Sharon Dabney

Sharon Dabney (born January 1959) is a retired American track and field athlete.

Career

She was the 1979 Pan American Games Champion at 400 metres^[1] in a photo finish over June Griffith. She also was part of the United States gold medal-winning 4 × 400 metres relay team. Four years earlier, she was part of the silver medal-winning team as a 16 year old.

She was sixth place in the United States Olympic Trials in 1976. Her 51.55 in 1977 while still at John Bartram High School in Philadelphia was the second fastest 400 at the time, soon to be engulfed by the Howard sisters.^[2] At the time, before Title IX took effect, the high school had no athletic program for girls. She was the 1977 National Champion. At the 1980 Olympic Trials, she finished 4th behind Sherri Howard, Gwen Gardner and Denean Howard which should have put her on a likely medal winning relay team for the 1980 Summer Olympics.^[3] However that glory was not to be as for many athletes of her era she was left out of the Olympic by the 1980 Summer Olympics boycott. She did however receive one of 461 Congressional Gold Medals created especially for the spurned athletes.^[4] In 1984, she was unable to get out of the quarter-finals against Chandra Cheeseborough and Diane Dixon.

While studying at California State University, Los Angeles, she joined the three Howard sisters in setting the long-standing school record.^[5][6]

References

1. "Winners of area Championships & Games and Commonwealth Games" (PDF). coachkrall.com. 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-07-02. Retrieved 2015-07-02.
2. "Brittany Flies to #6 AT High School". Track & Field News. Archived from the original on 2018-10-27. Retrieved 2015-07-02.
3. Hymans, Richard (2008). "The history of the United States Olympic Trails – Track & Field" (PDF). USA Track & Field.
4. Caroccioli, Tom; Caroccioli, Jerry (2008). Boycott: Stolen Dreams of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games. Highland Park, Illinois: New Chapter Press. pp. 243–253. ISBN 978-0942257403.
5. "Tina Howard (1992) - Hall of Fame".
6. "Denean Howard (1992) - Hall of Fame".