While trying to list Merlene Ottey's most valuable and most extraordinary achievements - from 1993 "The Ambassador of Athletics", the toughest decision is which of them to list as first.  Whatever the criteria we use, we always find Merlene's achievements are extraordinary, unique in the world of track & field, and most of them will  probably never be repeated.

• Most probably though, her well over 20 years old world indoor record at 200 m is the most valuable achievement and deserves to mentioned at the first place.

• Never the less there is a special category of her unbelievable achievements and these are her numerous medals from the highly ranked world competitions

  • there are 8 Olympic medals (though the golden one is the only one still missing - but with Merlene you never know?), what is more than any other female athlete had ever won

  • she won 14 medals at World Championships - with this achievement she leads among all athletes (both female and male ones) and it is questionable whether any athlete could ever accomplish the same

  • she was twice a World Champion at 200 m. For the first time she won this title in 1993 - Stuttgart, Germany and for the second time in 1995 - Goeteborg, Sweden.

• Among her very special achievements are most certainly those 3: Merlene had been the first female in the World, to run 60 m under 7 seconds, the first to run 100 m under 11 seconds and 200 m indoors under 22 seconds.

• A really unique in the Track & Field world is her series of consecutive victories at 100 m - there were 57 in total - the only one close to her is "dubious" Florence Griffith Joyner with her 34 consecutive victories.

• Her series of victories at 200 m is a bit more modest, since there are "only" 34 consecutive victories at 200 m

• Counting both the series mentioned above brings us to unbelievable series of 75 consecutive victories at 100 m and 200 m

• But don't you even dare thinking these are her only "world records": Merlene is the only female athlete to run 100 m 67-times faster than in 11 seconds and at 200 m she was 15-times faster than in 22 seconds (while her total races under 22.5 seconds comes to a 106). Take a closer look to her races form that period.

• Or this one: did you know Merlene is the only female athlete in the world to run the fastest 100 m and 200 m in the same day? (times: 10.90 and 21.77) - and she did it at GP Meeting in Monaco, on August 07. 1993

• What would you say about the fact that shows Merlene had in all her career from 1980 up to now won almost 75% of all her races?

• Besides all the mentioned records and "records" she has also been The Veteran World record holder in her age group for years - and even in the Veterans category she beats much younger competition. She's been faster and the fastest in the World among all the female athletes aged over 30.

• But there is always "a but" - let us mention probably the most hurting defeat in her career. In fact there were  two, and both of them came from the same rival - Gail Devers. And there was more - both defeats had to be confirmed by photo finish.
  This was at the World Championship in 1993 - Stuttgart and at the Olympic games in Atlanta 1996.

It is really hard to know where to stop listing her many records of all kinds, since Merlene is simply the Greatest among female athletes in the World - and at the age of 43 she is still an active sprinter! A very active one - many younger rivals can't come close to her!

Use the links above (bold letters) and take a closer look to her achievements.

click on a picture to enlarge even more

Stuttgart 1993

Atlanta 1996