Miss Ludy and The Paris Women’s Olympic Games in 1922

This paper focuses on the life of one 'Olympian' who remains unacknowledged by the IOC. The American flag bearer in the 1922 Paris Women's Olympic Games, Lucille Ellerbe Godbold (1900-1981). One of seven children from a family who worked extensively in education, she was amongst what was arguably America’s first Olympic women’s track and field athletics team in 1922. However, as many people here will be aware, the International Olympic Committee version of the Games did not include a track and field programme for women until five events were inaugurated at the 1928 Amsterdam Games. The main element of the paper gives a biographical overview of Goldbold’s life, as a relatively unknown pioneer of women’s sport. The conclusion suggests that the individual case study illuminates wider debates about amateurism in North American women’s sport at the time.