores 10 of her team's last 17 points, leading the Comets to a 80-71 victory and their second straight WNBA Championship.

1998 - Lindsay Davenport captures her first grand slam title by defeating defending champion Martina Hingis 6-3, 7-5 at the U.S. Open, not losing a set en route to the title. Davenport is the first American-born woman to win the US Open since Chris Evert won the last of her six singles titles in 1982.

1998 - U.S. Soccer star Mia Hamm scores her 100th career international goal and adds another, helping the U.S. defeat Russia 4-0 in the Nike U.S. Women's Cup series in Rochester, N.Y.

1998 - Bonnie Blair is inducted into the International Skating Union Hall of Fame.

1998 - Tennis star Venus Williams records a 127 mph serve – the fastest ever in women's tennis – against Mary Pierce at the European Championships.

1998 - Steffi Graf captures her 105th career singles title at the Leipzig Open and breaks Martina Navratilova's record for career earnings with $20,445,842.

1998 - According to a survey conducted by the Chronicle of Higher Education, 40% of athletes at Division I schools in 1997-98 were women, a 5% increase from 1996-97. Women also received 40% of athletic scholarship budgets, up 14% from the previous year.

1998 - Gymnist Nadia Comaneci is honored as the recipient of the Women's Sports Foundation's Flo Hyman Award. The Flo Hyman Memorial Award is given by the Women's Sports Foundation in honor a captain of the 1984 Olympic Silver Medalist United States Women's Volleyball Team.

1999 - WTA teenagers Serena and Venus Williams become the first sisters to win singles titles on the same day when Venus captures the IGA Superthrift Tennis Classic hours after Serena's victory at the Open Gaz de France.

1999 - Tennessee's Lady Vols player Chamique Holdsclaw is named to her third All American basketball team by the AP, the first woman to make the team three times. She is one of only four players to ever make the Kodak All-American Team four times.

1999 - Canada again wins the gold medal in the Women's World Championship for ice hockey held in Espoo, Finland, on March 8-14, followed by silver medalists US and bronze Finland.

1999 - At the college level, 23 schools are expected to compete in Division I women's ice hockey in 1999-2000. There are more than 40 schools playing women's varsity hockey at some level, prompting the NCAA to put women's hockey on the fast track for championship approval.

1999 - Alaska native Katie Johnson, a junior at Clarkson University in Potsdam, NY, wins her third straight individual combined cross-country ski championship sponsored by the US Collegiate Ski Association in Mammoth Lakes, CA on March 13.

1999 - Golfer Amy Alcott is inducted into the PGA Hall of Fame on March 22. Her career included 29 victories and five major championships.

1999 - Chamique Holdsclaw is named the Player of the Year by the AP for the second time on March 25 - the first woman to win the award twice. She finishes her basketball career at Tennessee with 3,025 points and 1,295 rebounds, number one on the University of Tennessee career list for both categories. She is also named as the female Naismith Player of the Year by the Atlanta Tipoff Club.

1999 - Chamique Holdsclaw becomes the first woman basketball player to win the Sullivan Award, the nation’s top amateur athlete award.

In Minnesota, the number of high schools offering girls' ice hockey has grown from 24 in 1994 to 110 for the 1999-2000 season.

1999 - A. J. Mleczko is named the recipient of the 1999 Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award on March 25. Mleczko of Nantucket, MA, is a senior forward from Harvard University. The Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award is given annually by the USA Hockey Foundation to the women's intercollegiate varsity ice hockey player who displays the highest standards of personal and team excellence during the season.

1999 - Teams from Harvard, Brown and New Hampshire travel more than 1,000 miles to play in the second American Women's College Hockey Alliance national championship at Mariucci Arena with the host Minnesota Gophers. Jen Botterill's goal at 8:01 in overtime lifts Harvard past New Hampshire 6-5 in the AWCHA championship game on March 27.

1999 - In a historic tennis match-up, the Williams sisters - Venus and Serena - meet in the women's final of the Lipton Championship. Venus wins the match, beating Serena two games to one, and winning $265,000. She has won all three meetings between the sisters. This all-sisters women's final is the first since the Open era began in 1968. The only other time sisters met in a final was at Wimbledon in 1894 when Maud Watson defeated her older sister, Lilian.

1999 - Purdue (34-1) becomes the first team from the Big Ten Conference to win the NCAA Division I title before 17,773 fans on March 28. Led by seniors Stephanie White-McCarty and Ukari Figgs, the Boilermakers overcome Duke 62-45 for their first NCAA title. Carolyn Peck, in only her second season, becomes the first African-American woman to coach a team to the women's national championship. She will be the coach and general manager of the WNBA's expansion Orlando Miracle.

1999 - American swimmer Jenny Thompson wins three gold medals in the women's short-course championships in Hong Kong, sets a new world's record, and is named the female swimmer of the meet.

1999 - Jockey Julie Krone, 35, thoroughbred racing's most successful woman rider, announces her retirement in April, after 3,541 races, 3,500 wins, and more than $80 in earnings over her 18-year career. She is the only woman to win a Triple Crown race - riding Colonial Affair in the 1993 Belmont Stakes.

1999 - Louise Smith, age 82, a stock car racing pioneer, becomes the first woman inducted into the International Motor Sports Hall of Fame, in Talladega, AL, in April. She got her start in racing in 1945, winning 38 races while barnstorming tracks from Canada to Florida in the 1940s and ‘50s.

1999 - In April, about 60 professional women tennis players sign a petition asking the WTA for equal prize money with the men at all four Grand Slam tournaments.

1999 - Dodo Cheney, 82, the winner of more national tennis titles than anyone in history, scores her 300th victory in her hometown of LaJolla, CA. The daughter of May Sutton, the first American to win a singles title at Wimbledon (1905), she started playing at tennis at age eight.

1999 - The inaugural race of the six-race Women's Global GT Series - a companion circuit for the new American Le Mans Series - takes place on April 18 at Road Atlanta. Over 60 women drivers qualified for the series, under the leadership of veteran Indy driver Lyn St. James. Other events in the series include June 27: Mosport, Toronto; July 25: Sears Point, CA; August 1: Portland, OR; Sept. 18: Petit LeMans, Road Atlanta; Oct. 10: Laguna Seca, CA; and Nov. 7: San Diego Grand Prix.

1999 - Ethiopia's Fatuma Roba wins her third Boston Marathon in three years, becoming only the second woman in history to accomplish that feat. She finishes in just over two hours and 23 minutes. She is the first African woman to win the race.

1999 - Louise Sauvage, 25 of Australia, wins her third women’s wheelchair division for the Boston Marathon, narrowly beating long-time champion Jean Driscoll by a second.

1999 - Mia Hamm tied the career record for international goals scored in women's soccer with her 107th goal, helping the US team win 3-0 over the Netherlands on May 16 in Chicago. Hamm tied the record set by Italy's Elizabetta Vignotto who played in the 1970's and '80's.

1999 - Golfer Annika Sorenstam fires an 11-under-par 61, the best score in LPGA history on a par-72 course, during the opening round of the Sara Lee Classic in Nashville.

1999 - On May 22, Mia Hamm scores her 108th career goal in a 3-0 victory over Brazil in Orlando, making her the world-record holder (male or female) for international goals scored in a career.

1999 - The Women's Basketball Hall of Fame opens it doors on June 5 in Knoxville, TN with the cutting down of a ceremonial net. It is the first Hall of Fame dedicated to any woman's sport.

1999 - In June, Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli wins the HP-LaserJet Women's Challenge, the richest event in women's cycling ($125,000). She dominated the 12-day event from start to finish.

1999 - Carolina Morace becomes the first female coach of a men's professional soccer team in Italy, signing a 2-year contract in June. The former star striker for the Italian women's team scored 105 goals in 151 games for Italy, one of only three women in history to score more than 100 times in international play. Morace retired in 1997.

1999 - The openning game of the Women's World Cup of Soccer at the Meadowlands in NJ set a new world's record for a women's sporting event with 78,972 fans watching the US national team beat the Danish national team, 3-0, with goals by Mia Hamm (her 110th international goal), Julie Foudy, and Kristine Lilly. The attendance topped the 76,489 soccer fans that watched the United States win the Olympic gold medal in 1996 in Athens, GA.

1999 - Juli Inkster becomes just the second woman to complete a career Grand Slam in professional golf when she wins the LPGA Championship in June. She won the US Open earlier this year, as well as the Dinah Shore and du Marurier Classic as a rookie in 1984. Pat Bradley was the first to complete the modern career Grand Slam.

1999 - Two women make Sports Illustrated's "Our Favorite Athletes of the 20th Century" listing: runner Wilma Rudolph (No. 14) and tennis player Chris Evert (No. 20).

1999 - Laura Harper, a spin bowler from Cornwall, is named to the West of England boys cricket team. She has already achieved representative honors in the women's game, earning a berth on the England under-17 squad. Harper took up the sport at age 8.

1999 - A record 7.5 million girls and young women play soccer in the United States.

1999 - The US national team wins the Women's World Cup with one perfectly timed save from goalkeeper Briana Scurry and five perfectly placed penalty kicks. The U.S. Women's World Cup team wins back the World Cup trophy in front of 90,185 fans in Pasadena and a world-wide television audience of an estimated 40 million. After battling to a scoreless tie through the match and two overtime periods, the American women beat the China team 5-4 on penalty kicks.

1999 - In the first-ever WNBA All-Star game, the Western Conference defeated the Eastern Conference (79-61) in a game noted for excellent defensive play by the West. The game was played in front of 18,649 in a soldout Madison Square Garden, including 5 members of the World Cup soccer team. It was broadcast to more than 125 countries in 20 languages. Lisa Leslie was named the game's MVP after scoring 13 points for the West.

1999 - July 23: Happy 27th Birthday Title IX! About 31,000 women were involved in college sports in 1972; that number has more than tripled. Spending on athletic scholarships for women has gone from less than $100,000 to almost $200 million. There was an average of 2.1 women's teams at colleges in 1972. That number is now at a record 7.7 per school.

1999 - The WNBA announces it will expand by four teams in 2000, doubling its original size to 16 clubs by adding franchises in Indiana, Miami, Portland and Seattle.

1999 - Women's pro golf purse totals stand at $36.2 million. This is triple the 1988 total of $12.5 million; a figure nearly triple that of the 1978 total of $3.9 million. In 1950, the total was just $50,000.

1999 - Australian Aleysha Healey rides Eunuch to victory in the third annual Desert Sands 2000 camel race in Boulia, Queensland (pop. 300). Some of Australia's finest outback camels show their paces as up to 80 riders and beasts race.

1999 - At the Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Manitoba, eight new women's events are introduced: soccer, weightlifting, shooting, pole vaulting, hammer throw, modern pentathalon, water polo and beach volleyball. The Pan Am Games serve as Olympic qualifiers for women's softball, field hockey, rythmic gymnastics, team handball, triathalon, and the equestrian show jumping and 3-day event.

1999 - South African swimmer Penny Heyns twice breaks the world record in the 100-meter breaststroke in July, one day after twice breaking the world record in the 200-meter event. Heyns edged the mark with a swim of 1 minute, 6.95 seconds.

1999 - There are 16 new women's events planned for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Syndey: women's weightlifting, trap shooting, skeet shooting, duet synchronized swimming, synchronized diving, 2 km walk, 500, 1,000 and 3,000 meter cycling, water polo, pole vault, triathlon, taekwondo, hammer throw, modern pentathalon and trampolining.

1999 - Swimmer Anna-Karin Kammerling of Sweden sets a new world and European record in 50-meters butterfly with a time of 26.29 seconds in July.

1999 - Girls are joining team sports in record numbers and their participation rates are rising faster than those of boys in almost every category, a study by the National Sporting Goods Association shows. The NSGA study looked at statistics for baseball, basketball, soccer, softball and volleyball from 1990-98 for youths who played at least twice in the same sport in the same year. It divided participants into two classes -- ages 7 to 11 and 12 to 17 -- and in almost every sport girls outpaced boys, the study found. Soccer is one of the most popular sports for girls; one-third of all soccer players are female. Among soccer players 12 to 17, girls' participation rose 17.6% to about 1.8 million from 1990 to 1998, while boys' participation fell 3.2% to about 2.2 million, the study found. In baseball, participation among girls 7-11 rose 20.5% to about 1.07 million. In contrast, participation by boys fell 1.9%, although more boys -- about 4.7 million -- were on the field.

1999 - Aree Wongluekiet becomes the youngest U.S. Girls' Junior Golf Championship at 13 years, 3 months, 7 days.

1999 - Sheryl Swoopes records the WNBA's first triple-double with 14 points, 15 rebounds and 10 assists on July 27 as the Houston Comets rout the Detroit Shock 85-46.

1999 - Cindy Springman-Noll, currently ranked 18th among all jockeys nationwide, so far in 1999 her purse has exceeded $1 million at Altoona's Prairie Meadows Racetrack alone. In her 11th year of racing, Springman-Noll earned the title of the nation's winningest female jockey in 1994 and 1998.

1999 - Catherine Reddick, a 17-year-old high school senior from Birmingham, AL, scores the lone goal as the United States beats Mexico 1-0 for the Pan American Games gold medal in soccer.

1999 - For the first time in its 75 year history, General Mills will feature soccer players on the Wheaties box. Women's World Cup players Michelle Akers, Brandi Chastain, Mia Hamm, Kristine Lilly and goalie Briana Scurry will be pictured on one of five special-edition boxes.

1999 - Tegla Loroupe of Kenya sets the world record for the one-hour run, covering 11 miles, 696 yards to beat by 272 yards the old mark set in 1981.

1999 - Steffi Graf (30) announces her retirement from tennis in August. Graf, who dominated women’s tennis for a decade, won 22 Grand Slam singles titles and had 107 victories on the WTA Tour. She won more than $20 million in her career and spent a record 377 weeks as No. 1 in women’s rankings. In 1988, she completed a “Golden Slam,” winning the four majors and adding the Olympic gold.

1999 - Canadian Heather Fuhr wins the USA Ironman triathlon for women held in Lake Placid, NY in mid-August in the first national Ironman event ever held inside the continental US. Fuhr, the 1997 world chamipon, finishe the course in 9:51:38. Mary Uhl, a meterologist from Santa Fe, NM, finishes second in 10:3:22. The event is a qualifier for the Ironman World Championship in October in Hawaii.

1999 - Marion Jones, the world's fastest woman, takes the women's 100 meters in 10.70 seconds, a championship record and fastest time of the year, winning the world title for a second consecutive time at the World Championships in Seville, Spain.

 

1999 - Stacy Dragila, of Pocatello, Idaho, wins the gold medal for the women's pole vault at the outdoor World Championships in Seville, Spain. Dragila, 28, won the gold with a vault of 4.60 meters (15-feet, 1 inch), matching the world outdoor record of Australian Emma George. A pioneer in the women's event, Dragila also won the world indoor title earlier this year in Japan.

1999 - Five-time American Olympic gold medalist swimmer Jenny Thompson breaks Mary Meagher's 18-year-old world record in the 100-meter butterfly event at the Pan Pacific Championships in Sydney, Australia. Thompson, 26, clocked 57.88 seconds to break the second-oldest record in swimming.

1999 - Romania's Miaela Melinte wins the first women's hammer throw gold medal at the World Championships, beating Russia's Olga Kuzenkova with a throw of 75.20 meters on her last attempt. Kuzenkova also broke the 70-meter mark, winning silver with 72.56. Lisa Misipeka of American Samoa took the bronze with a throw of 66.06 meters.

1999 - South African Penny Heyns, sets six world records in seven weeks, including a world record in the 100-meter breaststroke and another in the 200-meter semis at the Pan Pacific championships in Sydney, Australia.

1999 - Chamique Holdsclaw of the Washington Mystics is named the 1999 WNBA Rookie of the Year Award after ranking third in the league in rebounding and sixth in scoring, averaging 16.9 and 7.9 rebounds per game. Holdsclaw received 48 of a possible 51 votes from a panel of writers and broadcasters.

1999 - Gail Devers, 32, wins the 100-meter hurdles title for the third time at the World Championships. She ran in 12.37 seconds, the fastest time in the world in 7 years and an American record.

1999 - Yolanda Griffith of the Sacramento Monarch earns a triple sweep, being selected as the WNBA's Most Valuable Player, the Newcomer of the Year, and the Defensive Player award.

1999 - Four-time Olympian Teresa Edwards is named as the 11th member of the 1999-2000 USA Basketball Team. She is the most decorated Olympic basketball player in history, helping the US to three gold medals (1996, 1988, 1984) and one bronze (1992). Edwards joins 10 other USA Basketball Senior National Team members: Ruthie Bolton-Holifield, Cynthia Cooper, Yolanda Griffith, Chamique Holdsclaw, Lisa Leslie, Nikki McCray, DeLisha Milton, Katie Smith, Dawn Staley and Natalie Williams.

1999 - Kristin Marcuccilli of Indiana is the first girl to play high school football in Grant County, but joins a growing number of girls playing organized high school football. According to the most recent numbers available from the National Federation of State High School Associations, 779 girls played on boys' high school football teams in 1997-98. The figures show a three-year trend indicating an increase in girls' participation in the sport. The first IHSAA report of a girl playing high school football was in 1983-84. Girls' participation numbers were as low as 295 in 1994-95 before jumping to 791 in 1995-96 and numbering 740 in 1996-97.

1999 - Britain's only female soccer agent, Rachel Anderon, wins a sex discrimination action against England's Professional Players' Association, which banned her from its male-only awards dinner. She was awarded $12,000 in damages and the PFA was ordered to pay her $72,000 legal bill.

1999 - Missouri Valley College in Marshall, Mo., is the first college in the country to offer wrestling scholarships to women, and one of three in the US to have a women's wrestling program. The other two are Minnesota-Morris and Cumberland, KY. Minnesota-Morris was the first college in the country to start an official women's wrestling team. There are numerous women's club teams around the country and 10 Canadian colleges with women's wrestling teams. The first Missouri Valley women's wrestling team will include a 112-pounder from Ohio who posted a 127-40 record against males, the first girl to ever qualify for the boys state wrestling tournament in Oregon, a starting member of a boys hockey team, a state champion pole vaulter, a five-time Judo champion, a runner-up in the Miss Teen California pageant and a former linebacker on an Arizona high school football team. Texas has a girls division in high school wrestling, plus a separate girls state tournament. Seventy Texas high schools will have girls wrestling teams this year.

1999 - The Houston Comets complete a "3-peat," establishing themselves as the first WNBA dynasty, with a 59-47 victory over the New York Liberty in Game 3 of the WNBA finals.

