Jeanne Daprano (September 16, 1936 - December 1, 2021) was a retired elementary school teacher and

world record A world record is usually the best global and most important performance that is ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill, sport, or other kind of activity. The book ''Guinness World Records'' and other world records organization ...

setting American masters

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

athlete.

Biography

On July 21, 2012, she became the first woman over 75 to run under seven minutes in the

mile run The mile run (1,760 yards or exactly 1,609.344 metres) is a middle-distance foot race. The history of the mile run event began in England, where it was used as a distance for gambling races. It survived track and field's switch to ...

, with a time of 6:58.44. She also holds the records for the mile run for 70-year-olds and 80-year-olds.http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=12137&PageNum=&CategoryID= In order to compare times across multiple age groups,

masters athletics Masters athletics is a class of the sport of athletics for athletes of over 35 years of age. The events include track and field, road running and cross country running. Competitors are bracketed into five-year age groups (which promotes fair comp ...

has established age graded tables based on previous results. Daprano's mile is so far beyond the scale that the time converts to a 4:00.23. The current world record for the women's mile is 4:12.56 set by

Svetlana Masterkova Svetlana Aleksandrovna Masterkova (russian: Светлана Александровна Мастеркова; born 17 January 1968) is a Russian former middle-distance runner and former women's world record holder for the mile and the current 1 ...

in 1996 and Masterkova's mark is so exceptional, no other woman has been within 5 seconds of that mark since. While she had always been active on her Iowa farm or playing

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

in high school and college in Nebraska, she didn't take up running until she started jogging on the beach while working on her master's degree in California. She spent the majority of her career just keeping active with her third grade class in

Long Beach, California Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California. Incorporate ...

and didn't get into a serious jogging routine until she was 45. She finally got serious about running competitively after turning 60. Since then she has set records in each age division she has passed through. Daprano now lives in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

and runs for the Atlanta Track Club. Daprano holds the current world records in the W70

mile The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a British imperial unit and United States customary unit of distance; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 English ...

, W75

400 metres The 400 metres, or 400-meter dash, is a sprint event in track and field competitions. It has been featured in the athletics (sport), athletics programme at the Summer Olympics since 1896 for men and since 1964 for women. On a standard outdoor runn ...

800 metres The 800 metres, or meters ( US spelling), is a common track running event. It is the shortest commonly run middle-distance running event. The 800 metres is run over two laps of an outdoor (400-metre) track and has been an Olympic event since the ...

, in addition to the pending W75 mile record. Indoors she hold the W75 records in those same events and is on the W60

4x400 metres relay Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer case ...

. She also holds the

American records American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

in the W70 400 metres, W65 and W70 800 metres, and W70

1500 metres The 1500 metres or 1,500-metre run (typically pronounced 'fifteen-hundred metres') is the foremost middle distance track event in athletics. The distance has been contested at the Summer Olympics since 1896 and the World Championships in Athletic ...

. And the W75 mile improves the record by so much, it is also superior to the W75 American record in the 1500, a race that is 109.35 metres shorter. Daprano's late husband, Bill, about ten years her senior was also an active masters athlete and was part of two American record holding relay teams. They were married 22 years before his death in 2021. Just 17 days after Bill's death, Jeanne died from Parkinson's disease on December 1, 2021.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Daprano, Jeanne 1936 births American female middle-distance runners American masters athletes World record holders in masters athletics Living people 21st-century American women