Which athlete won the women's 200 metres gold at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics?

Irena Szewińska won the women's 200 metres gold at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

Representing Poland, Szewińska won the final in 22.5 seconds on October 18, 1968, at the University Olympic Stadium. The performance set a world record, and she finished 0.2 seconds ahead of Australia's Raelene Boyle. Australia's Jenny Lamy took bronze in 22.8 seconds.

The race was part of a groundbreaking Olympic athletics programme held at Mexico City's high altitude. The 1968 Games produced several extraordinary performances, helped in some events by thin air and favorable conditions. Szewińska's result was especially notable because she entered the Games already holding the world record of 22.7 seconds, set in Warsaw in 1965.

This result is sometimes confused with other celebrated Olympic sprinters. Wilma Rudolph won the 100 metres and 200 metres at the 1960 Rome Games, while Florence Griffith-Joyner won the 200 metres at Seoul in 1988. Szewińska's 1968 victory was one of five Olympic medals she won across five different Games, in events ranging from sprinting to the long jump.