1999 - Serena Williams, 17, defeats Martina Hingis [6-3, 7-6 (7-4)] to capture the US Open title for her first Grand Slam title in her second year as a pro. Williams becomes the first black woman to win a Grand Slam title since Althea Gibson in 1958. She finishes with eight aces for a tournament total to 62, 40 more than any other woman. In capturing the title, Williams beats three of the top four women in the world -- Hingis, defending champion Lindsay Davenport, and two-time champion Monica Seles.

1999 - The Williams sisters win the women's doubles crown one day after 17-year-old Serena Williams captured her first singles Grand Slam trophy. She teams with sister Venus to win the doubles title with a 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 victory over American Chanda Rubin and Sandrine Testud of France at the US Open.

1999 - The United States national women’s basketball team beats Australia 74-69 to win the gold medal of the inaugural US Olympic Cup in San Diego. The United States also beat Australia 5-0 in women's softball, in a game which included a three-run homer from Stacey Nuveman.

1999 - A crowd of 3,152 is on hand at little Aggborough stadium in Kidderminister, England, as Wendy Toms, Janie Frampton, and Amy Rayner become the first all-female trio to officiate at a professional soccer game on Sept. 13.

1999 - Gabriela Szabo, a 23-year-old middle-distance runner from central Romania's Transylvania region, becomes the first track and field athlete to win more than a million dollars in a season. Szabo pockets $500,000 for winning all seven Golden League races this year and earns an extra $250,000 for the overall Grand Prix title, winning a record $1,015,000 for her season's work.

1999 - The US national team defeats Australia in the gold medal round of the USA Basketball International Invitational at Stanford University. Natalie Williams has 23 points and 10 rebounds to lead the United States women's basketball team to a 94-68 championship win. The US team finish with a 7-0 record.

1999 - Breann Smith, an Ann Arbor Pioneer High School junior, runs into the endzone and into the Michigan history books with her touchdown in a varsity high school football game.

1999 - The US women’s tennis team reclaims the Fed Cup title in play in September against the Russian team, winning for the 16th time. Under the leadership of captain and coach Billie Jean King, the American "Dream Team" of Lindsay Davenport, Venus and Serena Williams, and Monica Seles (four of the world's top five players), have little trouble dominating the play.

1999 - Dutch sailor Margriet Matthysse, 22, the current world champion, wins the first gold medal of the Olympic sailing test regatta in Sydney, Australia.

1999 - Steffi Graf, 30, receives the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award from Crown Prince Felipe in Oviedo, Spain. The Prince of Asturias Foundation gives the award to sports personalities who display excellence both as athletes and as human beings. This year’s field included 36 candidates.

1999 - The US women's national soccer team beats Brazil 6-0 in an exhibition game on Sept. 26 for the 22nd win of 1999, tying the 1998 team for most wins in a calendar year. It was also the 100th win (100-8-8) in five years under coach Tony DiCicco.

1999 - Juli Inkster, 39, enters the LPGA Hall of Fame with her win in the $800,000 Safeway Championship in Portland, OR. She becomes the 17th member of the LPGA Hall of Fame, winning by six strokes. This is her fifth tournament and second major of the year. She has 22 career victories, including five majors, for a total of 27 points to earn the Hall of Fame spot. Inkster joins Beth Daniel and Amy Alcott in qualifying for the Hall of Fame this year.

1999 - Kenyan Tegla Loroupe wins the women’s 42 kilometer Berlin Marathon with a world best time of 2:20:43, beating her own record by four seconds. She won $28,000 for winning and another $100,000 for the world record. Marleen Renders of Belgium finished second in 2:23.58 and Russia's Svetlana Zakharova was third in 2:27.07.

1999 - Jennifer Parilla, 18, of Lake Forest, CA earns the USA its first-ever trampoline spot at an Olympic Games with her ninth place finish at the 1999 World Championships. The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) has determined that only one athlete per country will be allowed to compete in Sydney, with a total of ten countries represented in the newest Olympic sport.

1999 - In their second all-sisters final of the year, Serena Williams beats older sister Venus for the first time in their professional careers, winning the Grand Slam Cup in Munich in October. Serena wins $900,000 and Venus $400,000 in the richest tournament in tennis. The $6.7 million event invites 12 men and 8 women with the best records in the four Grand Slam events of the year to participate.

1999 - Billie Moore, the first woman's coach to win national championships at two schools (Cal State-Fullerton and UCLA) and the coach of the first US Olympic women's basketball team in 1976, is inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. In her 24 year coaching career, Moore compiled a 436-196 record.

1999 - The US Women's National team wins the Hall of Fame Enshrinement Game 99-73) over the WNBA Select Team, with five of the eight national players in double figures.

1999 - The International Olympic Committee approves the addition of skeleton (an athlete riding a sled head-first down an ice track) and women's bobsled to the sports program for the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. Men's and women's 1,500-meter races in short-track speedskating and men's and women's cross-country ski events are also added.

1999 - The US women's soccer team beats South Korea 5-0 in the opening match of the US Women's Cup 1999 tournament on Oct. 3, setting a record of 23 wins in a season. Among the scorers was Mia Hamm with her 112th career goal. The US women outshot South Korea 35-2 overall and 17-1 in shots on goal.

1999 - Dutch cyclist Leontien van Moorsel captures her second straight elite women’s time trial in Treviso, Italy at the World Cycling Championships. It is her fifth gold medal of the decade. She rode 25.85 kilometers (16 miles) in 32 minutes, 31.87 seconds.

1999 - The US women's scoccer team beats Finland 6-0 in the second round of the US Women's Cup. Mia Hamm has 3 assists and Kristine Lily has 2 second-half goals as the US women play in Kansas City, MO in front of a crowd of 36,405, the most ever at a soccer game there.

1999 - Australia wins its third consecutive world women’s netball title, beating New Zealand 42-41 in Christchurch, New Zealand. England beats Jamaica 57-43 for third place.

1999 - In a high profile women’s boxing match, Laila Ali, 21, the daughter of Muhammad Ali, made her pro boxing debut with a KO in just 31 seconds in the first round of a match with April Fowler in Verona, NY.

1999 - Billed as the Battle of the Sexes in Boxing, Margaret McGregor won all four rounds in her sanctioned match against Loi Chow in Seattle, WA. The history-making bout by McGregor, 36, was scored 40-36 by all three judges.

1999 - Edita Pucinskaite of Lithuania wins the elite women’s road cycling race at the World Cycling Championships, riding 113.75 kilometers (70.525 miles) in 2.5.50.

Sarah Fisher, 18, makes her Indy Racing League (IRL) debut on Oct. 17 at Texas Motor Speedway in the circuit’s season finale. She passed her rookie test at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, driving about 204 mph on the 1 ½-mile tri-oval.

1999 - The US women’s national soccer team closes out their record-breaking 1999 season with a 4-2 victory over Brazil to win the US Women’s Cup tournament. Mia Hamm scores her 113th and 114th international goals; Kristine Lilly had the other two goals and an assist to move the US team to 25-2-2 on the season. The US team had played of 636 minutes without letting an opponent score before Brazil's Nildinha scored in the 21st and the 30th minute.

1999 - Akiko Fukushima wins $122,000 at the LPGA Tournament of Champions in Mobile, AL. The tournament, with a total purse of $750,000, featured the winners of LPGA events over the last three years and active members of the LPGA Hall of Fame.

1999 - Juli Inkster and Mia Hamm are honored as Sportswomen of the Year by the Women’s Sports Foundation. Inkster, who won five LPGA titles and entered the LPGA Hall of Fame in 1999, was selected in the individual category. Hamm, the world’s top scorer in women’s soccer, was chosen in the team sport category. Other award winners incude golfers Sandra Haynie and Betty Jameson; marathon runner Joan Benoit Samuelson; former Temple lacrosse coach Tina Sloan Green; Olympic track star Gail Devers; and Deborah Slaner Larkin, former executive director of the WSF.

1999 - Julie Foudy, the 28-year old co-captain of the champion US World Cup women’s soccer team, is elected as the 2000-02 president of the Women’s Sports Foundation Board of Trustees.

1999 - The LPGA celebrates its 50th birthday with a gathering on Oct. 19 in New York City. Eight of the surviving 12 charter members -- Patty Berg, Alice Bauer, Bettye Danoff, Marlene Hagge, Betty Jameson, Marilynn Smith, Shirley Spork and Louise Suggs -- are on hand to kick off the year-long celebration for the world's longest-running women's sports association. In 1999, the LPGA sanctioned 38 events on four continents and a record 78 players earned more than $100,000 each.

1999 - Kenyan Joyce Chepchumba, the defending champion, wins her second Chicago Marathon in 2:25:59, beating countrywoman Margaret Okayo by one second.

1999 - Jamila Demby, 22, a University of California-Davis track and field standout is honored as NCAA Woman of the Year for her academic, athletic and community achievements from more than 300 nominations nation-wide. Among her athletic accomplishments: 1998 and 1999 indoor track and field All-America in the 1,600-meter relay; a 1996 and 1997 first-team All North Coast Athletic Conference selection; an All-America in the 800 from 1996-99.

1999 - In the NCAA’s gender equity report for the 1997-98 school year, athletic scholarships to women at the nation’s major colleges have increased more than 140% since 1991-92, at a rate more than double the rate of increase in aid for men over the same period. Women receive more scholarship money than men in Division I basketball, fencing, golf, gymnastics, skiing, soccer, swimming and diving, tennis, volleyball, track and field and cross country. The number of women competing in Division I sports rose to 40% of the total number of athletes, up from 37% in 1996 and 31% in 1992. The report shows men receive 59% of the scholarship money at Division I schools, but that gap is smaller since the first survey in 1992 when men had a 69-31 advantage. Another report in 1996 that showed a 62-38 advantage for men.

1999 - Australian marathon swimmer Susie Maroney, 24, completes a 160-kilometer (100-mile) open water swim from Jamaica to Cuba.

1999 - A four-women Chinese 3,000-meter relay team sets a new world record at the short-track speed skating World Cup competition in Provo, UT, in 4:16.260.

1999 - Adriana Fernandez of Mexico wins the women's division of the New York City Marathon in 2:25:06, the second-fastest time in race's history. Catherine Ndereba of Kenya is second with a time of 2:27:34, with Katrin Dorre-Heinig of Germany taking thrid in 2:28:41.

1999 - Laila Ali's second professional boxing match is a victory at the end of a four-round match with Shadina Pennybaker.

1999 - Cuba wins the International World Volleyball championship in Tokyo for the fourth straight year with a perfect 11-0 record. Russia finishes second at 10-1 and Brazil is third at 9-2.

1999 - Lindsay Davenport beats the Martina Hingis to win the season-ending Chase Championships in straight sets, 6-4, 6-2.

1999 - The International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) names Fanny Blankers-Koen, who won four Olympic golds at the 1948 London Games, as the female Athlete of the Century in a ceremony in Monaco. Blankers-Koen, a 30-year-old Dutch mother of two, won gold in the 100 and 200 meters, 80 meters hurdles and the sprint relay.

1999 - The Maryland Terrapins dominate the NCAA Division I women’s field hockey championship game against Michigan in Brookline, MA, winning 2-1. Maryland coach Missy Meharg becomes only the fourth coach in NCAA history to win at least two national field hockey titles, joining Beth Anders of Old Dominion, Karen Shelton of North Carolina, and former Connecticut coach Diane Wright. The Terrapins (24-1) are the first team in school history to win the Atlantic Coast Conference and NCAA tournaments in the same season.

1999 - Japan's Eri Yamaguchi, 26, wins the Tokyo International Women's Marathon in a meet record time of 2:22:12. Fatuma Roba of Ethiopia, the 1996 Atlanta Olympic gold medalist, comes in second in 2:27:05, and Russian Valentina Yegolova is third in a time of 2:28:06.

1999 - Chen Yanqing of China sets two world records and wins two gold medals at the World Weightlifting Championship in Greece when she lifts a combined 235 kilos (518 pounds). She breaks a world record by hoisting 105 kilos (231 pounds) in the snatch. North Korea's Ri Song Hui sets another world record by lifting 131 kilos (289 pounds) in the clean-and-jerk, winning one gold and two silver medals. Juo Ping Chun of Taiwan takes all three bronze medals.

1999 - The LPGA Player of the Year is Karrie Webb with 337.29 points, well ahead of number two, Juli Inkster with 293.50. The LPGA Rookie of the Year is Mi Hyun Kim with 1300 points.

1999 - Sports Illustrated for Women announces their choice of the US Women’s Soccer Team as Sportswomen of the Year and Jackie Joyner Kersee, a six-time Olympic medalist, as the Athlete of the Century.

1999 - Babe Didrikson Zaharias is selected by Sports Illustrated as the best female athlete of the 20th Century. One of the greatest all-around athletes in history, she won three Olympic medals and 31 LPGA titles, including 10 majors.

1999 - Runner Inger Miller is chosen as the 1999 winner of the Jesse Owens Memorial Award at the USA Track & Field convention in Los Angeles.

1999 - Megan Quann, 15, sets a new national 100-meter breaststroke record at the US Open Swimming Championships with her winning time of 1.07.94.

36 year-old American Tori Murden crosses the Atlantic Ocean in a row boat, the American Pearl, following an 81-day voyage. She becomes the first American - and the first woman - to row accross the Atlantic alone.

1999 - 47-year-old Pat Summitt becomes the youngest coach in college basketball history to win 700 games when her Lady Vols beat Wisconsin 85-62. Summitt joins the exclusive 700-wins club of 16 men and one woman, Texas coach Jody Conradt (730 career wins).

1999 - The North Carolina Tar Heels (24-2-0) win their 15th national title in 18 years at the NCAA women's soccer championship in San Jose in front of a NCAA record crowd of 14,410, beating Notre Dame 2-0 on goals from Kim Patrick and Meredith Florance.

1999 - The Associated Press selects Mickey Wright as the best female golfer of the century. She tops a list which includes Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Kathy Whitworth, Joyce Wethered, Glenna Collett Vare, Nancy Lopez, Louise Suggs, Patty Berg, JoAnne Carner and Betsy Rawls.

1999 - International Olympic Committee awards Steffi Graf their highest honor, the Olympic order, at ceremonies in Lausanne, Switzerland. The Olympic order is awarded to recognize “those persons who have illustrated the Olympic ideal through their actions, have achieved remarkable merit in the sporting world or have rendered outstanding services to the Olympic cause.” Graf won Olympic gold medal in Seoul in 1998 when tennis reappeared as a full medal sport. She won 22 Grand Slam titles during her career.

1999 - The Golf Writers Association of America choses Juli Inkster as the female player of the year.

1999 - The Associated Press selects Ruffian as the best fillie or mare of the century. Others on the top ten list incude Twilight Tear, Personal Ensign, Real Delight, Regret, Busher, Cicada, Serena's Song, Shuvee and Lady's Secret.

1999 - The Associated Press selects Steffi Graf as the top female tennis player of the century. Others on the top ten list incude Martina Navratilova, Margaret Smith Court, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Suzanne Lenglen, Helen Wills Moody, Maureen Connolly, Monica Seles, and (tied for No. 10) Evonne Goolagong and Martina Hingis.

1999 - Laila Ali wins her third straight boxing bout with a second-round technical knockout of Nicolyn Armstrong in Detroit.

1999 - Sonja Henie is named the top female Winter Olympian of the century the Associated Press. The other top ten places went to Katarina Witt, Bonnie Blair, Lydia Skoblikova, Raisa Smetanina, Irina Rodnina, Rosi Mittermaier, Jayne Torvill, Manuela Di Centa and Karin Kania.

1999 - Jackie Joyner-Kersee is chosen the greatest female Summer Olympian of the century by the Associated Press. The rest of the top ten include Fanny Blankers-Koen, Larysa Latynina, Nadia Comaneci, Vera Caslavska, Dawn Fraser, Wilma Rudolph, Babe Didrikson and Florence Giffith-Joyner.

1999 - Babe Didrikson Zaharias (No. 9) heads the list of ten women chosen as part of the 100 Athletes of the Century by the Associated Press. The other women members of this exlusive club include Martina Navratilova (20), Jackie Joyner-Kersee (40), Billie Jean King (41), Nadia Comaneci (52), Chris Evert (55), Steffi Graf (68), Sonja Henie and Wilma Rudolph (tied for 76), and Althea Gibson (83). The 16 panelists who ranked the 325 entries for Athletes of Century included three women: Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation; Anita Defrantz, the first woman vice president of the International Olympic Committee; and Judy Rankin, a former LPGA Tour professional and TV analyst for ABC Sports.

1999 - The US Women's Soccer team is honored as Sportswomen of the Year inf the Dec. 20 issue of Sports Illustrated.

1999 - The Nittany Lions of Penn State win their first NCAA women’s volleyball championship, beating Stanford (15-2, 15-10, 15-7). All-American Lauren Cacciamani was named the tournament’s outstanding player.

1999 - Jennifer Rodriguez completes a sweep of all four speedskating races at the US Allround Speedskating Championship, winning the 500, 1,500, 3,000 and 5,000-meter races.

1999 - The NCAA reports overall student participation in women’s sports in 1997-98 was up 3.5% over the 1996-97 season, with 135,110 women athletes. Women’s soccer (724) was the fastest-growing collegiate sport with an additional 30 teams that year, and women’s basketball teams outnumbered men’s basketball teams, 956 to 938, among member schools.

1999 - The US Olympic Committee honors the US women’s national soccer team as Team of the Year and record-setting swimmer Jenny Thompson is named the Sportswoman of the Year. The awards are presented annually by the USOC to outstanding members of America’s Olympic movement.

1999 - The coverage of the Women's World Cup in soccer is named the Associated Press Story of the Year.

1999 - Gabriela Szabo is named as the International Amateur Athletic Federation’s woman athlete of the year for her outstanding track and field performances during the year.

1999 - Speedskater Bonnie Blair, the most decorated U.S. athlete in Winter Olympic history, is honored as the 1999 recipient of the Women's Sports Foundation's Flo Hyman Award. The Flo Hyman Memorial Award is given by the Women's Sports Foundation in honor a captain of the 1984 Olympic Silver Medalist United States Women's Volleyball Team.

2000 - 51-year-old golfer Jenny Ritchie sets a hole in one on the last day of the old century and another on the same hole on the first day of 2000 at New Zealand's Wanganui Golf Club. These are her 5th and 6th holes-in-one during her 34 years of playing golf. Ritchie has won the Wanganui Golf Club senior title four times.

2000 - Team USA caps a perfect week of ice hockey with a 5-0 win over Team Sweden in the championship game of the Women's Holiday Classic held at Lake Placid, NY. The US national women's team won all five games played in the three country tournmant with Russia and Sweden.

