Across four Olympic Games, in the heptathlon and the long jump, she won three gold medals, one silver, and one bronze. She set the heptathlon world record in 1986 and broke it herself in 1988, posting a score that remains the standard by which every heptathlete since has been measured. She did all of this while managing severe asthma, a condition diagnosed during her career that required her to compete with an inhaler and a medical team on standby, and that she managed so quietly that many people watching her run did not know it was happening. The gap between what her body was dealing with and what her body was producing is one of the most remarkable facts in the history of track and field.

The combination of her talent and will to win was unparalleled, and she found in Bob Kersee a coach and eventual husband who matched her appetite for work with equal rigor. She competed into her thirties, returned from injuries that would have retired other athletes, and left the sport on her own terms. The foundation she established in East St. Louis has served hundreds of thousands of young people in the decades since. Jackie Joyner-Kersee did not leave her hometown behind when she became the best in the world. She turned around and went back for it.