Alice Coachman Davis: High jumper who overcame home prejudice to become the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal

Davis in 1948, on her way to victory at a meet in Iowa; she was banned from using public sports facilities (AP)

Alice Coachman Davis was the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal. She won the high jump at the 1948 Games in London with a national and Olympic record of 1.68 metres – the only American woman to win gold. She was honoured with a 175-mile motorcade in her native Georgia when she returned, but the black and white audiences were segregated at her official ceremony in Albany.

In 2004 Davis speculated that she could have won even more Olympic medals had the Second World War not intervened; she retired at 25 after her London victory. "I know I would have won in 1944, at least," she said. "I was starting to peak then."

Davis attended Tuskegee University and also played basketball for a team that won three successive titles. She won 25 national athletics championships, including 10 consecutive high jump titles, between 1939 and 1948. Growing up in the deep South during the era of segregation, she had to overcome multiple challenges. She was banned from using public sports facilities, so she used whatever equipment she could cobble together to practise.

"My dad did not want me to travel to Tuskegee and then up north to the Nationals," she said. "He felt it was too dangerous. Life was very different for African-Americans at that time. But I came back and showed him my medal and talked about all the things I saw. He and my mom were very proud of me."

Davis won her first national high jump title at 16 and worked as a schoolteacher and coach after retiring. She was inducted to the USA Track and Field Hall of fame in 1975 and the US Olympic Hall of Fame in 2004.

Alice Coachman Davis, athlete, coach and teacher: born 9 November 1923; died 14 July 2014.