2000 - Nancy Lopez is the recipient of the Golf Writers Association of America William D. Richardson Award, given to an individual who has consistently made an outstanding contribution to golf. In her outstanding career, Lopez won a record nine tournaments, including a record five in a row during 1978, when she also won Rookie and Player of the Year honors and the Vare Trophy. She qualified for the LPGA Hall of Fame and has 48 career wins.

2000 - Scotland's Diana Hoff becomes the second woman and oldest person (at 55) to row across the Atlantic Ocean alone when she completes her voyage on Jan 4.

2000 - Frenchwoman Peggy Bouchet becomes the third woman to row solo across the Atlantic when she completes her 48 day journey on Jan. 5. Bouchet had attempted the trip in 1999, but had to cut it short when her boat capsized with less than 100 miles to go.

2000 - The winner of the first Award of Excellence of the National Soccer Coaches Association of America’s Women’s Committee is April Heinrichs, the women’s soccer coach at the University of Virginia. In 1998 she was the first woman inducted to the National Soccer Hall of Fame.

2000 - The US women’s volleyball team earns a spot in the Sydney Olympic's for the sixth straight time with their 3-1 win over Canada in Lakeland, FL at the Nike Americas’ Volleyball Challenge. The US was 4-0 among the field, which also included national teams from Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic (who took third place).

2000 - Karrie Webb is named the 1999 Player of the Year Award in ceremonies conducted by the Ladies Professional Golf Association. She also receives the Vare Trophy for the lowest scoring average. Mi Hyun Kim is named the 1999 Rookie of the Year. Judy Rankin gets the Patty Berg Award, Sandra Eriksson receives the LPGA Professional of the Year Award, and Kathleen Teichert gets the LPGA Coach of the Year Award.

2000 - The LPGA announces that starting in 2000 the Rookie of the Year will receive a trophy named in honor of Louise Suggs to recognize her achievements and contributions to the LPGA. Suggs is a LPGA founding member and one of the firstsix players inducted into LPGA Tour Hall of Fame. A former LPGA president (1955-57), she had 58 career victories, including 11 major titles. Suggs is one of four LPGA career Grand Slam players, winning each of the four majors during her career.

2000 - The US women’s soccer team win the Australia Cup with a 3-1 victory over defending champion Australia. The US was undefeated in three games, beating the Czech Republic 8-1 and a 0-0 tie with Sweden.

2000 - LSU basketball coach Sue Gunter wins her 600th game, becoming the fourth coach to reach 600 victories (Texas’ Jody Conradt, Tennessee’s Pat Summitt and Rutgers’ Vivian Stringer).

2000 - Jacqui Frazer-Lyde, the daughter of former world heavyweight champion Joe Frazer, wins her first professional boxing match, joining Laila Ali, the daughter of Muhammad Ali, in the ranks of women's professsional boxing.

2000 - ABC airs a movie about the life of Special Olympics athlete Loretta Claiborne who was born partially blind, ran in 25 marathons, and carried the torch in the International Special Olympics where she has won medals in dozens of events. “The Loretta Claiborne Story” details her life both on and off the track.

2000 - Karrie Webb, the 1999 LPGA Player of the Year, continues her winning ways, with her victory in the first tournament of the 2000 season.

2000 - April Heinrichs, 35, the captain of the 1991 US World Cup team, is the new head coach of the US women’s team, the first woman to get the job. Heinrichs was the first female member of the US National Soccer Hall of Fame, scoring 38 goals in 47 games on the national team. She has served as the coach of the US national under-16 team.

2000 - There are 53 institutions (25 Division I, two Division II and 26 Division III) who sponsor women's ice hockey as a varsity sport according to the NCAA. Of these, 34 are ECAC members - 13 participate in the Division I women's league, 17 in the women's alliance and four schools compete as independents. At their January meeting, the NCAA membership adopted legislation to establish a National Collegiate Women's Ice Hockey Championship effective during the 2000-01 academic year.

2000 - Martina Navratilova is the newest member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame. She earned 167 singles titles, 165 doubles crowns and 1,438 singles match wins - setting records in each category for male or female players. The Czech-born star defected to the United States during the 1970s and became an American citizen in 1981.

2000 - German Hanka Kupfernagel wins the first women’s winter cyclocross title in 50 years of world championships in the Netherlands. Britain’s Louise Robinson and Holland’s Daphny van den Brand finish second and third.

2000 - The US national women's soccer team players agree to a five-year contract that raises the minimum monthly salary for star players from $3,150 to $5,000, giving women on the national team the same salary as men. The players would also get part ownership of a league planned to start in April 2001, a unique situation since no other major sports league in the United States allows players to be part owners.

2000 - Stacy Dragila sets a new American indoor record in the women's pole vault at 14 feet, 9.5 inches in Pocatello, ID. Dragila began vaulting 1993 at Idaho State.

2000 - Germany's Claudia Pechstein claims the women's 5,000 speed skating world championship at the Pettit National Ice Centre in Milwaukee, WI. She beat countrywoman Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann, who has held the world title since 1995. Maki Tabata of Japan won the 1,500 meters and finished third in the 5,000 for the world bronze medal.

2000 - 36 year-old Regina Jacobs sets a new American record in the women's 1,000 meters at the New Balance Invitational with her finish of 2:35.29, breaking the 11 year-old record of 2:37.6, by Mary Slaney. Other winners included Suziann Reid in the women's 400 in 51.96; Melissa Morrison in the women's 60 hurdles in 7.94; and Melissa Mueller, in the women's pole vault, at 14 feet, 11/4 inches.

2000 - Sandra Farmand of Germany wins the World Cup snowboard women’s cross race, beating France’s Marjorie Ray and Austria's Manuela Riegler.

2000 - Germany's Gabi Kohlish wins the first women's bobsled world championship race in Winterberg, Germany. Kohlish, a former luge world champion in 1990 and 1995, and braker Kathleen Hering, won in 58.79. Second place goes to the US team of Jean Racine and Jennifer Davidson, and third place to the Swiss team of Francoise Burdet and Katharina Sutter.

2000 - Germany's Sylke Otto wins her first world luge title by defeating the defending Baraba Neiderman in a two run, combined total time of 1:55:128 at the World Luge Chamionship in St. Moritz, Switzerland. German women swept all five top place finishes in the the singles competition.

2000 - Monica Seles is awarded the Flo Hyman Award on the 14th annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day by Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala in Washington, DC. Seles, a 26-year-old Yugoslav-born American, was recognized for her ability to overcome the physical and psychological traumas of being stabbed and returning to the top level of professional tennis. The award is named after the Olympic volleyball player who died suddenly from a ruptured aorta in 1986.

2000 - US swimmer Jenny Thompson, 26, wins big at the FINA World Cup in Italy in the women’s 100-meter freestyle, the 100 individual medley, the 50 butterfly, the 50-meter freestyle, and the 100-meter butterfly. She set a new world record of 56.80 seconds in the 100-meter butterfly race, beating her own record world record of 56.90 seconds set in 1998. She also won the 50-meter freestyle with a time of 24.94 seconds.

2000 - The Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA), with US women’s World Cup players as the core, announces plans to start league play with eight teams across the nation in the spring of 2001.

2000 - Alaska’s Christine Clark, 37, will represent the US in the 2000 Olympics as the only women marathon runner. She won the women’s Olympic marathon trials with a personal best time of 2:33:31.

2000 - St. Lawrence University (Canton, NY) women’s basketball team ended the nation’s longest active collegiate winning streak, snapping the Lady Heron of William Smith’s 80-game unbeaten steak with a 60-57 OT win in Geneva, NY.

2000 - Stacy Dragila continues to dominate women’s pole vaulting, breaking her own world indoor record for the third time this year with a jump of 15 feet, 1 ¾ inches in Atlanta at the USA Track and Field Championships. She broke her own world record of 75-10 and has won five consecutive indoor titles.

2000 - Dawn Ellerbe wins the world's 20-pound weight throw with a world best record of 77-5.25 at the USA Track and Field Championships.

2000 - Marla Runyan, who is legally blind, won the 3,000 meter race in 9:01:29 at the at the USA Track and Field Championships for her frist US title. She was the Pan American Games gold medalist in the women's 1,500.

2000 - At a conference in Paris to commemorating the 100th anniversary of women’s participation in the modern Olympics, International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch calls for more women in sports administration; 14 women are on the 113-member IOC. At the 1996 Atlanta Games, 26 countries sent only male athletes. Women will be 42% of the competitors at the summer Sydney Games and will be 50% of the 2002 winter athletes in Salt Lake City.

2000 - Laila Ali, 21, remains unbeaten in her pro boxing career with a first-round knockout of Crystal Arcand in her fourth professional fight.

2000 - “Granny D,” a 90 year-old great-grandmother from Dublin, NH, completes her 14-month, cross-country walk from California to Washington, DC, in February to advocate for campaign finance reform. Doris Haddock walked an average of 10 miles per day on her trek.

2000 - Dr. Sylvia Earle, who in 1979 became the first person in the world to dive to a depth of 1,250 feet, is honored as one of 19 women to be inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2000. She led an all-woman team of scientists in an experiment in undersea living, staying for two weeks in a submerged capsule in the Caribbean Sea.

2000 - Cheryl Haworth, 16, the 1999 Pan American Games women’s weightlifting gold medalist, dominated at the USA Weightlifting Championships. She lifted 120 kg in the snatch and 145 kg in the clean and jerk, giving her a total of 265 kg. The individual lifts each exceeded her own records by 2.5 kg.

2000 - Lady Vol Tamika Catchings receives more points (200) and is named on all 44 ballots on The Associated Press women’s All-America basketball team. During the 1999-2000 season, she has averaged 15.5 points, 7.5 rebounds and 2.6 steals to help the second-ranked Tennessee Lady Vols to a 28-3 record.

2000 - The US women’s national soccer team wins the Algarve Cup in Portugul off Brandi Chastain’s penalty kick as they beat Norway 1-0. China takes second place with a 1-0 win over Sweden.

2000 - According to the International Olympic Committee women will compete in the same number of team sports as men in Sydney for the first time in the history of the Olympic Games.

2000 - Jacqui Frazer-Lyde, a Philadelphia lawyer, wins her second professional boxing match against rookie Annie Brooks, 21, in the third round.

2000 - Ethiopian Derartu Tulu, 28, wins her third world cross country title on a 8.08-kilometer course in Villamoura, Portugal, in 25:42.

2000 - Brown goalie Ali Brewer, who had 11 shutouts during the season, receives the Patty Kazmaier award, recognizing the nation’s top women’s ice hockey player.

2000 - The University of Minnesota Golden Gophers wins the third American Women’s College Hockey Alliance national championship in a 4-2 upset over No. 1-ranked Brown Bears who had won the Ivy League, ECAC regular-season, and ECAC tournament crowns. Gopher Nadine Muzerall scored her nation-leading 49th goal of the season during the game. Junior goaltender Erica Killewald was named the tournament’s most valuable player.

2000 - The Middlebury (VT) Panthers defeat the Augsburg (MN) Auggies 8-1 in Boston to capture the inaugural American Women’s Collegiate Hockey Alliance National Championship Division III national title. The Panthers (92-0) began varsity play in the Division III ECAC five years ago.

2000 - The Wisconsin Badgers beat the Florida Lady Gators in a dramatic 75-74 game to win the Women’s NIT. Tournament MVP Tamara Moore led the Badgers with 25 points to the first postseason title in school history.

2000 - Tamika Catchings is named as the Associated Press player of the year in women’s basketball, leading Tennessee to a 32-3 record. Catchings, a 6-foot-1 junior, leads the Lady Vols in scoring (15.7) and rebounding (7.9), is second in assists and her 98 steals leads the team. She was a second-team All-American as a freshman and earned first-team honors the past two years.

2000 - In Nice, France, American Michelle Kwan wins her third title at the World Figure Skating Championships, after first place finishes in both 1996 and 1998.

2000 - The Connecticut Huskies win their second NCAA women’s basketball national title in a 71-52 routing of Tennessee. UConn’s Shea Ralph was named the most valuable player with her game total of 15 points, 7 assists, 6 steals, and 1 block. Kelly Schumacher had a record-making nine blocks.

2000 - 16-year old swimmer Megan Quann breaks the American record for the 100-meter breaststroke for the third time in four months at the National Swimming Championships with a time of 1:07.54. She broke her own record set in the morning preliminaries of 1:07.71.

2000 - Identical twins Kelly and Coco Miller become the first athletes in the Sullivan Award’s 70-year history to be nominated as a joint entry as the nation’s top amateur athlete in 1999. During the season, Georgia’ Lady Bulldogs were 32-4; Kelly was named the Southeastern Conference player of the year and selected to the AP All-American team, averaged a team-leading 15.4 points; Coco averaged 15.3. Both twins both major in pre-med and have been academic All-Americans for the last two years.

2000 - The International Olympic Committee is planning to discontinue the controversial gender testing which has been in use since the 1968 Summer Games at Mexico City beginning with the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. The ICO agreed to refrain from performing gender tests at the Sydney Olympics on an experimental basis last year.

2000 - The Canadian national women’s hockey team wins their sixth straight women’s world hockey championship with 3-2 overtime win against the United States in Mississauga, Ontario. This marks the sixth time the US and Canada have met in the final game. Canada earns the top seed in the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City with the win. Canada is 30-0 in six world championships. 2000 - The Women’s United Soccer Association announce the initial eight teams will be located in Atlanta, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Orlando-Tampa, San Diego, San Francisco and Washington. WUSA league headquarters are set for New York City, with a 4-year cable TV contract for 22 games a year to be televised.

2000 - Olympic swimmer Donna de Varona, 52, sues ABC Sports for $50 million, alleging age and gender discrimination. De Varona’s 30-year sportscasting career began in the early 1960s; she covered the Summer Olympics in 1968, 1972, 1976 and 1984, and the 1984, 1988 and 1994 Winter Olympics. She won an Emmy in 1991 for her work as a producer for a Special Olympics presentation. De Varona was a two-time gold medalist who set 18 world swimming records during her athletic career.

2000 - Kenya’s Catherine Ndereba wins the women’s Boston marathon in 2:26:11, with Irina Bogacheva of Kyrgyzstan finishing in second place, and Ethiopia’s Fatuma Roba in third.

2000 - Jean Driscoll, 33 of Champaign, IL, wins her eighth women’s wheelchair division title in the Boston Marathon in 2:00:52.

2000 - The University Mississippi names a $2.5 million campus athletic facility for basketball sisters Peggie and Jennifer Gillom. The Gillom Sports Center houses volleyball, basketball and tennis courts. Peggie Gillom, a four-year Lady Rebels starter, played from 1976-80, where she holds the school’s career records of 2,486 points and 1,271 rebounds. Peggie is the women’s basketball coach at Texas A&M. Jennifer Gillom, who played from 1982-86, ranks second in career scoring with 2,186 points. She won a gold medal with the 1988 Olympic team, and currently plays with the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury.

2000 - 19-year-old Belgium Ann Wauters, a 6-foot-4 center, was the number one WNBA draft pick, going to the Cleveland Rockers. Wauters averaged 13.8 points for the USV Orchies in France. The WNBA expands to 16 teams in 2000, with additional franchises in Miami, Indiana, Seattle and Portland.

2000 - Bulgarian Donka Mincheva sets a new women’s world record in the snatch with a lift of 85 kilos (187.39 pounds) at the European Weightlifting Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria. She took a second gold with a lift of 102.5 kilos (225.5 pounds) in the clean-and-jerk.

2000 - The US women’s national softball team extends its international unbeaten streak to 43 games with a 2-0 victory over Italy in the championship game of the Olympic Prep Tournament in De Parma, Italy. Christa Williams pitched the one-hitter final game of the tournament where the US won all six games, allowing only three runs.

2000 - Wimbledon announces increases in the total women’s prize money of 7.9%, compared with 4.8% for the men, but continues its policy of paying women less out of the $12.6 million tournament prizes. The women’s champion will get $679,400 (up from $647,010), but still less than the $754,450 the men’s champion will receive. The US Open is the only Grand Slam tournament with equal prize money.

2000 - Jockey Julie Krone, 36, becomes the first woman elected to thoroughbred racing’s hall of fame and is the only woman to have won a Triple Crown race, the 1993 Belmont Stakes. In her 19 year career, Krone won 3,545 races and more than $81 million in prize money, setting both records for women riders.

2000 - Judy Rankin, 55, becomes the 18th player voted into the LPGA Hall of Fame. The first woman to break the $100,000 barrier, Rankin was a three-time winner of the Vare Trophy for lowest scoring average and was twice named player of the year, before health problem forced her retirement in 1983. Rankin will join Beth Daniel and Juli Inkster when the three are inducted in November.

2000 - Kristine Lilly becomes the first player in the history of international soccer to play in 200 games for her country in the US women's 4-0 win over Canada in the US Women's Cup final from Portland, Oregon. The tournament MVP was Shannon MacMillan.

2000 - Senior Courtney Blades, a pitcher for the Southern Mississippi Lady Eagles, sets a new NCAA record with 1,643 carerr strikeouts in a game played on May 6 agaisnt South Flordia. She also broke her own single-season strikeout record with 516 so far on the season.

2000 - A 44-year-old lawyer, Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki of Greece, becomes the first woman to head an Olympics organizing committee. She was instrumental in Greece’s winning the 2004 summer games bid in 1997.

2000 - C’mon Mom!, the first national sports education program designed exclusively for mothers, is launched on Mother’s Day. C’mon Mom! was created by kid-e-sport in partnership with the National Alliance for Youth Sports and the Women’s Sports Foundation to help mothers to get involved as volunteer coaches and as sideline spectators. Only 8-10% of all volunteer coaches are women. The C’mon Mom! kit, available online, includes information on rules, the language of the game and coaching tips.

2000 - Australian swimmer Susie O'Neill breaks Mary. T. Meagher’s 1981 world record for the 200 meters butterfly with a time of 2:5.81, the longest standing record in international swimming. It is O'Neill's 35th national title.

2000 - Nicole Freedman, 28, wins the right to represent the US at the Sydney Olympics with her victory in the 64-mile cycling trials road race in 2:38:56.

2000 - The Maryland women’s lacrosse team (21-1) wins its sixth straight NCAA championship, and a record eighth title, defeating Princeton 16-8. Junior Jen Adams set two national scoring records with five goals and five assists in the second half and finished the season with 136 points.

2000 - Marissa Catlin and Lori Grey of Georgia (27-2) win the deciding tiebreaker doubles match to capture the NCAA women’s tennis championship over top-ranked Stanford (30-1). It is Georgia’s second national title in women’s tennis.

