Dawn Harper-Nelson (2022) - Hall of Fame

Dawn Harper-Nelson

Induction:
2022

One of the top hurdlers in UCLA history, Harper-Nelson led the women's track & field program to the 2004 NCAA Outdoor Championship and earned a total of four All-America honors outdoors and seven indoors. Harper-Nelson is the only woman in UCLA history to break the eight-second barrier in the 60m hurdles, running 7.98 in March 2006, and she holds UCLA's No. 4 mark in the 100m hurdles with a time of 12.80, set in 2006. In 2004, she contributed to the Bruins' No. 1 and No. 2 4x100m relay times that stood for 18 years. Harper-Nelson has had a long and successful international career, winning the gold medal in the 100m hurdles at the 2008 Olympics with a personal-best time of 12.54. Four years later, she won silver at the 2012 Olympics, running another lifetime best time of 12.37 in the Olympic final. Although she missed qualifying for a third Olympics in 2016 by .01 seconds, Harper-Nelson continued to excel internationally, winning the silver medal in the 100m hurdles at the 2017 World Championships.