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Unless you were living in Southern California during the late 60’s or early 70’s, you’ve probably never heard of the name Chi Cheng until last month.
The Women’s 100 yard WR is currently 10.0 or (10.10 FAT) held by Chi Cheng of Chinese Taipei back in 1970. Chinese Taipei is also commonly known as Taiwan.
Shelly Ann Fraser came up short with her 10.15 (+1.5) in Ostrava.
Who the heck is Chi Cheng?
Like most successful International athletes at the time, she was educated in the USA at Cal Poly Pomona.
She was so dominant that in a two year period, she only lost one race out of 154 events. It puts Edwin Moses to shame. (Well, not really, as I am a Moses fan, but we have to give women their fair share. Moses consecutive win streak is impressive, but he made sure the European circuit race directors did not allow “fresh athletes” into his race when he was tired. And why was Harald Schmit always in Lane 7?)
At the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, representing China, she won the bronze medal in the women’s 80-meter hurdles.
At Cal Poly Pomona, she competed in the 100m, 200m, 400m, 100mH and Long Jump. All 5 of her school records still remains today. Her abilities reminds me of Heike Drechsler or Irena Szewinska.
In 1970, in an era of hand times where world records were harder to break, she tied 3 world records in a span of 6 days. She ran the 200m (22.4 seconds) and the 100 meter Hurdles (12.8) on the same day followed by 100m (11.0 seconds +1.9 or 11.22 FAT) 6 days later.
Even today, 40 years later, 11.22 and 22.64 would still be a contender in major championships.
Chi Cheng had a very short lived career. Her career was cut short by an injury and thus did not compete at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Like Jim Ryun and Sebastian Coe, she turned her efforts into politics after her track career.
The only other female “Asian” sprinter to come close to Chi Cheng would be Wang Huei-Chen (also from Chinese Taipei), who set a personal best of 22.56 in 1992. You can argue Susanthika Jayasinghe’s 22.28 of Sri Lanka is part of Asia.
You can also argue countries of the former USSR such as Ukraine, Georgia or Uzbekistan belong in the Asian category (Zhanna Pintusevich-Block 22.17, Maya Azarashvili 22.27, and Elvira Barbashina 22.27 respectively).
Jimson Lee
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Sri Lanka is Asia. Ukraine is not Asia, but Europe.Georgia (in former USSR) is Asia.
@Harri – thanks for clarifying!
I do remember her name appearing in the 70’s edition of “The Guiness Book of World Records.” Though, I don’t understand the purpose of having BOTH hand-timing and Fully Automated Timing in the same race!? Perhaps the race officials felt hand-timing would capture something FAT could not!?
Yes, maybe they tested the FAT. They used to have these hand-timed and FATs in the 60s and 70s, and even in 50s, I think.
FAT has been around for decades. Starting January 1, 1977, the IAAF required fully automatic timing to the hundredth of a second for the sprint events.
Jim Hines’ October 1968 Olympic gold medal run was the fastest recorded fully electronic 100 metre race to that time, at 9.95
Exactly.That’s the way it was.
I was in middle school in South Fla and a fan of hers she was great.
I went on to win national sprint races a decade later…..
Chi, while married to Vince Reel, was my coach at the University of Redlands from ’74 through ’78. She and Vince persuaded me to come out for track after I cleared 6’0″ in jeans (while on the golf team at the time). I turned my sights to the decathlon the next year and am proud to say held the school record of over 7100 points for more than 30 years. (I ended up playing profession football for the 7 years following graduation and as such, my Olympic dreams ended. I recently was contacted by a teammate from the 70’s and subsequently contacted Chi, living in Taiwan. After 40 years, she still was gracious to invite my family to come and visit! Amazing athlete and even more .. a great woman!
Brian, what a wonderful story! Thanks for sharing