2000 - Tennessee coach Pat Summitt is elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame, becoming only the fourth women’s coach selected in her first year of eligibility. Summitt was hired as a graduate assistant in 1973 and then promoted to head coach later that year at age 22 when the coach left the team to pursue a doctorate. Summitt has won six national championships, has an overall record of 728-150, and was a perfect 39-0 record in 1997-98. 2000 marked Summitt’s record-tying 12th Final Four visit; under her, the Lady Vols never have missed the NCAA tournament. She coached the US national women’s team to Olympic gold in 1984.

2000 - Stanford freshman Laura Granville wins the NCAA tennis singles title in the first championship match featuring players from the same school by defeating teammate Marissa Irvin 6-0, 6-4. Amy Jensen of California becomes the first three-time NCAA doubles champion with partner Claire Curran. Jensen won the title in 1998 and 1999 with Amanda Augustus.

2000 - Holland’s Inge de Bruijn sets two world records in two days at the Sheffield Super Grand Prix by taking the 100-meter butterfly record in 56.69 seconds, beating American Jenny Thompson's previous mark by 1.19 seconds. She broke her own 50-meter butterfly record in 25.64 and also tied the six-year old 50-meter freestyle record in 24.51, set by China’s Le Jingyi.

2000 - Stacy Dragila sets a new outdoor world pole vault record, clearing 15 feet, 1 ¾ inches in Phoenix. She holds the world indoor record at the same height.

2000 - 31-year-old Sheila Taormina, a 1996 Olympic swimming gold medalist, wins a spot on the first US Olympic triathlon at the trials in Irving, Texas. She won the race in 2:5:27, ahead of Joanna Zieger, who also made the team. The third member is Jennifer Gutierrez, the top US finisher at the Sydney World Cup Triathlon in 2:08:19. The alternate is Siri Lindley. Sydney will mark the first time the triathlon will be a medal sport at the Olympics.

2000 - The University of Arizona Wildcats win their second NCAA women’s golf title with a 21-stroke victory, the third largest in the tournament’s 19-year history. Arizona’s Jenna Daniels, shooting a 5-over 77, took the individual title as well.

2000 - Sarah Fisher, 19, and Lyn St. James, 53, make Indianapolis 500 history by becoming the first two women in the field, but they collided on lap 74 when a third driver tried to pass going into a turn. Neither was able to finish the race.

2000 - The Oklahoma Sooners (66-8) win the NCAA Women’s Softball College World Series by beating defending champion UCLA 3-1. Lisa Carey tied the school record with her 20th homer to drive in two runs in the third.

2000 - UCLA’s Seilala Sua becomes the first woman to win the same field event four times with her victory in the women’s discus at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. In addition, she tied Wisconsin’s Suzy Favor for the most overall outdoor NCAA titles by a woman. Overall, Sua has six NCAA indoors and outdoors titles, including the 2000 indoor shot put crown.

2000 - The NCAA’s annual participation report indicates an increase of 9.3% in women’s sports in 1998-99, with 145,832 participants. The biggest growth was in women’s outdoor track and field (up 2,261), women’s indoor track (1,912), women’s basketball (1,566), women’s soccer (1,533), and softball (1,193).

2000 - 25 year old Mary Pierce becomes the first Frenchwoman since 1967 to win the French Open, beating Conchita Martinez 6-2, 7-5. She and partner Martina Hingis capture the doubles crown the next day, beating Virginia Ruano Pascual and Paola Suarez 6-2, 6-4.

2000 - The US national women’s soccer team captures the inaugural Pacific Cup with a 1-0 win over host the host Australians. With a three-way tie for first with China and Canada, the superior goal difference nets the US the trophy.

2000 - Australia’s Anna Wilson wins the 17th annual Women’s Challenge cycling race with just by 27 seconds to spare over Lithuanian Diana Ziliute in Boise, ID. Sarah Ulmer of New Zealand finished third overall in the 625-mile race, the world’s most lucrative women’s cycling event. Wilson also won the race in 1996.

2000 - The US women’s national soccer team captures its fifth title with the Gold Cup in a 1-0 game over Brazil in Foxboro, MA, on a kick by Tiffeny Milbrett.

2000 - The United States team successfully defends its the Nations' Cup women's golf title in a match with Canada in Stouffville, Ontario

2000 - Venus Williams becomes a Grand Slam champion with her straight sets win at Wimbledon over Lindsay Davenport. She becomes the only the second black women's champion at Wimbledon, following Althea Gibson, who won the title in 1957 and 1958.

2000 - Sisters Venus and Serena Williams make tennis history when, for the first time in history, sisters win the Wimbledon doubles title. The two teamed up to beat teamed Ai Sugiyama and Julie Halard-Decugis 6-3, 6-2.

2000 - Marla Runyan, 31 and legally blind since childhood, earns a spot on the US Olympic team with her third place finish in the women’s 1,500 meters. She joins teammates Regina Jacobs and Suzy Favor-Hamilton on the Olympic team. She becomes the first legally blind runner to make the Olympics. In the 1992 Paralympics, Runyan won the 100, 200, 400 and long jump, and won the pentathlon in the 1996 Paralympics.

2000 - The WNBA’s West team beats the East 73-61 in the second All-Star game. Tina Thompson of the Houston Comets was game MVP with 13 points and a record 11 rebounds. Lisa Leslie of Los Angeles scored a record 16 points.

2000 - Stacy Dragila, 29, sets a new world record in the women’s pole vault with a jump of 15 feet, 2¼ inches. She won the inaugural world indoor championship in 1997 and the first world title in 1999.

2000 - Karrie Web, 25, finishes the US Women’s Open at 6-under 282 to win by five strokes. Having won three of the last four majors, she also has enough points for the Hall of Fame, although she won’t be eligible to be inducted until 2005 after 10 years on the LPGA Tour.

2000 - Minnesota Lynx guard Betty Lennox wins the 2000 WNBA Rookie of the Year award, receiving 59 of 62 votes, a Tiffany-designed trophy, and $5,000. Picked sixth in the WNBA draft, Lennox averaged 16.9 points, 5.6 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.7 steals.

2000 - US Olympics softball team pitcher Lisa Fernandez, 29, strikes out all 21 batters in her in her fifth consecutive perfect game. She has retired the last 111 batters she’s faced. The team is 48-0 since starting their pre-Olympic summer tour June 2.

2000 - Houston Comets forward Sheryl Swoopes, the first WNBA player signed in 1997, is named the WNBA’s most valuable player. She was named the league’s defensive player of the year, with 2.81 steals, 3.8 assists 1.06 blocked shots and 6.3 rebounds. She won the league’s scoring title as well, averaging 20.7 points per game. Swoopes won an Olympic gold medal in 1996.

2000 - US women’s national team midfielder Michelle Akers, 34, announces her retirement from international competition due to injury, ending a stellar 15 year career. Akers, who played in the first-ever US women’s national team match in 1985, was the top scorer at the first-ever Women’s World Cup in 1991, with 10 goals to become the first American to win a Golden Boot at a FIFA competition. In other firsts, Akers was the first woman player to earn a shoe-endorsement contract and the first female player to gain national and global fame in her sport. With 105 goals, she is one of only four players in soccer history to score more than 100 career goals and ends international career with two Women’s World Cup titles and an Olympic gold medal. Akers retires as the national team’s second all-time leading scorer (behind Mia Hamm) with 105 goals, 37 assists and 247 total points. She is currently seventh in all-time appearances with 153. She is tied for the US record for most goals in a game (five against Taiwan in the 1991 Women’s World Cup) and is the all-time leading scorer in the history of the Women’s World Cup with 12 goals. She holds the US record for most goals and points in a calendar year when she booted in 39 goals in 26 matches in 1991. She also holds the record for most consecutive games with a goal at nine. Akers is a three-time US Soccer Female Athlete of the Year, last honored in 1999. In 1998 she received FIFA’s highest honor, the FIFA Order of Merit, for her positive contributions to the game.

2000 - The Houston Comets 4-peat in a 79-73 victory over the New York Liberty for their fourth straight WNBA championship, with Sheryl Swoopes, the league’s MVP and leading scorer this season, scoring 31 points in the game. Houston swept the series 2-0.

2000 - Karrie Webb wins $112,500 in the Oldsmobile Classic, earning a total of $1.68 million so far this season, and setting a tournament record of 11-under-par 61 and matching the LPGA record. Webb’s 23 under after 54 holes also is a record, breaking her own mark by one stroke. Webb already owns the LPGA records of 36-holes (16 under) and 72 holes (26 under).

2000 - The United States women’s soccer team sees two new records set in a 4-0 win over Brazil. Goalkeeper Siri Mullinix earns her 13th shutout in a calendar year (one more than the previous record held by Briana Scurry), and international scoring leader Mia Hamm boots her 124th and 125th career goals.

2000 - Venus Williams wins the U.S. Open title her sister Serena took home last year, earning $800,000. Williams has a 26-match winning streak, including two major titles this year after a slow start due to injury.

2000 - The 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, open with a record 120 events for a record 4,100 women competitors, about 40% of the total athletes in these games. 2000 marks the 100th anniversary for women being allowed to compete in the Games.

2000 - Switzerland’s Brigitte McMahon wins Olympic gold in the inaugural women’s triathlon in 2 hours, 40 seconds. Australia’s Michellie Jones took the silver in 2:42, and third place went to Switzerland’s Magali Messmer.

2000 - American Nancy Johnson , 26, takes home the first American gold medal of the 2000 Olympics with the top performance in the women’s 10-meter air rifle with a score of 497.7. Second place goes to Kang Cho-Hyun of Korea and third place to China’s Gao Jing.

2000 - America’s Jenny Thompson, 27, adds a record-tying sixth career Olympic gold medal, anchoring the US women’s 400-meter freestyle relay with teammates Amy Van Dyken, Dara Torres and Courtney Shealy. Thompson finished in 3:36.61, beating the previous mark set in 1994. Thompson now holds the gold medal record for an American woman, outpacing speedskater Bonnie Blair (5).

2000 - Women’s weightlifting makes its Olympic with the gold medal going to Izabela Dragneva of Bulgaria, the silver to American Tara Nott, and Raema Lisa Rumbe of Indonesia taking the bronze. Dragneva had a total lift of 418 ¾ pounds; Nott’s total was 407 ¾ pounds.

2000 - American Lori Harrigan pitched the first solo no-hitter in Olympic softball history to open the US team’s gold-medal defense with a 6-0 victory over Canada. Harrigan had a 0.00 ERA in the Atlanta Games; the US team has won 111 consecutive games dating back to the 1998 world championships. Nevada-Las Vegas, where Harrigan pitched in college, retired her number.

2000 - With odds of 67 million to 1 against for hitting two holes-in-one in the same round of golf, Kathy Holzhauer of Centralia, IL, hit the jackpot during a game at the Green Hills Golf Course in Mount Vernon on Sept. 17.

2000 - Mexico’s Soraya Jimenez wins her nation’s first Olympic women’s weightlifting gold medal in the 58-kilogram division. She pumped 127.5 kilos (281 pounds) above her head, with a total 222.5 kilos (490 pounds) in combined weight. North Korea’s Ri Song Hui took the silver with a total of 220 kilos (485 pounds). The bronze medal went to Thailand’s Khassarporn Suta with a total of 210 kilos (463 pounds).

2000 - China’s Yang Xia also wins a gold medal and breaks the world records in the snatch, clean and jerk and total lift in Olympic women’s weightlifting. Taiwan’s Li Feng-ying, the previous world record holder in the clean and jerk, took the silver at 212.5 (468.25). Winarni Binti Slamet of Indonesia took the bronze with a total lift of 202.5 (446.25).

2000 - 16-year old American Megan Quann wins the gold medal in the 100 meter breaststroke in 1:7.05. Australian Leisel Jones took silver with 1:07.49 and South Africa's Penny Heyns took the bronze in 1:07.55.

2000 - American Misty Hyman, 21, wins Olympic gold in the 200-meter butterfly in an Olympic record time of 2:5.88, beating the world record holder Susie O’Neill of Australia who took the silver in 2:06.58.

2000 - Jenny Thompson earns a seventh Olympic gold medal as anchor of the US 800-meter freestyle relay. The USA team of Samantha Arsenault, Diana Munz, Lindsay Benko and Thompson had an Olympic record 7:57.80. Thompson holds the gold medal record for an American in the Olympics. Australia earn the silver in 7:58.52 and Germany the bronze in 7:58.64.

2000 - Romanian Andreea Raducan, 16, wins the Olympic women’s gymnastics all-around gold medal, the first Romanian to take the all-around gold since Nadia Comaneci in 1976. Her teammates, Simona Amanar took the silver and Maria Olaru the bronze. The Romanian team took the team gold. Raducan was later stripped of her medal for taking an over-the-counter cold remedy the team doctor prescribed that contained a banned stimulant. Teammates Simona Amanar and Maria Olaru, the silver and bronze medal winners, moved up in the individual standings, and fourth-place finisher Liu Xuan of China got the bronze.

2000 - Inge de Bruijn of the Netherlands wins the 100-meter freestyle in 53.83 seconds for her second gold medal of the Olympics. Therese Alshammar of Sweden took silver in 54.33. Americans Jenny Thompson and Dara Torres tied for bronze in 54.43 seconds. Thompson becomes the most decorated woman swimmer in history with nine career medals, as well as having the most Olympic medals won by an American woman.

2000 - Irina Karavaeva, 25, of Russia wins the inaugural Olympic gold medal in women’s trampoline, Oxana Tsyhuleva of Ukraine takes the silver, and Karen Cockburn of Canada wins the bronze. Karavaeva has won the world championships since 1994, and won the individual event at the World Cup this year. 86-year-old George Nissen, a co-inventor of the trampoline, was present at its Olympic debut.

2000 - American Brooke Bennett, 20, won the 800-meter freestyle in an Olympic record 8:19.67, beating the old mark of 8:20.20 set by Janet Evans at the 1988 Olympics. She becomes the first woman since Evans to sweep both the 400 and 800 freestyles. Yana Klochkova of Ukraine won silver in 8:22.66 and American Kaitlin Sandeno, 17, took the bronze in 8:24.29.

2000 - Romania’s Diana Mocanu wins the women’s 200 backstroke event in 2:08.16, matching her gold medal perfomance in the women’s 100 backstroke. France’s Roxana Maracineanu won the silver and Japan’s Miki Nakao took the bronze.

2000 - Paola Pezzo of Italy wins the Olympic mountain bike gold medal, defending the Olympic title she won in Atlanta. Barbara Blatter of Switzerland won silver and Margarita Fullana of Spain won the bronze.

2000 - Inge de Bruijn of the Netherlands wins the 50 freestyle for her third individual Olympic gold medal in 24.32 seconds, beating her own world record by .19 of a second. Therese Alshammar of Sweden takes the silver in 24.51 seconds, with American Dara Torres winning the bronze in 24.63.

2000 - The US women’s relay team of B.J. Bedford, Megan Quann, Jenny Thompson and Dara Torres win the gold in 3:58.30, setting a new world record, beating the mark of 4:01.67 set by China at the 1994 world championships. With eight gold medals, Jenny Thompson ends her swimming career only one short of the total set by gymnast Larissa Lathynina of the former Soviet Union for most golds by a woman. Overall, the United States won 33 swimming medals, including 14 golds, during the Sydney Olympics, with 15 world records set or tied.

2000 - The women’s synchronized diving, a new event for this Olympics, is won by the Russian pair of Vera Ilina and Yulia Pakhalina with total points of 332.64; China’s Fu Mingxia and Guo Jingjing win the silver with 321.60 points; and Ukrainian Ganna Sorokina and Olena Zhupina win the silver with 290.34 points.

2000 - American Marion Jones wins the women’s 100-meter final in 10.75 seconds in the sold-out 110,000-seat Olympic Stadium in Sydney. Her gold medal performance was .37 seconds faster than silver medalist Ekaterini Thanou of Greece (11.12 seconds); Jamaica’s Tanya Lawrence wins the bronze in 11.18. Jones’ victory is the first in five possible medals events during these Olympics.

2000 - Russian Svetlana Khorkina wins a gold medal at the Sydney Games on the uneven bars with a score of 9.862; China’s Ling Jie wins the silver.

2000 - Laura Wilkinson, 22, captures America’s first Olympic gold in 36 years on the 10-meter diving platform, finishing with 543.75 points; China’s Li Na, 16, wins the silver with 542.01; Canada’s Anne Montminy earns the bronze with 540.15. Wilkinson dove on a broken foot with bones that protrude into the bottom of her foot.

2000 - Australia wins the inaugeral gold medal in women’s water polo as the home team edges the US in a 4-3 game. Yvette Higgins shot the winning goal with 1.3 seconds to go in the game. Russia beat the Netherlands 4-3 for the bronze.

2000 - Naoko Takahashi, 28, wins the women’s marathon and the first track and field gold medal for a Japanese woman in an Olympic best time of 2:23.14. Romanian Lidia Simon won the silver in 2:23.22; Joyce Chepchumba of Kenya won the bronze in 2:24.55.

2000 - American Stacy Dragila wins the inaugural women’s pole vault with a jump of 15 feet, 1 inch (4.60 meters), Tatiana Grigorieva of Australia wins the silver, and Vala Flofadottir of Iceland the bronze.

2000 - Maria Mutola gives Mozambique its first Olympic gold medal with a win in the women’s 800 in 1:56.15. Stephanie Graf of Austria was second and Kelly Holmes of Britain won bronze.

2000 - Romania’s Gabriela Szabo, 24, wins the Olympic 5,000 meter gold medal, beating Ireland’s Sonia O’Sullivan who took the silver, and Ethiopia’s Gete Wami who won the bronze.

2000 - Australia choose 27-year-old Aboriginal athlete Cathy Freeman to light the cauldron to open the Sydney Olympics, who earned Australia's 100th gold medal with her gold medal run in the women’s 400 meters. She won in 49.11 seconds; Jamaica’s Lorraine Graham won silver in 49.58 and Britain’s Katharine Merry won the bronze in 49.72.

2000 - The U.S. softball team earns its second consecutive Olympic gold with a 2-1 win over Japan on a Laura Berg hit which allowed Jennifer McFalls to score in the eighth inning.

2000 - Leontien Zijlaard of the Netherlands wins the Olympic road race in 3 hours, 6 minutes, 31 seconds. Hanka Kupfernagel of Germany wins the silver medal and Diana Ziliute of Lithuania took the bronze.

2000 - Venus Williams becomes only the second player in history to win Wimbledon, the US Open and the Olympics in the same year with her 6-2, 6-4 victory over Elena Dementieva for an Olympic gold medal in the women’s singles final. Steffi Graf did it in 1988.

