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Jean Driscoll is an American wheelchair racer. She won the women's wheelchair division of the Boston Marathon eight times, more than any other female athlete in any division. Her wins in Boston included seven consecutive first place finishes from 1990 to 1996. Driscoll participated in four Summer Paralympic Games, winning a total of five gold, three silver, and four bronze medals in events ranging from 200 meters to the marathon.
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Born with spina bifida, Driscoll grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She began using a wheelchair in high school and became involved in a variety of wheelchair sports. She was recruited to play wheelchair basketball at the University of Illinois, and while there she also joined the school's wheelchair track and field team.[1] She competed at her first Paralympics in 1988, taking bronze in the 200 and 400 meter races, silver in the 4×100 meter relay, and gold in the 4×200 meter relay.[2]
Her first major win in racing came in 1989, when she beat Candace Cable at the Lilac Bloomsday 12k in Spokane, Washington. Following this success, her coach Marty Morse convinced her to try a marathon. Driscoll participated in the 1989 Chicago Marathon and finished fast enough to qualify for the next year's Boston Marathon. At Morse's urging, she reluctantly agreed to race in Boston; at the time, she was not interested in becoming a regular marathoner and wished to continue racing shorter distances.[1]
Driscoll went on to win the 1990 Boston Marathon, beginning a seven-year winning streak in that race. She set a world record at the 1991 race with a time of 1:42:42, and won her fifth Boston and broke the world record again in 1994, despite a bout of food poisoning days before the race and stiff competition from Australian Louise Sauvage. With Driscoll's win in 1996, she became the first person to win seven consecutive Boston Marathons. Her streak ended the next year, when her wheelchair tire got caught in a trolley track, causing her to crash and the tire to go flat; Sauvage went on to win the race. At the 1998 race, Driscoll was approaching the finish line in first place when Sauvage sprinted past, winning by half a wheel.[3] Driscoll finished in second place behind Sauvage for a third time in 1999. In 2000, Driscoll won for the eighth and last time, giving her more wins at Boston than any other person.[4]
At the 1992 Paralympics, Driscoll won the gold medal in the 4×100 meter relay and competed in three other events—the 800, 1500, and 5000 metre races. Four years later at the Atlanta Games, she competed in four events and medaled in all of them, taking gold in the 10000 metres and the marathon, silver in the 5000 metres, and bronze in the 1500 metres. She added three more medals to her career total at the 2000 Sydney Paralympics, winning gold, silver, and bronze in the marathon, 1500 metres, and 5000 metres, respectively.[2]
Driscoll has supported programing for the disabled by racing in College Church's annual fund raising race.[5]