A phenom at 15, Cathy Hamblin returned to ABQ after the 1968 Olympic games to a quiet life

Editor’s note: The Journal continues the once-a-month feature “That’s Life” with Ollie Reed Jr., who takes a deeper look into a New Mexico story.

• “Cathy Hamblin Gets Long Jump Record,” Aug. 8, 1968.

• “15-Year-Old Cathy Makes Olympic Team,” Sept. 9, 1968.

• “In Pentathlon: Cathy Scores 4330,” Oct. 17, 1968.

Those Albuquerque Journal headlines from nearly 55 years ago tell the amazing story of Cathy Hamblin. Or just Cathy.

In 1968, everybody in Albuquerque, most people in New Mexico and anybody in the United States who cared about women’s track and field knew who Cathy was.

She was an athletic phenomenon who made the long jump look like flying. She was a prodigy of the pentathlon, a competition consisting of the 80-meter high hurdles, the shot put, the high jump, the long jump and the 200-meter run. She competed in the pentathlon as a member of the 1968 United States Olympic team while still a student at Albuquerque’s Jackson Junior High.

Yeah, a junior high kid participating in one of the more grueling Olympic contests.

“She was the greatest athlete ever,” said Becky Johnson, Cathy’s sister. “We had newspaper people around all the time."

But Cathy Hamblin, her accomplishments eclipsed by the elapse of years, was alone when she died in her Northeast Heights apartment in March 2023. She was 70. Her passing, like much of her life since the early ’70s, was not noted by the general public.

“She made a significant contribution to New Mexico,” said Becky, 67, a Rio Rancho resident. “She pushed herself. She excelled. She got an injury. I don’t think her life went the way she wanted it to. But she needs acknowledgement for what she did.”

Outrun any boy

Becky said Cathy was born in Pittsburg, California, not Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as is listed on some of the online references to her.

But Cathy and Becky grew up in Albuquerque. Their father worked in the steel-supply business.

“We had a family farm on Fourth Street, near where Northdale Shopping Center is,” Becky said. “We had chickens, a donkey, a bull and a cow. We ran on the ditches and we ran in the fields. Back in those days, everybody had a farm. And everyone had a dog. You had to be able to outrun the dog and jump over a fence.”

Conditioned by field running, dog dodging and fence jumping, the sisters turned their athletic prowess into a hustle at Alvarado Elementary School.

“Cathy could outrun any boy,” Becky said. “She bet them their lunch money she could beat them and she would win it.”

It got to where no one would take Cathy on, so she bet them her little sister could beat them.

“And I could beat them,” Becky said.

Both sisters were at one time members of the Albuquerque Olympette (track and field) Club, although Becky had to drop out early due to a health concern. Cathy later competed in meets unattached to a track club or team.

Becky recalls how Cathy once helped her win an 880-yard (half-mile) race.

“I would start out running too fast,” Becky said. “Cathy didn’t want me to embarrass her by losing. She ran along the outside of the track, pacing me. I won that race because of my sister.”

Magic year

The year 1968 was a magic one for Cathy. No one expected her to make the U.S. Olympic team. And when she did, no one expected her to win a medal. The 1968 Olympics in Mexico City were perceived to be an invaluable tune up for her shot at Olympic glory in the 1972 games in Munich.

Early in July 1968, Cathy scored 4,374 points to take first place in the AAU Women’s Invitational Pentathlon in Los Alamos, which was the U.S. Women’s Olympic Team high-altitude training site.

The distances and times in pentathlon events are converted to points according to set tables. For example, in the AAU Women’s Invitational, Cathy picked up 927 points with an 18-feet, 9½-inch long jump. However, her total points in that meet were 226 short of the minimum needed to qualify for the U.S. Olympics team.

But on September 7 and 8, competing again at Los Alamos, Cathy scored 4,659 points, the second best women’s pentathlon score ever posted in the United States up until that time. That earned her a berth on the U.S. Women’s Olympic pentathlon team.

Becky said family and friends were not supposed to stay overnight in the athletes’ living area at the Los Alamos training site , but Cathy snuck her little sister into her room the night before the Sept. 7 competition.

“She was (awake) all night, rocking her leg back and forth in bed and praying to God,” Becky said. “I said, ‘Go to sleep, Cathy.’ But I don’t think she did. I can’t believe she did so well the next day. I fell asleep in the bleachers.”

Not to be

Prior to the Olympic Games, Cathy, identified by news reports at the time as the only New Mexican on the 1968 U.S. Olympics team, carried the Olympic torch along a track set up in Tingley Coliseum. The torch proved to be a load for the 5-foot-4-inch, 110-pound Cathy.

“It was heavy,” Becky said. “Cathy burned her face and hair, but she did not put it down. My sister went to the Olympics by herself. My family could not afford to go to Mexico City.”

Cathy did not do as well in the Olympics as she had when she qualified for the U.S. team in Los Alamos. She scored 4330 points, certainly not shabby but good enough for only 24th place in the Mexico City games.

She was hampered by a hamstring injury and what must have been the tremendous pressure on a teenager away from home and family on one of the biggest stages in the world. There can’t have been many Olympic athletes who went back to ninth-grade classes when they returned home from Mexico City.

Cathy’s goal remained the 1972 Munich Olympics, but it was not to be. She continued to compete in the years following the ’68 Olympics and remained a force to be reckoned with.

She won the long jump in the March 1969 Phoenix Invitational AAU Women’s Track and Field Meet and took first place in a triathlon event in June 1970 at South Lake Tahoe, California. But she did not make the 1972 Olympics team.

“The injury from the Olympics never healed right,” Becky said. “She never had surgery for it because my parents couldn’t afford that.”

‘Nobody cared’

Becky said that over the years, Cathy worked at times as a waitress and a bartender. She had two long-term relationships, but she never married and never had children of her own.

“She was a great aunt,” Becky said. “She would have been a great mother. She had a nice, sweet soul. She was childlike in a lot of ways.”

Becky said her sister did not like to talk about the Olympics.

“She said, ‘Nobody cared about our running. Nobody ever cared.’”

Becky said Cathy lived much of her life as a recluse, although they remained close to each other and would regularly walk together.

They last saw each other on March 8, Becky’s birthday. They met at Cathy’s apartment in the Coronado Mall area. Cathy gave Becky a birthday gift, a book, “Astronomy With the Naked Eye” by Garrett P. Serviss, copyright 1908.

They walked toward Coronado Mall and stopped at a McDonald’s so Cathy could get a strawberry shake, her favorite.

“She was in great shape at 70,” Becky said. “But she was not well that day. She had a respiratory problem.”

Becky believes pneumonia took her sister’s life near the end of March.

“I called her to see how she was doing,” Becky said. “She said a nurse was going to come by for a home visit. The last thing she said to me is ‘I’m OK.’”

Photos: Cathy Hamblin makes 1968 Olympic team