2000 - Venus and Serena Williams become Olympic champions, beating Dutch players Kristie Boogert and Miriam Oremans 6-1, 6-1. Venus is the second woman to win both the singles and doubles titles at the same Olympiad, following the lead of countrywoman Helen Wills who did it in 1924.

2000 - Norway beats America’s defending World Cup and Olympic champions 3-2 in overtime for the Olympic soccer gold medal. Norway is the only nation with an all-time winning record (15-13-2) against the United States.

2000 - US track and field star Marion Jones moves closer to her goal of five gold medals in one Olympics with her win in the women’s 200 meters in 21.84 seconds for her second gold medal of the Sydney Games. Pauline Davis-Thompson of the Bahamas took the silver in 22.27 and Susanthika Jayasinghe of Sri Lanka took the bronze medal in 22.28.

2000 - Scoring 99.146 out of a possible 100 points, Russia wins gold in the team synchronized swimming competition, Japan takes the silver with 98.860 and Canada bronze with 97.357.

2000 - The 1992 Olympic champion Heike Drechsler of Germany wins the women’s long jump, ending Marion Jones’ quest for five Olympic golds. Jones won the bronze behind the silver medalist, Fiona May of Italy.

2000 - Cuba’s women’s team wins a record third consecutive Olympic gold medal in a 5-game match with Russia. Cuba has won every major international competition since the 1992 Olympics with a 35-3 record in world championships and Olympics.

2000 - Birgit Fischer becomes the all-time leading Olympic medal-winner in kayaking with her ninth medal, winning the women’s four for the second straight time and third in four Olympics, tying swimmer Kristin Otto and Reiner Klimke of equestrian for most golds by a German at six.

2000 - Cyclist Leontien Zijlaard of the Netherlands wins her third gold medal of the Sydney Olympics with a 36-second victory in the women’s cycling time trials. She won gold medals in the road race and 3,000-meter individual pursuit, setting a world record, and took silver in the points race. Zijlaard won the 18-mile time trial course in 42 minutes, ahead of silver medalist Mari Holden of the United States with 42:36 and bronze medalist Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli of France in 42:52.

2000 - Russia wins the gold medal in the rhythmic group competition over Belarus in a tie-breaker. Greece won the bronze.

2000 - The US women’s basketball team defends is gold medal against Australia, 76-54, with American Teresa Edwards playing in her fifth Olympics. In winning silver, Australia had its highest finish ever in women’s basketball.

2000 - Stephanie Cook of Britain edges American Emily deRiel in the last event for the gold in the first Olympic women’s modern pentathlon. Kate Allenby of Britain won the bronze. In the competition, athletes fire 20 shots at 20 targets with a 4.5-milimeter air pistol; fence in a 24-person round robin; swim a 200-meter freestyle race; ride a horse over a course that has 12 jumps; and run a 3-kilometer race all in one day.

2000 - Marion Jones becomes the first woman to win five track medals in one Olympics: three gold, two bronze. She is the first woman since Florence Griffith Joyner in 1988 to win three gold medals in track at an Olympics. Jones ran the anchor leg as the U.S. women won bronze in the 400 relay and the third leg of the 1,600 relay team won gold. The Americans won in 3 minutes, 22.62 seconds, Jamaica won the silver medal and Russia the bronze.

2000 - Yelena Yelesina of Russia wins the women’s high jump with a jump of 2.01 meters (6 feet, 7 inches), Hestrie Cloete of South Africa the silver, and Kajsa Bergqvist of Sweden and Oana Manuela Pantelimon of Romania shared the bronze.

2000 - Trine Hattestad of Norway wins the women’s javelin with a throw of 68.91 meters (226 feet, 1-2 inch), Mirella Maniani-Tzelili of Greece the silver and Osleidys Menendez of Cuba the bronze.

2000 - “The Breakfast of Champions” will feature three Olympic women: swimmer Brooke Bennett, pole vaulter Stacy Dragila, and diver Laura Wilkinson, on boxes of Wheaties available in October.

2000 - The Australian Open will offer equal prize money for men’s and women’s tennis in 2001, joining the US Open as the only other Grand Slam to do so. Players will compete for $7.5 million, with winners of the men’s and women’s singles crowns earning $450,000. Prize money had been equal five years ago.

2000 - American cyclist Mari Holden, the Olympic silver medallist, beat Frenchwoman Jeannie Longo with a winning time of 33:14 over a 25 km course in the women’s time trial world championship.

2000 - A Greensboro, NC, jury awards Heather Mercer, a female place-kicker, $2 million in punitive damages, ruling Duke University cut her from the team solely because of her gender. Mercer will use the award to finance a scholarship for female place-kickers. She won her claim that Duke violated the Title IX amendment that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in educational programs receiving federal funds.

2000 - Juli Inkster gets her 25th career victory by winning the Samsung World Championship.

2000 - Jenny Thompson, 27, the most decorated U.S. woman athlete in Olympic history, is chosen Sportswoman of the Year by the Women’s Sports Foundation. She won four medals at the Sydney Olympics, increasing her career total to 10 medals, including eight golds. She plans to attend Columbia medical school.

2000 - Venus and Serena Williams receive the Sportswomen of the Year award, a team honor, by the Women’s Sports Foundation. The doubles team won championships at Wimbledon and the Olympics, as well as the 1999 French Open and US Open.

2000 - Tennis player Martina Navratilova receives the Wilma Rudolph Courage Award by the Women’s Sports Foundation.

2000 - Inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame are synchronized swimming Hall of Fame coach Chris Carver, Australian track great Marjorie Jackson-Nelson, and synchronized swimmer Tracie Ruiz-Conforto by the Women’s Sports Foundation.

2000 - Karrie Webb wins $122,000 and her seventh tournament of the year at the AFLAC Champions tournament. She is assured of LPGA player of the year honors for 2000. The first LPGA player to win $1 million on tour in 1996, she has won a record $1,815,053 so far this year, with one more tournament to go.

2000 - French cyclist Jeannie Longo, 42, sets a new world one-hour record on a conventional bike with 44.767 kilometers in Mexico City, beaking the 43.501km record set by Australian Anna Wilson in Melbourne during the Olympics. Longo has the world one-hour record of 48.159 km for a high-tech bike set in 1996.

2000 - North Carolina’s Tar Heels (16-3) women’s soccer wins a 12th consecutive ACC Conference in a 4-0 victory over Duke. The Tournament MVP is Meredith Florance, with 2 assists on goals in the game.

2000 - The Florida Gators earn their fifth straight Southeastern Conference women’s soccer championship with a 2-0 win over Georgia.

2000 - Ludmila Petrova becomes the first Russian to win the New York City Marathon in 2:25.45 for $65,000, a $25,000 bonus for finishing in under 2:26, plus an automobile and a scooter. Italy’s Franca Fiacconi was second in 2:26:03, with Margaret Okayo in 2:26:36 at third, Kiumtai at fourth in 2:26:42, Florence Barsosio fifth in 2:27:00 and Tegla Loroupe sixth in 2:29:35.

2000 - Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer (500-143) earned her 500th career victory in a 73-65 win over Pacific. VanDerveer, who has spent 15 of her 22 coaching years at Stanford, becomes the 17th coach in women’s basketball history to reach 500 career wins.

2000 - The Nebraska Cornhuskers (34-0) beat Wisconsin 3-2 for the NCAA Volleyball crown.

2000 - US sprinter Marion Jones, 24, is named Female Athlete of the Year by the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF). Jones finished the Sydney with three golds in the 100 meters, 200 meters, and 4x400 meter relay and two bronzes in the 4x100 relay and long jump. She also won this award in 1997 and 1998. In other awards, the IAAF also announced that Australia’s 400 meters Olympic champion Cathy Freeman was given the Inspirational Award after her performances in Sydney. German long jumper Heike Drechsler, 35, who beat Jones in the Olympic final to take gold, was given a Distinguished Career Award. The Rising Star award went to Australia’s Jana Pittman who won titles at the junior track and field championships in Santiatober.

2000 - The National Track and Field Hall of Fame inducts Chandra Cheeseborough and Maren Seidler at the USA Track & Field’s convention in Albuquerque, NM. Cheeseborough, 41, won silver in the 400 at the Los Angeles Games and gold medals in the 1,600 and 400 relays. Currently she serves as the men’s and women’s track and field and cross country coach at her alma mater, Tennessee State. Maren Seidler, 49, a four-time Olympian, won 23 national shot put titles from 1967-80. She set the American shot put record 16 times, indoors and outdoors, and became the first American woman to throw the shot farther than 60 feet.

2000 - Olympic champion Stacy Dragila, 29, receives the Jesse Owens award as the year’s outstanding track and field athlete from the the executive committee of USA Track and Field. She won the first Olympic women’s pole vault title with a winning jump of 15 feet, 1 inch, and broke the world record five times. Dragila has won eight U.S. indoor and outdoor titles.

2000 - Australia wins the inaugural $1 million Women’s World Cup Golf tournament with a three-day total of 13-under 275. Australian teammates Karrie Webb and Rachel Hetherington beat Sweden’s Sorenstam sisters. Annika and Charlotta. Americans Meg Mallon and Juli Inkster rook third place and Canada finished fourth. The 25 year old Webb’s total career earnings now surpass $6 million.

2000 - Sandra Baldwin is elected the first female president of the US Olympic Committee in its 106-year history.

2000 - The North Carolina Tar Heels win their 16th NCAA women’s soccer championship in 19 years at the final game in San Jose, CA, beating UCLA 2-1. North Carolina, seeded fifth, becomes the lowest seed ever to win the title.

2000 - The Golf Writers Association of America choose Australian Karrie Webb as a player of the year. Webb won two majors and finished the season with seven victories and almost $2 million in prize money during the season.

2000 - Michelle Akers, 34, is honored by Futbol de Primera as the best female soccer player ever. Akers retired as the leading scorer for the US National Team with 105 goals in 153 games during her 15-year career as a forward/midfielder. Akers is one of only four women to score over 100 career goals in international play.

2000 - Sweden breaks its own world record in the women’s 200-meter medley relay at the European Short Course Swimming Championships in 1:48.31 seconds, beating the previous record of 1.49.47. The Swedish team also set a world record Friday winning the 200-meter freestyle relay.

2000 - Wimbledon, U.S. Open and Sydney Olympic champion Venus Williams signs for the richest endorsement deal ever for a woman in sports, with a contract worth a $40 million over five years with Reebok. Williams, who is studying fashion design, will also co-design the Reebok collections scheduled to debut in the 2002 tennis season.

2000 - New Zealand wins the Cricinfo Women’s Cricket World Cup from defending Australia by just four runs.

2000 - Marion Jones is chosen as The Associated Press’ Female Athlete of the Year. Jones became the first female track and field athlete to win 5 medals during one Olympic Games.

2001 - Kay Yow becomes the fifth coach in women’s college basketball history with 600 victories in a 71-64 North Carolina State victory over Temple. Yow is 600-243 overall in 30 seasons with a record of 543-225 in 26 seasons at North Carolina State.

2001 - Se Ri Pak, 23, the Rookie of the Year in 1999, shoots an 8-under-par 64 to win the 2001 season-opener, the YourLife Vitamins LPGA Classic in Orlando.

2001 - 32-year veteran Texas Longhorn coach Jody Conradt, 59, becomes the first women’s basketball coach to work 1,000 games. Since 1969, Conradt has won a national championship, a record 760 games and been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Only 20 men’s coaches have reached the 1,000-game mark. In 1986, the Longhorns became the first undefeated national champions in women’s history, going 32-0. In 1997, she became the first women’s coach to reach 700 victories.

2001 - Michelle Kwan, 20, the three-time world champion, wins her fourth straight US Figure Skating Championships in Boston, to earn her 5th US title overall.

2001 - Germany’s Jutta Kleinschmidt, 38, becomes the first woman to win the Paris-Dakar road rally with a 2:39 minute margin over second place finisher Hiroshi Masuoka of Japan.

2001 - Tennis sisters Venus and Serena Williams complete a career Grand Slam in women’s doubles at the Australian Open. Previous wins include the French Open and U.S. Open in 1999 and Wimbledon and the gold in the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

2001 - Jennifer Capriati, 24, upsets top-seeded Martina Hingis to win the Australian Open and her first Grand Slam.

2001 - Janica Kostelic, 19, of Croatia, skis to her seventh consecutive World Cup slalom victory, matching the record set by retired Swiss veteran Vreni Schneider.

2001 - Skier Martina Ertl, 27, of Germany wins the gold medal in the women’s combined at the world championship with an total time of 2:55.65 seconds. Austrian Christine Sponring, 17, took the silver in 2:58.23 and Italy’s Karen Putzer won bronze in 2:59.69. Ertl won the combined gold medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics; this is her third world championship medal and the first gold.

2001 - The Tennessee Lady Vols retire Chamique Holdsclaw’s No. 23 jersey during halftime of the Tennessee-Connecticut game. Holdsclaw is Tennessee’s all-time leading scorer (3,025 points) and rebounder (1,295), leading the Lady Vols to three national championships in 1996, 1997 and 1998. In addition to being a four-time All-American and two-time National Player of the Year, Holdsclaw was named the Naismith Player of the Century. The third-ranked Lady Vols beat No. 2 Connecticut 92-88, with Gwen Jackson scoring a career-high 28 points, getting 14 rebounds and blocking five shots. Coach Pat Summitt gained her 750th career win, as well.

2001 - Olympic gold winner Stacy Dragila sets a new world indoor pole vault record with her jump of 15 feet, 2 ¼ inches at the Millrose Games, breaking her own record.

2001 - As part of the 15th annual National Girls & Women in Sports Day celebration, the Women’s Sports Foundation honors two-time Olympic gold medalist Lisa Leslie, a top WNBA player, as the 2001 Flo Hyman Memorial Award winner. Leslie won gold with the US national team in 1996 and 2000 and was USA Basketball’s Female Athlete of the Year in 1993 and 1998.

2001 - Stacy Dragila continues to set new world’s records in the indoor pole vault. For the 10th time since 1994, the 29-year-old broke the mark, clearing 15 feet, 3 ¼ inches.

2001 - Germany continues to dominate women’s World Cup luge racing with Silke Kraushaar’s 25th consecutive German win since 1997 in 1:26.8000 for a two-run combined time at the Utah Olympic Park in Park City. Teammates Sonja Wiedemann and Sylke Otto came in 2nd and 3rd.

2001 - British yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur, 24, becomes the fastest woman and the youngest person to sail round the world single-handedly in a nonstop race after completing a solo three-month journey around the world in mid-February. MacArthur sailed 25,000 miles in 94 days, 4 hours, 25 minutes, 40 seconds aboard her 60-foot Kingfisher yacht.

2001 - American Ann Bancroft, 45 of Scandia, MN, and Norwegian Liv Arnesen, 47 of Oslo, become the first women to cross the Antarctic land mass on skis, each pulling 240-pound sleds. Additionally, Bancroft is the first woman to cross the ice to both the North and South poles; Arnesen was the first woman to ski solo to the South Pole in 1994. The two former schoolteachers began their journey on Nov. 13, 2000, traveling 1,800 miles in 90 days, battling injury, broken sleds, ripped sails, altitude fatigue and subzero temperatures.

2001 - Germany’s Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann breaks her own world record in the 3,000 meters in 4:00.25, her 100th victory in World Cup speedskating. She just missed becoming the first woman to go the distance in under four minutes.

2001 - Defending Olympic champion Silke Kraushaar wins the final women’s World Cup luge race in Lake Placid, NY, taking the overall crown for the second time in three years.

2001 - Olympic champion Stacy Dragila raises the bar once again by setting a new world record in the women’s pole vault, jumping 4.70 meters (15 feet, 5 inches) and beating her own indoor world mark.

2001 - Deena Drossin wins her fourth straight US cross country title in Vancouver, WA.

2001 - Britain's Alexandria Coomber wins her second consecutive World Cup skeleton at Park City, UT, with a combined total time in two runs on the 1,340-meter track of 1:40:60. Canada's Michelle Kelly was second in 1:40.74 and Maya Pedersen of Switzerland was third with 1:40.84.

2001 - Marla Runyan, 32, breaks the American indoor record in the women’s 5,000 meters with a time of 15:7.33, including a record time of 14:56.0 for 3 miles. Runyan was the first legally blind athlete to make a U.S. Olympic team; she took 8th in the 1,500 meters at the Sydney Games.

2001 - Romania's Gabriela Szabo breaks the women's indoor 3,000 meter world record in a time of 8:32.88.

2001 - In Brentwood Academy v. Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association, the U.S. Supreme Court rules 5-4 that state high school athletic associations are "state actors" and therefore subject to the U.S. Constitution’s nondiscrimination requirements. The ruling will help ensure equality for female and minority students in school sports.

2001- Tiffeny Milbrett is chosen as women’s player of the year by the U.S. Soccer Federation. Milbrett, a forward from Portland, OR, has 81 goals in 164 national team games.

2001 - Jackie Stiles’ 30 point performance for Southwest Missouri State makes her the career scoring leader in NCAA Division I women’s basketball. Her career total of 3,133 points breaks the previous record of 3,122 set by Patricia Hoskins at Mississippi Valley State (1985-89). [Five players have scored more than Stiles in the years before women’s basketball came under the NCAA in 1982. Lynette Woodard is the leader in that era with 3,649 points at Kansas (1977-81).]

2001 - Stacy Dragila wins her sixth straight women’s pole vault title at the USA Indoor Track and Field Championships.

2001 - American Chris Witty sets a new 1,000-meter world speedskating record of 1:14.58 in the women’s event at a World Cup event in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Two Germans came in second and third, with Sabine Volker in 1:14.65 and Monique Garbrecht-Enfeldt in 1:14.86.

2001 - Georgia point guard Kelly Miller is named to the Associated Press all-SEC team for the fourth season in a row and receives her second straight player of the year award. Miller started in all 129 games of her college career, scoring 2,150 points (third on Georgia’s career list) behind Janet Harris (2,641) and Katrina McClain (2,195). Miller was named player of the year by the Southeastern Conference coaches. Other AP awards going to Georgia’s program include coach of the year to Carol Ross and newcomer of the year to freshman Christi Thomas.

2001 - Duke’s senior guard Georgia Schweitzer is the Associated Press women’s player of the year in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). Teammate Alana Beard is the ACC’s rookie of the year.

2001 - Venus Williams earns the Player of the Year award at the annual WTA Sanex Awards. She and sister Serena also earn Doubles Team of the Year honors. The Sanex WTA Tour will have more than 1,000 women competing for over $50 million in prize money in 2001.

