Joyce Yakubowich

Joyce Yakubowich

Personal information
Birth name	Joyce Sadowick
Born	(1953-05-29)29 May 1953 Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Died	24 March 2024(2024-03-24) (aged 70)[1]
Sport
Country	Canada
Sport	Women's athletics
Medal record Pan American Games 1975 Mexico City 400 m 1975 Mexico City 4 × 400 m relay 1975 Mexico City 4 × 100 m relay Commonwealth Games 1970 Edinburgh 4 × 100 m relay

Joyce Yakubowich (née Sadowick; 29 May 1953 – 24 March 2024) was a Canadian track and field sprinter who competed mainly in the 200 metres and 400 metres. She was the 400 m gold medallist at the 1975 Pan American Games, where she also won relay medals. She twice represented Canada at the Summer Olympics (1972, 1976) and was a three-time Canadian national sprint champion.

Born in Burnaby, British Columbia,^[2] she made her international debut at age seventeen at the 1970 British Commonwealth Games. She was eliminated in the heats of the 400 m, but managed to secure a bronze medal with the Canadian women's 4 × 100 m relay team, which included Joan Hendry, Patty Loverock and Stephanie Berto.^[3] She went on to attend the University of Victoria and broke several track records, including one for the 300 metres which remains unbeaten.^[4]

Yakubowich ran at the 1971 Pan American Games and made her first individual final, taking sixth in the 400 m. With the Canadian relay team she missed a medal, taking fourth some distance behind bronze medallists Jamaica.^[5] Her first national titles came at the 1972 Canadian Track and Field Championships, where she claimed both the 200 m and 400 m races – the latter in a championship record of 54.1 seconds.^[6] An Olympic debut came the following year at the 1972 Munich Games, but the 19-year-old failed to make it out of the heats.^[2] She gained her first individual medal a year later at the 1973 Pacific Conference Games, taking 400 m bronze.^[7]

The 1975 season proved to be the peak of her career. First, she won the third and final national title of her career in the 200 m.^[6] She was chosen to compete in four events at the 1975 Pan American Games. She placed sixth in the 200 m final, recording a lifetime best time of 23.34 seconds. She gave a dominant performance in the women's 400 m final, defeating American Debra Sapenter by over half a second to win the gold medal in 51.62 seconds – another lifetime personal record and also a games record. Another games record and gold medal came with the 4 × 400 m relay team of Margaret McGowen, Rachelle Campbell, and Joanne McTaggart, which she led off to victory to 3:30.36 minutes. A third medal of the games for Yakubowich came in the 4 × 100 metres relay: running the anchor leg off McTaggart and 100 m minor medallists Patty Loverock and Marjorie Bailey the team took the bronze.^[8][9][10]

She made two further high-profile international appearances in her career following her Pan American success. She returned to the Olympic stage at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, running in the 400 m quarter-finals and placing eighth in the relay final on home turf alongside fellow Canadians Margaret Stride, Campbell and Yvonne Saunders.^[2] Her last outing was for the Americas team at the 1977 IAAF World Cup: running with Cuba's Aurelia Pentón and Jamaicans Jacqueline Pusey and Helen Blake, she placed fifth.

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• Canadian Track and Field Championships^[6]
  • 200 m: 1972, 1975
  • 400 m: 1972

• Joyce Yakubowich at World Athletics
• Joyce Yakubowich at Team Canada
• Joyce Yakubowich at Olympics.com
• Joyce Yakubowich at Olympedia (archive)