Isabelle Daniel's first international success
came when she and her teammates won a
bronze medal for the United States 4 x 100-
meter relay at the 1956 Olympic Games in
Melbourne, Australia. Daniel was born on
July 31, 1937, in Jakin, Georgia. Even as a
child, she was recognized for her athletic
ability and practiced by running to school -- a
13-mile trek! After high school in 1953,
Isabelle attended Tennessee State University
(a member of the noted "Tigerbelles") on an
athletic scholarship and was a member of the
winning 4 x 200-meter relay team at the
Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) Women's
Track and Field National Championships in
1954. She was an AAU All-American in
1957, 1958, and 1959, frequently setting
new meet records. In 1960 Daniel and her
teammates on the 4 x 100-meter relay set a
world record and won the gold medal at the
Olympic Games in Rome, Italy.

In total, Daniel won more than 100
awards and participated in more than 25
international meets. In 1985, she was
honored as the Track Coach of the Year by
the National High School Athletic Coaches
Association. She was inducted into the
Georgia Hall of Fame in 1987.

Organized sports for deaf athletes were
formally established in 1924 with the incep-
tion of the International Committee of
Sports of the Deaf (CISS). The first World
Games for the Deaf (WGD), affectionately
known as the Deaf Olympic Games, were
held in the summer of 1924 in Paris, France.
The first winter WGD were held in Seefeld,
Austria, in 1949. The United States has
participated in these Games, which are
contested every four years, since 1935. The
United States team, however, did not enter
its first deaf women athletes until the
summer 1957 Games in Milan, Italy.

The American Athletic Association of the
Deaf (AAAD) was established in 1945 and
serves as the national governing body of all
deaf sport programs in the United States
today. It works closely with the United States
Olympic Committee and the CISS to
promote various levels of competition
(Olympic, international, national, regional,
and local) for deaf athletes in the United
States and throughout the world. Women
who have a hearing loss of 55 decibels or
more in their better ear are eligible for
participation in deaf sport organizations in
the United States and around the world.

Deaf women participate in all levels of
sport from club teams to Olympic squads. As is

-64-