2001 - Shawna Robinson announces a six-race schedule in stock-car Winston Cup schedule, the first woman to start a Winston Cup race in 12 years and the first to run a multi-race schedule in 20. Racing is the fastest growing sport in America and nearly half the fans are women.

2001 - Sweden’s Annika Sorenstam, 30, makes women’s golf history with the first 59 during the second round of the Standard Register Ping on the 6,459-yard Moon Valley Country Club in Phoenix, AZ. She went on to win the championship with an LPGA-low 72-hole score of 27-under-par 261. It is Sorenstam’s second title in 2001 and the 25th of her career.

2001 - Sweden defeats Denmark 3-0 to win the Algarve Cup, the third most prestigious women’s soccer tournament behind the World Cup and the Olympics. China beat Canada 5-1 for the bronze medal.

2001 - The inaugural NCAA Women's Hockey Tournament concludes with the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs in a 4-2 victory over the Skating Saints of St. Lawrence University.

2001 - Susan Armenta wins the inaugural US 50K Women's Walk in Manassas, VA.

2001 - Notre Dame’s Ruth Riley and Muffet McGraw are the Associated Press player and coach of the year awards in women’s basketball. Riley was the only unanimous selection on this season’s All-America team and an academic All-American with a 3.64 GPA.

2001 - Notre Dame defeats Purdue 68-66 for NCAA women’s national basketball title. Notre Dame’s Ruth Riley, the national player of the year, lead all scorers with 28 points, had 13 rebounds and blocked seven shots.

2001 - University of Maryland senior Jen Adams, a native of Brighton, So. Australia, breaks the NCAA collegiate women’s lacrosse scxoring record with 11 points as her team advances to the NCAA quarterfinals. Adams point total stands at 430, beating the old mark of 420 set by Karen Emas who played for Delaware from 1981-84.

2001 - Lyn St. James retires, ending her career in Indy-car racing by taking two ceremonial laps just before the start of practice for the Indianapolis 500. St. James began auto racing in 1976, and was the oldest rookie to qualify at Indianapolis at 45 in 1992 when she saw her best Indy finish - 11th.

2001 - Annika Sorenstam wins the Chick-fil-A Charity Championship, earning $180,000 for the win and boosting her career earnings over $7 million, to break an LPGA record.

2001 - Donna Caponi is elected through the Veteran's Committee into the LPGA Hall of Fame, becoming the 19th member from the LPGA Tour. She won the 1969 US Open, defended her title in 1970, and played for 23 years on the Tour.

2001 - The US women's gymnasts team completes a sweep, defeating Romania and China, to win the Pontiac American Team Cup, with a score of 144.975.

2001 - Jackie Stiles, a senior guard at Southwest Missouri State, is awarded the prestigious Wade Trophy by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association and the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport. Stiles is the nation's top scorer, becoming the NCAA all-time Division I scoring leader with 3,298 career points on March 1. She is the first player in NCAA history to post more than 1,000-points in a single season. The Wade Trophy, named after the legendary three-time national champion Delta State University coach Lily Margaret Wade, debuted in 1978 as the first-ever women's national player of the year award in college basketball.

2001 - Annika Sorenstam wins a record-tying fourth consecutive LPGA Tour title, making a 10-stroke comeback, by winning The Office Depot. Sorenstam joins Hall of Famers Kathy Whitworth and Mickey Wright as the only players to win four consecutively scheduled tournaments.

2001 - 34,148 soccer fans watch the first match of Women's United Soccer Association, pitting the Bay Area CyberRays against the Washington, DC Freedom.

2001 - The 12 women team of American and Canadian women reach the North Pole, completing Polar Trek, 200-kilometer cross country ski trek to the pole.

2001 - The UCLA Bruins beat Stanford 5-4 at the inaugural NCAA Women's Water Polo Championship.

2001 - 12-year-old Morgan Pressel qualifies for the US Open with a 2-under par 70 at the 6,300-yard Bear Lakes Country Club in Palm Beach, FL.

2001 - Maryland wins the Division I Lacrosse Championship, defeating Georgetown in sudden-death OT 14-13. It is Maryland’s seventh straight championship, capping a 23-0 season.

2001 - Lindsey Collins hits a homer for Arizona for the winning run over UCLA in the NCAA Women's College World Series, in a 1-0 game. Pitcher Jennie Finch finishes the season 32-0, breaking the NCAA record for season wins without defeat, and is named the series' most outstanding player. The Arizona Wildcats (65-4) claim their sixth national title.

2001 - Cory Sertl, a 1998 US sailing team Olympian, wins the Boat US Santa Maria Cup, edging Betsy Alison, the only five-time winner of the Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year, and the 1999 champion Dawn Riley who placed third.

2001 - Jennifer Capriati wins the French Open by defeating 18-year-old Belgian Kim Clijsters.

2001 - Stacy Draglia sets two new world records in women’s outdoor pole vaulting with a 15-5 ½ jump and then clears 15-9 ¼ in Palo Alto, CA.

2001 - Ina-Yoko Teutenberg wins first and teammate Petra Rossner takes second in the 18th Annual HP Women's Challenge for a Team Saturn sweep in cycling. Saturn teammate Lyne Bessette wins first place as Overall Individual. Considered the women's Tour de France, this 12-day road race consisted of 13 stages and covered 688 miles of rugged Idaho terrain. The HP Women's Challenge features $128,000 in prize money, the largest purse in North American cycling regardless of gender.

2001 - Kerrie Webb, 26, becomes the youngest LPGA player in history to win a Career Grand Slam with her win at the $1.5 million 2001 McDonald's LPGA Championship.

2001 - Team USA captain Julie Foudy makes her 200th international soccer appearance in a game in front of the largest Canadian crowd ever for a women’s soccer match (9,023). She joins teammates Mia Hamm (217) and Kristine Lilly (226) as the only international soccer players regardless of gender to reach that milestone. The first game of the Independence Day Series ended in a 2-2 draw.

2001 - 23-year-old Team USA captain Cindy Parlow becomes the youngest player in US history with 100 international appearances in a 1-0 victory over Canada on July 4 before a crowd of 15,614 fans.

2001 - American Lisa Raymond and Australian Rennae Stubbs win the Wimbledon women's doubles title, defeating Kim Clijsters of Belgium and Ai Sugiyama of Japan 6-4, 6-3. It is the second Grand Slam title for the American-Australian team to go with their victory in the 2000 Australian Open.

2001 - Defending Wimbledon champion Venus Williams defeats 19-year-old Justine Henin of Belgium (6-1, 3-6, 6-0) for the Women’s Singles title.

2001 - The USA defeats Japan 9-1 in the 2001 Women's World Series gold medal game at the Toronto SkyDome. The national baseball teams of Australia, Japan, Canada and USA competed in round- robin play of this first-ever event.

2001 - Team USA wins its fifth (and fourth straight) World Lacrosse title with 14-8 victory over Australia. Head coach Sue Stahl becomes the first coach to earn four IFWLA titles.

2001 - Lisa Leslie earns her second MVP award in the WNBA All-Star Game as she scores 20 points, grabs nine rebounds and blocks three shots in a Western Conference victory over the East, 80-72.

2001 - The Philadelphia Liberty Belles earn the 2001 Championship of the National Women’s Football League with a 40 - 7 victory over the Pensacola Power.

2001 - At the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Durango, CO, Anne-Caroline Chausson of France earns the Downhill title with a run of 4:1.97 minutes. Great Britain’s Tracy Moseley takes the silver and Missy Giove of the US earns the bronze. In the Dual Slalom, Leigh Donovan and Tara Llanes of the US take gold and silver and Chausson earns the bronze. The Cross Country race is won by Australian Mary Grigson in 1 hour, 47.45 minutes, with Barbara Blatter of Switzerland and Great Britain’s Caroline Alexander winning the silver and bronze medals.

2001 - Kim Clijsters of Belgium wins her first tennis championship with a 6-4, 6-7 (5-7), 6-1 victory over Lindsay Davenport in the Bank of the West Classic.

2001- The US women's under-21 soccer team beats Sweden 6-1 for their third straight Nordic Cup title.

2001 - At the U.S. National Championships, 16-year-old Kristen Caverly beats Olympic gold medalist Megan Quann in a time of 2:29.36 for gold in the women's 200-meter breaststroke and later wins the 400 individual medley. Emily Mason wins the women's 200-meter butterfly; Olympian Gabrielle Rose takes the 100-meter freestyle; Diana MacManus wins the women's 200-meter backstroke; Lindsay Benko, wins the women's 200 freestyle with a time of 2:00.16 for her seventh national title; and Kalyn Keller wins the 800-meter freestyle.

2001 - 25-year-old Stephanie Ready is hired to be an assistant coach to the NBA's new minor league, National Basketball Development League (NBDL) Greenville Grooves. Ready served two years as an assistant coach with the Coppin State men's team

2001 - In the first WUSA Championship, 21,078 fans at Foxboro Stadium saw the Bay Area CyberRays overcome the Atlanta Beat after a 3-3 tie regulation game forced overtime and the shootout (4-2) to settle 2001 season. Julie Murray scored the winning point to end the game, earning MVP honors for the game.

2001 - Following the inaugural season, the WUSA awards Most Valuable Player and Offensive Player of the Year awards to Tiffeny Milbrett (New York Power), who scored 16 goals and 35 points during the season. Doris Fitschen (Philadelphia Charge) is named the Defensive Player of the Year, and LaKeysia Beene (CyberRays), named Goalkeeper of the Year, had a record-setting 6-game shutout streak during the 2001. Official Sandra Hunt is named Referee of the Year. Other awards included the WUSA Humanitarian Award to Kate Sobrero (Boston Breakers) for dedicated community service, the Team Community Service Award went to the Washington Freedom, and the Team Fair Play Award was given to the New York Power.

2001 - Ashley Martin becomes the first woman to score points in a Division I football game when she kicks three extra points for Jacksonville State who defeat the Cumberland Bulldogs, 71-10. She is the first woman to play Division I football; she also plays for Jacksonville State's soccer team. Martin played for her high school team as a kicker, scoring 2-of-4 on field goals and 79-of-92 on extra points, at East Coweta High School in Georgia.

2001 - The United States wins basketball gold at the World University Games, defeating China 87-69.

2001 - The Los Angeles Sparks are the 2001 WNBA Champions with a 82-54 win over the Charlotte Sting in game 2 of the series. Lisa Leslie's 24 points, 13 rebounds, 6 assists and 7 blocked shots seal her selection as MVP of the finals .

2001 - The Williams sisters make it an historic US Open in the first women's final televised in prime time from Arthur Ashe Stadium in NY. Venus wins her second consecutive US Open title, beating Serena 6-2, 6-4 in the first Grand Slam between sisters in 117 years. Nearly 23 million viewers tune in during the match.

2001 - US Olympian Alison Dunlap, 32, wins the mountain biking world cross-country title.

2001- Japan's Naoko Takahashi, an Olympic champion, becomes the first woman to run a marathon in less than 2 hours, 20 minutes when she wins the Berlin Marathon in 2:19.45. Kenyan Tegla Loroupe finishes second in 2:28:02 and German Kathrin Wessel is third in 2:28:26.

2001 - Sonoma, CA, periodontist Dr. Carlene Mendieta, 47, successfully recreates Ameila Earhart's 1928 solo cross-country flight in a restored Avro Avian, an open cockpit biplane built just 3 weeks before Earhart's Avian in which she piloted in the original flight. The plane flies no higher than 1,000 feet, must be refueled ever 3.5 hour, and has an average speed of 82 mph. The trip, designed to re-enact the original as far as possible, was delayed for a week after 6 days because of the national airport shut down following the Sept. 11 attacks on NYC and Washington. Some later stops had to be cancelled or rescheduled because of the new restrictions. Mendieta is a member of The Ninety-Nines, an organization of women pilots that was founded by Earhart in 1929.

2001 - The week-old women's marathon record is broken by Catherine Ndereba, 29, who wins the 26.2 mile Chicago Marathon in 2:18.47.

2001 - Monica Seles wins her 50th career title, beating Tamarine Tanasugarn 6-3, 6-2, at the Japan Open.

2001 - Kimberly Black, who won swimming gold in Sydney with the 800-meter freestyle relay team, is honored as the NCAA's Woman of the Year. The four-time All-American graduated in May from Georgia with a 3.95 grade-point average in biology and plans to attend medical school. She also received the Georgia Athletic Association community service award for community service at the Athens (GA) Regional Medical Center and the Egleston Children's Hospital, working on Safe Kids programs.

2001 - At the World Fencing Championships, the Italian women take the gold in team foil, beating Russia, with the US winning bronze. In team sabre, Russia defeats Romania, with Germany taking the bronze. The Russian team beats Switzerland for the gold in team epee, with Hungary winning bronze. Italian Olympic champion Valentina Vezzali wins her second straight world title in the individual foil over Germany's Sabine Bau. Roxana Scarlat of Romania and Russia's Ekaterina Youcheva share the bronze. France's Anne-Lise Touya wins the world sabre championship, defeating Ilaria Blanco of Italy. Germany's Claudia Bokel wins the world epee title, beating two-time world champion Laura Flessel-Colovic of France.

2001 - Kenyan Margaret Okayo wins the New York City Marathon in a course record-breaking time of 2:24:21, earning $80,000 for the win and $35,000 for the record ($15,000 less than the man's record-breaking run by Ethiopian Tesfaye Jifar in the same race). Okayo bested the previous record by 19 seconds set in 1992 by Austrialian Lisa Ondieka.

2001 - 40-year old Kelly Perkins climbs 19,340-foot-high Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, becoming the first heart transplant recipient to do so. The ascent took 7 days and covered 45 miles of walking to reach Uhuru Peak on Oct. 21. Perkins climbed the 8,842-foot Half Dome in Yosemite National Park in 1996, just 10 months after heart surgery, to prove that heart recipients can life a full life.

2001 - Sweden’s Annika Sorenstam caps her LPGA year with a record-breaking 69.42 for the lowest scoring average and becomes the first woman to break the $2 million-a-year earning mark for a woman with a total of $2,105,868.

2001 - Natalie Coughlin, 19, the NCAA swimmer of the year, sets three worlds short-course records during the FINA World Cup, including the 200-meter backstroke, the 100-meter backstroke and the 50 butterfly. She also set a new 200m backstroke record, finishing the competition with four gold and five silver medals.

2001 - At the first amateur Women's World Boxing Championships, the US's Devonne Canady, 30, defeats Maria Kovacs of Hungary, 22-15, for the 198-pound final. Participants from more than 30 countries boxed in 12 different weight classes.

2001- The Santa Clara Bronco's (23-2) earn their NCAA Women's College Cup in Division I soccer by defeating the University of North Carolina (24-1) who were going for their 17th championship. Aly Wagner scored for Santa Clara in the 41st minute of play in Dallas.

2001 - The Stanford Cardinals earn a record fifth NCAA women's volleyball title by defeating Long Beach State in straight games.

2001 - Tennis player Jennifer Capriati is named the The Associated Press female athlete of 2001with her championships at the Australian and French Opens.

2002 - Aileen Eaton becomes the first woman to be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Eaton promoted more than 10,000 boxing matches in her career, from 1942-1980, many held in the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. Among the fighters she promoted were Sugar Ray Robinson, Floyd Paterson, George Foreman and Joe Frazier. (Eaton died in 1987 at age 78.)

2002 - Jennifer Capriati wins her second Australian Open in Melbourne, beating Martina Hingis 4-5, 8-6 (9-5), 6-2. She becomes the first woman's champion to save four match points in a final, all in the second set. On-court temperatures hit 116 degrees.

2002- Norway (2-1) wins the Four Nations soccer tournament held in China. Germany (1-1-1) takes second, the US third (1-1-1), and host China fourth with a 1-2 record for the tournament.

2002 - Martina Hingis wins her fourth Toray Pan Pacific tennis title in six years, beating Monica Seles 7-6, (8-6), 4-6, 6-3.

2002 - Lisa Boyer, an assistant coach with the WNBA's Cleveland Rockers, is the only woman assistant coach in the NBA, volunteering her services to the Cleveland Cavs under head coach John Lucas. Boyer has 19 years of coaching expereince in the women's game. She was a former head coach in ABL from 1996-98 and a head coach at Bradley from 1986-96.

2002 - The theme for the 16th annual Women and Girls in Sports Day is Celebrating 30 Years of Title IX!.

2002 - American moguls skier Shannon Bahrke earns the first American medal of the Winter Olympic Games in Utah with her silver finish in freestyle moguls, behind Norway's Kari Traa. The 1998 gold medallist, Tae Satoya of Japan, wins the bronze.

2002 - Kelly Clark, 18, becomes the first American to win a gold medal at the Salt Lake City Olympics in halfpipe in snowboarding. The IOC added snowboarding in 1998. Clark's score of 47.9 topped silver medallist Doriane Vidal of France with a score of 43.0. Fabienne Reuteler of Switzerland won the bronze.

2002 - In the Olympic women's 15-kilometer biathlon, Andrea Henkel, 24, of Germany, wins the gold, Liv Grete Poiree of Norway takes the silver, and Magdalena Forsberg of Sweden takes the bronze medal at the Salt Lake Games.

2002 - Carole Montillet of France wins the Olympic downhill Alpine skiing gold medal in 1:39.56. Italy's Isolde Kostner wins the silver in 1:40.01 and Renate Goetschl of Austria takes bronze in 1:40.39.

2002 - Norway's Bente Skari wins the gold in the women's 10K cross-country ski event. The silver medallist was Russia's Olga Danilova and her countrywoman, Julija Tchepalova, won the bronze.

2002 - In the 4X5-kilometer cross-country relay, the Gold goes to the German team (Manuela Henkel, Viola Bauer, Claudia Kuenzel, and Evi Sachenbacher), the silver to Norway (Marit Bjoergen, Bente Skari, Hilde G. Pedersen, and Anita Moen), and the bronze to Switzerland (Andrea Huber, Laurence Rochat, Brigitte Albrecht Loretan, and Natascia Leonardi Cortesi) .

2002 - In the women's 15 km cross country ski event, Italy's Stefania Belmondo wins the Olympic gold, with Russia's Larissa Lazutina winning the silver and Katerina Neumannova of the Czech Republic taking the bronze.

2002 - In speed skating, Germany's Claudia Pechstein wins the gold in the women's 3000 meters at the Utah Olympic Oval, with Renate Groenewold of the Netherlands winning silver and the bronze medal goes to Canadian Cindy Klassen.

2002 - German women sweep the single luge at the Salt Lake Olympics as Sylke Otto wins the gold, Barbara Niedernhuber takes the silver, and Silke Kraushaar earns the bronze. Otto breaks the track record twice in winning her first Olympic medal with a combined time of 52.464.

