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Use the menu below to read our biographies of the century's greatest sportswomen and then tell us who you think should be No. 1. Also, be sure to check out our expanded home page and our new issue which is on newsstands now.

56. Anita DeFrantz, Rowing

1952-
Olympic bronze medalist, First woman to represent the U.S. on the International Olympic Committee

DeFrantz got her Olympic start as a rower. USOC
A descendant of slaves, the great-granddaughter of a Louisiana plantation owner and one of his female servants, Anita DeFrantz rose from humble beginnings to become one of the most powerful women in the Olympic sports movement.

In 1986, the International Olympic Committee appointed DeFrantz to lifetime membership in the organization. The fifth woman ever named to hold a seat on the 93-member IOC, DeFrantz is both the first African-American and the first American woman to serve on the committee. She became the first female vice-president of the IOC executive committee in 1997.

DeFrantz might never have ascended to such heights were it not for a chance encounter during her sophomore year at Connecticut College in 1973. DeFrantz, whose high school in Indianapolis offered no team sports for girls, was attending college on an academic scholarship. One day, as she was walking across campus, she noticed a man carrying a long, thin boat and stopped to ask him what it was. The boat was actually a rowing shell and the man was rowing coach Bart Gulong. He encouraged the 5'11" DeFrantz to give the sport a try. Three years later, DeFrantz won the bronze medal in women's eight -- the first women's rowing event ever contested at the Games -- as captain of the U.S. rowing team at the 1976 Montreal Games.

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and passing the bar exam in Pennsylvania, DeFrantz began training for shot at a gold medal at the 1980 Games. When then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter decided to boycott the Moscow Games, DeFrantz was one of the few athletes to protest publicly. She led a group that filed an an ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit against the U.S. Olympic Committee which sought to force the committee to overturn its decision and send a team to Moscow. DeFrantz received the Olympic Order medal from the IOC for her efforts.

As vice president of the 1984 Los Angeles Games Organizing Committee, DeFrantz helped transform the Olympic movement. She was instrumental in convincing 43 African nations not to boycott those Games when South African runner Zola Budd was allowed to compete in the Games for Great Britain. Only Ethiopia, an ally of the boycotting Soviet Union, refused. In 1992, Defrantz became chair of the IOC's Committee on Women and Sports and played a key role in getting women's soccer and softball added to the Atlanta Games as medal sports in 1996. As the Olympic movement forges into the next century,. DeFrantz is considered a potential president of the IOC.

They said it: "The way society views women has changed for the better. Funding for sports has changed for the better. And the potential for women to survive --if not make a living -- in sports has increased because the USOC has been able to finance more of them." -- DeFrantz

--Aimee Crawford

Athletes were selected by Sports Illustrated For Women, Sports Illustrated and CNN/SI editors, writers and correspondents who considered the athletes' on-field performance and achievements, plus their contributions to women's sports. Because athletic achievement was a key criterion, women whose contributions were made solely in administration and coaching are not included.