2002 - In the women's 7.5 biathlon sprint, Kati Wilhelm of Germany takes the gold by shooting a perfect 10 of 10 and finishing in 20:41.4. Teammate Uschi Disl earns silver, and Sweden's Magdalena Forsberg earns the bronze medal, her second bronze of the Games.

2002 - The newest Olympic champion short-track speed skater is Ko Gi-hyun, 15, of South Korea, who becomes the youngest individual winner in Olympic history with her victory in the 1500 meter race. Teammate Choi Eun-Kyung wins the silver medal, with Evgenia Radanova of Bulgaria winning the bronze.

2002 - Croatia's Janica Kostelic, 20, wins the gold medal in women's slalom alpine skiing at the Salt Lake City Games with a combined time of 2:43.28. Renate Goetschl of Austria took the silver and Martina Ertl of Germany took the bronze.

2002 - In women's parallel giant slalom, the gold medal goes to Isabelle Blanc of France, the silver to her teammate Karine Ruby, and the bronze to Italy's Lidia Trettel.

2002 - In women's 500 meter speed skating, Canada's Catriona Lemay Doan, 31, becomes just the second woman to win a consecutive gold medal, setting two Olympic records, but not beating her own world's record time. The silver goes to Monique Garbrecht-Enfeldt of Germany and teammate Sabine Volker wins the bronze.

2002 - Shawna Robinson becomes only the second woman to qualify for the Daytona 500 when she earns the 36th and final position in the 43-car field. Janet Guthrie qualified in 1977 and 1980.

2002 - In the Olympic women's snowboard parallel giant slalom, France's Isabelle Blanc wins the gold, countrywoman Karine Ruby takes silver, and Italy's Lidia Trettel the bronze.

2002 - Russian Olga Danilova wins the gold medal in women's cross country 5 km pursuit, teammate Larissa Lazutina the silver, and Canada's Beckie Scott wins her country's first-ever Olympic medal in nordic skiing with a bronze.

2002 - In the women's cross country 10 km pursuit, Russian Olga Pyleva takes the gold medal, Kati Wilhelm of Austria takes the silver, and Bulgarian Irina Nikoultchina takesthe bronze.

2002 - Yang Yang (A) wins the gold medal in 500 meter short-track speedskating, China's first ever Winter Olympics gold medal in the sport. Bulgaria's Evgenia Radanova wins the silver, and China's Chunlu Wang takes the bronze.

2002 - An Italian policewoman, Daniela Ceccarelli, takes the gold in Super G skiing, with Coatian Janica Kostelic winning the silver, and Italy's Karen Putzer winning bronze.

2002 - American Chris Witty, 26, battling mononucleosis, wins the gold medal in 1,000 meters speedskating and sets a new Olympic record in Salt Lake, covering the course in just 1:13.83. This is the third medal of her career; she finished with silver in the 1000 meters and a bronze in the 1,500 in Nagano in 1998. Witty is one of only nine American who have competed in both the summer and winter Games. She placed fifth in cycling in Sydney in 2000. The silver speedskating medal is won by Sabine Voelker of Germany and the bronze by American Jennifer Rodriguez.

2002 - In women's Olympic aerial freestyle skiing, Australia's Alias Camplin wins the gold, and two Canadians, Veronica Brenner and Deidra Dionne, take silver and bronze.

2002 - The German team of Kati Wilhelm, Andrea Henkel, Uschi Disl andKatrin Apel takes the gold medal in the women's 4x7.5 km biathlon relay. Norway's team of Gunn Margit Andreassen, Linda Tjoerhom, Liv Grete Poiree, and Ann Elen Skjelbreid take the silver, and Russia's Svetlana Ishmouratova, Albina Akhatova, Olga Pyleva, and Galina Kukleva win the bronze at the Salt Lake Games.

2002 - In the women's 1.5 km sprint in cross country, Russia's Julija Tchepalova takes the gold, Germany's Evi Sachenbacher the silver, and Norway's Anita Moen the bronze at the Salt Lake Olympic Winter Games.

2002- Bobsled driver Jill Bakken, 25, and brakewoman Vonetta Flowers, 28, make Olympic history with their gold medal run in the first-ever women's bobsleigh event with a combined time of 1:37.36. Flowers becomes the first black athlete ever to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics. Germany's Sandra Prokoff and Ulrike Holzner take the silver in 1:38.06 and countrywomen Susi Erdmann and Nicole Herschmann win the bronze in 1:38.29.

2002 - The US collects two more women's Olympic medals when Tristan Gale wins the gold in women's skeleton in a two-run time of 1:45.11 seconds. Teammate Lea Ann Parsley wins the silver, and Alex Coomber of Great Britain the bronze.

2002 - Croatia's Janica Kostelic adds another gold medal to her count for the women's slalom to the her total in this year's Winter Games. France's Laura Pequegnot wins the silver and Sweden's Ania Paerson the bronze.

2002 - Germany's Anni Friesinger wins the women's 1,500 meters in speedskating, setting a new world's record with her win in 1:54.02. Teammate Sabine Volker wins the silver and American's Jennifer Rodriguez gets her second bronze of the games.

2002 - The Korean team of Eun-Kyung Choi, Min-Kyung Choi, Hye-Won Park, Min-Jin Joo takes the gold medal in women's 3000 meter relay in short track speedskating. China's team of Dandan Sun, Yang Yang (a), Chunlu Wang and Yang Yang (s) take the silver, with Canada's Amelie Goulet-Nadon, Isabelle Charest, Alanna Kraus, Marie-Eve Drolet, and Tania Vicent bringing home the bronze medal.

2002 - In women's Olympic curling, the Great Britain team Margaret Morton, Rhona Martin, Deborah Knox, Fiona Macdonald and Janice Rankin of defeats Switzerland's Nadia Roethlisberger, Luzia Ebnoether, Laurence Bidaud, Tanya Frei and Mirjam Ottto win the gold medal with a score of 4-3. Canada's Julie Skinner, George Wheatcroft, Kelley Law, Diane Nelson and Cheryl Noble wins the bronze by defeating the US team, 9-5.

2002 - In women's ice hockey, Team Canada beats Team USA, 3-2, for gold at the Olympics. The bronze medal is won by Team Sweden, who defeat Team Finland 2-1.

2002 - 16 year-old Sarah Hughes from Great Neck, New York, stuns the competition and the crowd with her gold medal victory in women's Olympic figure skating. Hughes, who stood fourth after the short program, completes a near-perfect free skate that includes seven triple jumps, five in combination, to win. Russia's Irina Slutskaya wins the silver, and 21-year old American Michelle Kwan takes the bronze medal.

2002 - 20-year-old Croatian Janica Kostelic becomes the first Alpine skier to win four medals at a Winter Olympics with her gold medal performance in the giant slalom, giving her 3 golds and one silver for the Salt Lake Games. She is the third skier to win three golds. Anja Paerson of Sweden wins silver and Sonja Nef of Switzerland wins bronze.

2002 - Claudia Pechstein, 30, of Germany wins her third consecutive gold medal in Olympic women's 5,000 meter speedskating, equaling the record of American speedskating great Bonnie Blair. Pechstein becomes the first speedskater to ever win four medals in the same event with a bronze and three golds. She also set a new world's record by completeing the event in 6 minutes, 46.91 seconds; this is the eighth world record in 10 speedskaing events at the Salt Lake City Games. Pechstein has earned seven career Olympic medals, including four golds. Gretha Smit of the Netherlands takes the silver and Canada's Clara Hughes earns the bronze. Hughes becomes the first Canadian and the fourth athlete to medal in both the Winter and Summer Games; she was a double-bronze medalist in cycling in 1996.

2002 - Gabriella Paruzzi of Italy wins gold in the women's 30-km cross country classical race in skiing. Countrywoman Stefania Belmondo earns the silver, and Norway's Bente Skari takes the bronze.

2002- In women's 1,000 meters speedskating, China's Yang Yang (a) wins the gold, Korea's Gi-Hyun Ko the silver, and Yang Yang (s) of China takes the bronze.

2002 - 21-year-old Venus Williams officially moves to number one ranking in the Women's Tennis Association for the first time in her career.

2002 - A seventh grader, 12-year-old Michelle Wie, qualifies for the LPGA Tour's season-opening Takefuji Classic, in Waikoloa, Hawaii, joins 131 other players for the $900,000 54-hole tournament. She is the youngest player to qualify for an LPGA event. Wie became the first female to qualify for the Hawaii Pearl Open in February.

2002 - Gold medal figure skater Sarah Hughes becomes the newest athlete to be featured on the Wheaties box, a tradition which dates back to the 1930's.

2002 - Annika Sorenstam wins the Takefuji LPGA Classic over defending champion Canadian Lorie Kane in a sudden-death playoff.

2002 - In another sudden death playoff, native daughter Karrie Webb wins the women's Australian Open by defeating Norway's Suzann Pettersen on the first hole.

2002 - Serena Williams defeats Jennifer Capriata in the State Farm Tennis Classic in Scottsdale, AZ.

2002 - Elmira College wins the Division III Women's Hockey Championship in 2-1 game over Manhattanville. The consolation game sees Gustavus Adolphus with a 2-1 win over Bowdoin.

2002 - At the NCAA Division II Women's Indoor Track and Field Championship, North Dakota State University captures its first-ever title over the defending champion St. Augustine. Adams State finishes third.

2002 - Connecticut's Sue Bird is named the National Player of the Year by the United States Basketball Writers Association, and is one of 10 players named to the USBWA's All-American Team. The other All-American selections are Swin Cash of Connecticut, Chantelle Anderson of Vanderbilt, Alana Beard of Duke, Stacey Dales of Oklahoma, Kara Lawson of Tennessee, Nicole Powell of Stanford, Kelly Mazzante of Penn State, LaToya Thomas of Mississippi State and Lindsey Whalen of Minnesota. Other award winners are the USBWA Coach of the Year Brenda Oldfield, Minnesota's head coach, and the National Freshman of the Year, Jacqueline Batteast of Notre Dame.

2002 - Baylor's Sheila Lambert is named the recipient of the 19th annual Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award, given to the nation's outstanding female college player 5-feet-8 and under who has excelled in athletics and academics. During this season with the Lady Bears, she averaged 20.0 ppg., 6.3 apg and 3.2 spg.

2002 - Olympic gold medal winner Kelly Clark wins the US Open Snowboarding Championship in quarter- and halfpipe, taking home $30,000 in prize money for the weekend.

2002 - 18-year old Daniela Hantuchova wins the Pacific Line Open at Indian Wells, CA, with a 6-3, 6-4 wins over Martina Hingis. Hantuchova, seeded 18th, becomes the lowest seed to win a Tier One tournament since 1980.

2002 - Wisconsin-Stevens Point wins the NCAA D-III Women's Basketball Championship with a narrow 67-65 victory over St. Lawrence University. SLU's senior guard, Meredith Eisenhut, is the D-III and ECAC Player of the Year. Eisenhut holds school records for points (1,445), steals (460), and assists (410), averaging 12.8 ppg and is third in the nation in steals at 4.9 pg. She holds the NCAA record for free throw shots at 20-for-20 set in the regional championship against Bowden this year. Her career free throw average is 73.9.

2002 - Connecticut's Sue Bird wins the Naismith Award as the top college basketball player in the country by the Atlanta Tipoff Club. Bird averaged 13.7 points and 5.9 assists during the regular season for UConn.

2002 - The Division II women's basketball champion is Cal Poly Pomona (28-4) who earns its second straight NCAA title, beating Southeastern Oklahoma State 74-62. The Division II player of the year Lauri McIntosh, with 31 points and 11 rebounds, is the tournament's most outstanding player.

2002 - Auburn beats Georgia for the NCAA Women's Swimming and Diving Championship team title, with Stanford coming in third.

2002 - The 1998 LPGA Tour Rookie of the Year Laura Diaz wins her first career LPGA Tour at the Welch's/Circle K Championship, beating Juli Inkster by one.

2002 - The University of Minnesota-Duluth (24-6-4) earns its second consecutive national women's hockey title with a 3-2 victory over Brown University at the Women's Frozen Four in Durham, NH. Brown's Kristy Zamora is the tournament's MVP, scoring both of the Bears (25-8-2) goals.

2002 - Serena Williams wins the NASDAQ 100 Open Tennis Masters Series over Jennifer Capriati in Key Biscayne. Serena beat the world's top three women in tennis at this tournament, including older sister Venus and Martina Hingis to reach the final.

2002 - The University of Connecticut's women's basketball team finish a perfect 38-0 season with a 82-70 victory over Oklahoma for the Division I NCAA title. Connecticut becomes the first school to go unbeaten twice (1995: 35-0). U-CONN's Swin Cash had 20 points and 13 rebounds for game MVP honors.

2002 - Annika Sorenstam wins the LPGA Tour's first major of the year at the Kraft Nabisco Championship, beating Liselotte Neumann, for her 33rd career victory, which includes four major titles.

2002 - Michelle Kwans is named the nation's top amateur athlete, earning the Sullivan Award. She has four world championships and six US firgue skating titles to her credit.

2002 - Jelena Dokic of Yugoslavia wins the inaugural Sarasota Open, her fourth career victory, beating Russia's Tatiana Panova of Russia, 6-2, 6-2.

2002 - 24-year-old Korean Se Ri Pak wins the Office Depot, defeating Annika Sorenstam.

2002 - Venus Williams wins the Bausch & Lomb Championship with a 2-6, 7-5, 7-6 (7-5) victory over Belgium's Justine Henin.

2002 - Britain's Paula Radcliffe wins the London Marathon with the second best time in world record history in her very first race at marathon distance. She finished in 2:18:56, just 9 seconds off the mark. Svetlana Zakharova was second, followed by with Lyudmila Petrova at third.

2002 - Kenyan Margaret Okayo wins the Boston Marathon in a course-record time of 2:20:43, just ahead of second place finisher Catherine Ndereba, who has won the last two races.

2002 - The United States Professional Volleyball names St. Louis Quest middle blocker Benishe Roberts (Long Beach State University) as the Most Valuable Player for its inaugural 2002 season. Chicago Thunder outside hitter Kristee Porter is the 2002 Offensive Player Of The Year.

2002 - Juli Inkster wins the Chick-Fil-A Championship.

2002 - Belgium's Kim Clijsters wins her seventh career title by upsetting top seed Venus Williams in the Betty Barclay Cup with a 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory.

2002 - The Minnesota Chill defeat the Chicago Thunder to win the first US Pro Volleyball championship with a best-of-5 series 3-1.

2002 - Annika Sorenstam wins her third LPGA Tour win of the season with the Electrolux USA Championship by one stroke over Pat Hurst.

2002 - Stanford beats rival UCLA in the NCAA Women's Water Polo Championship 8-4 to earn the 2002 NCAA crown. Loyola Marymount wins third place over Michigan, 6-4.

2002 - The West Chester University women's lacrosse team wins the 2002 NCAA Division II National Championship with an 11-6 win over Stonehill (MA) College.

2002 - Serena Williams wins the Italian Open, defeating Justine Henin 7-6 (6), 6-4.

2002 - The Florida Southern Lady Mocs win the 2002 NCAA Division II Women's Golf Championship, setting a new tournament record low score of 1,234.

2002 - Lansing Community College wins the 2002 NJCAA Division II National Softball Championships.

2002 - Scotland's Janice Moodie wins her second career title with the Asahi Championship With a 15-under 273 score.

2002 - A group of five American women come within 285 feet of the summit of Mount Everest in their quest to become the first all-woman team to climb the 29,035-foot peak. The five incuded 58-year old grandother Nidge Cross, a breat cancer survivor, Alison Levine, 36, who has had two heart operations, and Lynn Prebble, Jody Thompson, and Kim Clark.

2002 - Stanford University's women tennis (27-1) wins its second straight national championship with a 4-1 victory over Florida (24-2) in the 2002 Women's Tennis Team Championships. It is Stanford's 12th NCAA Team Championship in the 22-year history of the event.

2002 - Williams College wins the NCAA D-II tennis championship, becoming the first Division III team to win back-to-back titles.

2002 - Princeton wins its second women's Division I lacrosse championship in a 12-7 game with Georgetown. Middlebury College earns the NCAA Division III Women's Lacrosse Championship in a 12-6 victory over The College of New Jersey

2002 - In NCAA softball, the St. Mary's (TX) University softball team (58-1) captures the 2002 Division II Softball National Championship with a 4-0 victory over Grand Valley (MI) State (49-12-1). Ithaca College (NY) (37-13 ) wins its first ever NCAA softball championship in the Division III title game with Lake Forest (34-12) with a 1-0 win. Oklahoma City University (57-10) defeats Point Loma Nazarene University (Cal.) (58-10) 2-1 for their third consecutive and seventh overall NAIA softball title. Oklahoma City's Lindsey Voss is the NAIA Pitcher of the Year

2002 The California Golden Bears (56-19) win their first-ever women's NCAA championship, 6-0 over Arizona (55-12), at the Women's College World Series. Cal senior pitcher Jocelyn Forest is the tournament's Most Outstanding Player, allowing just one hit and striking out eight.

2002 - 45-year old Martina Navratilova becomes the oldest player to win a tour title when she and doubles partner Natasha Zvereva win at the Madrid Open. Navratilova, who retired in 1994 with a record 167 singles titles, returned to the tour to play doubles in 2000.

1987 - Lynne Cox swims1.2 miles in the frigid waters off of Antarctica.

2002 - Annika Sorenstam wins the inaugural Kellogg-Keebler Classic with a 21 under par for an 11 stroke victory.

2002 - In the first-ever PWBA Women's Collegiate/Pro Doubles Challenge, Kendra Gaines, Sebring, FL and Melissa Brownie, Chester, VA defeating Michelle Feldman, Skaneateles, NY and April Ellis, Jackson, TN with a score of 214-196.

2002 - The University of California-Davis Aggies wins both the First and Second Varsity Eight events at the NCAA rowing titles.

2002 - Two British women, Caroline Hamilton, 35, and Ann Daniels, a 37-year old mother of triplets, become the first all-female team to make it to both the North and South Poles. Their 750-mile journey to the North Pole took 81 days.

2002 - In the latest sibling tennis match, Serena Williams tops her old sister Venus 7-5, 6-3 at the French Open for her second Grand Slam title. Fulfilling their father's prediction, the sisters are at the top of tennis world, with Venus ranked No. 1 and Serena No. 2. They are the first siblings to hold the two top spots.

2002 - Sandra Day O'Connor becomes the first US Supreme Court Justice to be inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame. She grew up on a Western ranch and wrote a book, Lazy B, with H. Alan Day, about her childhood experiences.

2002 - 24 year old Se Ri Pak wins the LPGA Championship to becomes the youngest player in LPGA history to win four major championships

2002- Annika Sorenstam, 31, wins the LPGA Evian Masters with a 19-under-par 269, her fifth title of the season.

2002 - Karrie Webb earns the 27th victory of her career with a come from behind rally in the final round of the Rochester International to beat Mi Hyun Kim by a stroke. The prize money of $180,000 pushed her career earnings past the $8 million mark, second only to that of Annika Sorenstan.

2002 - Sweden's Annika Sorenstam wins her sixth tournamenmt of the year at the ShopRite LPGA Classic with a 54-hole score of 12-under 201.

2002 - Serena Williams defeats older sister Venus for the 2002 women's singles crown at Wimbledon in 7-6, 6-3 sets. In addition to the win, she takes over as the number one women's player in the world (Venus slips to No. 2). The sisters win in the doubles final, beating Paola Suarez and Ruano Pascual 7-2, 7-5.

2002 - 42-year old Julie Inkster captures her second US Women's Open with a 2-stroke defeat of Annika Sorenstam. Inkster becomes the second oldest woman to win the title (Babe Zaharia won in 1954 at 43) and her 4-under 66 score matched the best final round ever shot by a Women's Open champion. Her prize of $535,000 is the largest in women's golf.

2002 - Lisa Leslie wins her third WNBA All-Star MVP trophy, scoring 18 points, as the West beats the East in an 81-76 victory. Leslie had an All-Star game-record 14 rebounds and blocked four shots in the sold-out MCI Center in Washington, which averages 15,280 fans a game.

2002 - In-Bee Park becomes the second-youngest U.S. Girls' Junior Golf Championship at 14 years, 15 days.

2002 - South Koreans Gloria Park and Hee-Won Han earn the number one and two slots at the LPGA Big Apple Classic. Park is in her third year on tour and Han was the rookie of the year in 2001.

2002 - Venus Williams defeats Kim Clijsters 6-3, 6-3 to win her fifth title at the Bank of the West Classic.

2002 - Lisa Leslie, 6 foot, 5 inches, becomes the first woman to dunk in a professional basketball game at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

2002- 22-year-old Venus Williams wins her third straight Acura Classic title, winning her sixth championship of the season; her only losses have come against her sister Serena in the finals of the French Open and Wimbledon.

2002 - 27-year-old Karrie Webb earns her third Women's British Open, the first player to win the title three times. Webb also becomes the first to win the LPGA's Super Slam of five majors (with the British Open, the du Maurier, the the Nabisco Championship, the U.S. Open, and the LPGA Championship).

2002 - Chanda Rubin beats Lindsay Davenport 5-7, 7-6 (5), 6-3 to win the JPMorgan Chase Open, defeating Serena Williams and Jelena Dokic on her way to the finals.

2002 - Meg Mallon wins the Canadian Women's Open for $180,000, her 14th career victory and 10th come from behind win.

2002 - Sheryl Swoopes, the Houston Comets forward, is selected the WNBA's Most Valuable Player for the second time in three years.

2002 - 26-year-old Marinette Pichon of the Philadelphia Charge is named Most Valuable Player by the Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA), also winning Offensive Player of the Year honors.

2002 - in the Founders Cup II, the WUSA championship game, the Carolina Courage defeat the Washington Freedom 3-2, capping a worst-to-first season that saw them in last place at the end of Season One. Danielle Fotopoulos, Hege Riise and Birgit Prinz score for the Courage; Mia Hamm and a Carolina own goal tallied for the Freedom. Birgit Prinz wins MVP honors.

2002 - Venus Williams earns $93,000 and her fourth consecutive Pilot Pen hardcourt tournament title, beating Lindsay Davenport 7-5, 6-0. She becomes just the ninth woman in the Open Era (since 1968) to capture the same title four consecutive years.

2002 - Korea's Se Ri Pak, 24, sets a new tournament-record with 21-under par in the Betsy King Classic, winning $180,000 in her third victory of the LPGA season. Pak also has the best 72-hole score on the Tour this year, topping Annika Sorenstam's 19-under set in the Evian Masters.

2002 - 21-year old Sarah Fisher, in her fourth season in the Indy Racing League, becomes the fist woman to win the pole position in a major auto race in the qualifier for the Belterra Casino, where she set a track record of 221.390 miles per hour.

2002 - In a close game, the Los Angeles Sparks (31-7) retain their WNBA title in a 69-66 win over the New York Liberty. Lisa Leslie scored 17 points and was selected the most valuable player of the finals for the second year in a row.

2002 - In another all-Williams final, Serena defeats Venus, the two-time defending champion, 6-4, 6-3 to win the US Open women's championship, for her third straight win in a Grand Slam of the year over her sister. The win ensures Serenewill keep her No. 1 world ranking. Serena becomes only the sixth player to win three straight Grand Slams in one year, first since Steffi Graf won the same three titles in 1996.

2002 - Virginia Ruano Pascual and Paola Suarez win the US Open the women's doubles championship, beating Elena Dementieva and Janette Husarova 6-2, 6-1.

2002 - Annika Sorenstam wins the Williams Championship, her seventh LPGA Tour title and ninth worldwide event of the year, earning $150,000 for a season total of $2,061,991 in 16 events.

2002 - International soccer scoring leader Mia Hamm nets her 10th career hat trick (and gathers 3 assists) in an 8-2 exhibition game between Team USA and Scotland in Columbus, Ohio. Hamm's total now stands at 133 goals. USA team member Abby Wamback also scored a hat trick 3 goals (giving her a career total of 4 international goals).

2002 - Annika Sorenstam wins the Safeway Classic, earning $150,000 and breaking her own single-season tour record with $2,211,991 in 17 events. (She set the record last year in 26 events with $2,105,868 in earnings.)

2002 - The United States team come from behind to defeat Europe 15 1/2-12 1/2 to win the Solheim Cup of women's golf.

2002 - In the inaugural WUSA All-Star game, the South beat the North 6-1, with rookie of the year Abby Wambach scoring two goals and an assist to earn MVP honors.

2002 - Serena Williams, the world's No. 1 player, beats Kim Clijsters 2-6, 6-3, 6-3 to win the Toyota Princess Cup.

2002 - Suzy Whaley qualifies for the PGA's Greater Hartford Opento be held in July 2003.

2002 - The US beats Russia 79-74 in the final of the Women's World Basketball Championships for their fourth gold medal in five championships. Shannon Johnson is selected as the world championship team MVP. Since 1953, when the world championships were first played, the US women's teams have won seven gold medals, one silver and one bronze.

2002 - Serena Williams adds the 19th victory of her career with the Sparkassen Cup, beating Russia's Anastasia Myskina 6-3, 6-2.

2002 - Annika Sorenstam breaks her own one-season record with her ninth tournament win in the Samsung World Championship for a one-season LPGA record of $2,374,000 in earnings.

2002 - Team USA wins its eight straight US Cup, defeating Italy 4-0, going 24-0-0 in the tournament and out-scoring opponents 112-10. Kristine Lilly, Heather O'Reilly, Joy Fawcett and Brandi Chastain score for Team USA in the final game.

2002 - In just her second marathon, Britian's Paula Radcliffe sets a new world's record at the Chicago Marathon in 2:17:18, 18 seconds faster than the old mark.

2002 - Se Ri Pak defends her Mobile LPGA title with a tournament record 20-under par for her fourth victory of the year.

2002 - Kenya's Joyce Chepchumba wins the women's New York City Marathon in 2:25:56, Lyubov Denisova of Russia came in second just 21 seconds behind, with Olivera Jetviz of Yugoslavia third. Kenyan Esther Kiplagat was fourth and American Marla Runyan, who is legally blind and running her first marathon, came in fifth with a time of 2:28:10. Runyan's time is the 10th fastest ever for an American woman running a marathon.

2002 - Team USA's Mia Hamm scores (136 goals in 228 international appearances) in overtime to give her team a 2-1 victory over Canada for the CONCACAF Women's Gold Cup title. Both teams qualify for next year's World Cup in China. Mexico beats Costa Rica 4-1 for third-place game in the tournament.

2002 - Annika Sorenstam becomes the first LPGA player in 34 years to win 10 times in one season, defending her title in the Mizuno Classic. The Swedish star is the first player to win 10 times in a season since Kathy Whitworth and Carol Mann both accomplished the feat in 1968. Mickey Wright reached double figures four times, setting the record with 13 victories in 1963 and winning 11 times in 1964. The 32-year-old Swede earns $169,500 for her 41st career LPGA Tour victory to push her record total to $2,648,904, with one championship left in the 2002 season.

2002 - Wake Forest wins their first ever feild hockey Division I championship in a 2-0 decision over Penn State. Kelly Doton, the ACC player fo the year, and Heather Aughinbaugh score for Wake Forest.

2002 - Annika Sorenstam wins her 11th LPGA tournament of the year at the ADT Championship. Her $215,000 prize money pushes her over the $11 million mark in career earnings, the first woman to earn that much in golf.

2002 - Christine Sinclair scores both goals in Portland's first national title with a 2-1 OT victory over Santa Clara in the NCAA Women's College Cup. She scored 10 goals in the tournament and is named the College Cup's most valuable offensive player.

2002 - Mia Hamm wins FIFA's player of the year award for the second straight year. Hamm is the top scorer in the history of the US national team; she is the only winner of the award which is in its second year.

2002 - Katie Hnide becomes the first woman to play in a D-I-A football game when she attempts an extra point in the Las Vegas Bowl.

2002 - Serena Williams is named the AP's Female Athlete of the Year for 2002 with 53 first-place votes and 351 overall points from voting among AP members newspapers and boradcasters across the country. Willaims won three of four Grand Slam titles and 56 of 61 matches overall.

2003 - Pat Summitt becomes the first coach in women's basketball to win 800 career games when her Lady Vols beat DePaul 76-57. She is just the fourth coach in Division I to post 800 victories, and the first woman. Her record stands at 800-161 in 29 seasons with six national championships.

2003 - Candian Olympian Hayley Wickenheiser, 24, becomes the first woman to record a point in a men's pro hockey game. She assists on a goal for her Finnish League team, the Kirkkonummi Salamat, in a 7-3 victory.

2003 - Connecticut ties the NCAA Division I women's record for consecutive basketball victories with a 53-48 victory over Seton Hall, matching Louisiana Tech's record of 54 straight wins.

2003 - Michelle Kwan wins her sixth straight and seventh overall US National Figure Skating title, the longest streak by an American skater since Dick Button's seven men's titles from 1946-52.

2003 Texas Longhorns coach Jody Conradt, 61, becomes the second woman basketball coach to earn 800 career wins with a victory over Texas Tech. Condradt has a record of 800-262 in 34 years of coaching; she is just the fifth coach in Division I to earn 800 wins.

2003 - Serena Slam: Serena Williams wins her fourth consecutive Grand Slam, the Australian Open, against old sister Venus (7-6 (4), 3-6, 6-4). In 2002 she won the French Open, US Open, and Wimbledon, all in finals matches against her sister. Serena has a 5-4 career edge over Venus in major titles, and 6-5 lead in sister-to-sister matches. This is only the sixth time a woman has held all four of tennis' major championships at the same time (last done in 1994 by Steffi Graf). The Williams sisters are the first two women in Grand Slam history to square off in four consecutive finals.

2003 - UConn extends its winning streak to 59, the best in women's history and the third highest in basketball history. Only two men's teams have a longer steak UCLA with 88 in a row (1971-74), and San Francisco with 60 in 1955-57.

2003 - Candian Olympian Hayley Wickenheiser, 24, becomes the first woman to score a goal in a men's pro hockey game on a backhander for her Finnish League Kirkkonummi Salamat.

2003 - Regina Jacobs becomes the first woman to break the four-minute mile in the indoor 1,500 meters, beating a 13-year old world record with her time of 3:59:98 at the Boston Indoor Games.

2003 - Olympic champion Stacy Dragila sets a new American record in the pole vault with her jump of 15 feet, 5.5 inches at the Boston event.

2003 - The 17th annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day theme is "Succeed in Sports - Lead in Life" on Feb. 5.

2003 - The Flo Hyman Memorial Award is presented to Olympic gold medalist Nawal El Moutawakel in ceremonies at a congressional luncheon in Washington, D.C. The award recognizes an outstanding female athlete whose achievements reflect Flo Hyman's spirit and commitment to excellence on and off the playing field. Nawal El Moutawakel captured the gold in the 400-meter hurdles at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games. In doing so, she became the first woman from an Islamic nation to win an Olympic medal and the first Moroccan of either sex to win the gold. El Moutawakel's accomplishments earned wide recognition in her home nation, resulting in the King of Morocco declaring that all girls born on the date of her victory were to be named in her honor. A graduate of Iowa State University, El Moutawakel received an athletic scholarship for track and field, and was the NCAA 400-hurdles champion in 1984 and an All-American. In 1995, she became a council member of the International Amateur Athletic Foundation. Two years later, El Moutawakel was appointed Minister of Sport and Youth in Morocco and became the first Muslim woman ever elected as a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). El Moutawakel continues to work with the IOC's group on Women and Sports and the IOC Marketing Commission.

2003 - Serena Williams, 21, wins the Gaz de France in the final against Amélie Mauresmo, 6-3, 6-2.

2003 - UConn's women's basketball team moves into second spot in college ball's winning streak list with 61 consecutive wins in an 83-75 game over Boston College. Only UCLA has a better record.

2003 - Annika Sorenstam, 32, accepts a sponsor's invitation to compete in the Colonial Tournament in May, becoming the first woman to play on the PGA Tour in 53 years. Babe Zaharias was the first/last woman to compete in a men's professional tour in the 1945 Los Angeles Open. Sorenstam is the only LPGA player in history to shoot a 59 and she has won four major championships.

2003 - Teresa Phillips, 44, the athletic director at Tennessee State becomes the first woman to coach a major college men's basketball team. The coaching assignment is for one game only. Phillips says, "History will occur when institutions actually hire a woman to coach a men's team and give her all the opportunities to build a program. I'm pinch-hitting for one night." Phillips coached Tennessee State's women's basketball (1989-2000) with a 150-151 record, twice leading her team to the NCAA and was national coach of the year in 1990. Her career record is 212-189. Tennessee State is the only historically black university to compete in a conference with other colleges of predominantly white enrollment.

2003 - Venus Williams repeats her win at the Diamond Games in Antwerp with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Kim Clijsters in the final.

Mia Hamm scores her 137th international goal as Team USA beats Iceland 1-0.

2003 - The UConn Huskies (26-0, 13-0 Big East) just keep winning with their 65th straight game in a 77-59 victory over Notre Dame, the last team to beat UConn.

2003 - Nearly 3,000 girls play high school football in various positions like kicker, wide receiver, linemen and linebacker according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.

2003 - The UConn women clinch their 10th straight regular-season Big East title and their 67th straight win with a 70-52 victory over Providence.

2003 - Gail Devers breaks her own American record in the 60-meter hurdles, and wins the final for her 14th national title.

2003 - American figure skater Sasha Cohen earns her frist major international title at the Grand Prix final in St. Petersburg, Russia, beating world champion Irina Slutskaya.

2003 - Ai Sugiyama defeats Kim Clijsters 3-6, 7-5, 6-4 for the State Farm Women's Tennis Classic championship in Scottsdale, AZ.

2003 - In Lake Placid at the US Biathlon National Championships, Tracy Branes of Durango, CO, beats out her twin sister, Lanny, to win the gold medal in the women's 10-k pursuit. Denise Teela of Jericho, VT, wins the women's idividual sprint in 20:55:02.

2003 - American Stacy Dragila broke the women's world indoor pole vault record with a jump of 15 feet, 8.25 inches at the US Indoor Track & Field Championship in Boston for her 13th US championship and 7th indoor title.

2003 - Regina Jacobs, 39, wins the women's 1,500 meter and the 3,000 meter race. She is the first woman to win both races since Jan Merrill (1976) and Francie Larrieu (1977).

2003 - The UConn women keep on winning, closing out the regular season with a 78-58 victory over West Virginia and upping their unbeaten streak to 68 games.

2003 - The second longest winning streak in college basketball comes to an end at 70 as Villanova upsets the UConn Huskies 52-48 for the Big East Conference tournament title.

2003 - Skater Sarah Hughes is presented with the Sullivan Trophy as the nation's top amateur athlete by the AAU.

2003 The Women's Hall of Fame announces the Class of 2003,including two women athletes: GERTRUDE EDERLE (1906-) In 1926, Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel, setting a new time record that would stand for the next 35 years. Ederle's career included 29 U.S. and World swimming records, erasing many people's doubts about the physical abilities of female athletes. DONNA DE VARONA (1947-) In 1960, at the age of 13, de Varona became the youngest member of a U.S. Olympic swim team. Just four years later, she won gold medals in the 400 IM and 400 Freestyle Relay at the Tokyo Olympics. She went on to set 18 world records in her career, and co-founded the Women's Sports Foundation in 1974. De Varona was the first full-time female sports broadcaster (for ABC) and has served two Presidential Commissions and five terms on the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.

2003 - The US National Soccer Team wins the Algarve Cup with a 2-0 victory over China on goals by Shanon MacMillian and Mia Hamm.

2003 - Elmira College claims its second D-III women's national hockey championship with a 5-1 victory over Manhattenville.

2003 - Minnesota Duluth wins its third straight national D-I women's hockey championship with a 4-3 double-overtime victory over Harvard. Bulldogs coach Shannon Miller has a record of 108-19-13 in four years. 9,962 spectators watched the game.

2003 - Minnesota Duluth's Jennifer Botterill wins her second Patty Kazmaier award as the best player in women's college hockey.

2003 - Michelle Kwan becomes only the third American to win fice World Figure Skating Chamipionships with her gold medal victory. She ties the records of Dick Button and Carol Heiss. She has more world medals than any American with eight.

2003 - Serena Williams continues her winning ways with a victory over Jennifer Capriati at the Nasqaq-100 Open.

2003 - California's Natalie Coughlin wins the Honda Award, given to the top female athlete in 12 sports. She is honored as the nation's outstanding woman in swimming and diving for the second consecutive year.

2003 UConn's Diana Taurasi wins AP Player of the Year for women's D-I basketball; UConn coach Geno Auriemma wins Coach of the Year honors, the fourth time he is so honored.

2003 - The US wins its first women's world curling title in a 5-3 victory over Canada. Sweden defeast Norway 7-4 for the women's bronze.

2003 - Justine Henin-Hardene wins the Family Circle Cup title over the world's number one player, Serena Willaims, instraigh sets, 6-3, 6-4.

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2000-2009