Lelia Kym Carter Begel is a former heptathlete

Heptathlon

A heptathlon is a track and field athletics combined events contest made up of seven events. The name derives from the Greek hepta and athlon . A competitor in a heptathlon is referred to as a heptathlete.-Women's Heptathlon:...

 from the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, who represented her native country at the 1992 Summer Olympics

1992 Summer Olympics

The 1992 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event celebrated in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, in 1992. The International Olympic Committee voted in 1986 to separate the Summer and Winter Games, which had been held in the same...

 in Barcelona, Spain. There she finished in eleventh place.

Kym is the executive director of the Carl Lewis Foundation and a board member of Sound Body Sound Mind, a program to increase physical fitness in high schools. She is the mother of boy–girl twins.

Education

• Wichita High School East
  Wichita High School East
  Wichita High School East, known locally as East, is a public, co-educational secondary school located near the center of Wichita, Kansas With a student population of 2,200, it is the largest high school in the state. Originally known as Wichita High School, East was the first of eight traditional...
  
  , Class of 1982
• University of Houston
  University of Houston
  The University of Houston is a state research university, and is the flagship institution of the University of Houston System. Founded in 1927, it is Texas's third-largest university with nearly 40,000 students. Its campus spans 667 acres in southeast Houston, and was known as University of...
  
  
• Louisiana State University
  Louisiana State University
  Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, most often referred to as Louisiana State University, or LSU, is a public coeducational university located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The University was founded in 1853 in what is now known as Pineville, Louisiana, under the name...
  
  

IAAF World Indoor Championships

• Silver medal in the pentathlon
  Pentathlon
  A pentathlon is a contest featuring five different events. The name is derived from Greek: combining the words pente and -athlon . The first pentathlon was documented in Ancient Greece and was part of the Ancient Olympic Games...
  
   at the 1995 IAAF World Indoor Championships
  1995 IAAF World Indoor Championships
  The 5th IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics were held at the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain from 10 March to 12 March 1995. There were a total number of 602 participating athletes from 130 countries.-Men:-Women:-Medal table:...
  
  
• Bronze medal in the pentathlon at the 1997 IAAF World Indoor Championships
  1997 IAAF World Indoor Championships
  The 6th IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics were held at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy in Paris, France from March 7 to March 9, 1997. It was the first athletic championships to introduce women's pole vault...
  
  

Notable Achievements

In 1993, she earned her first World Ranking (No. 8) in the heptathlon and ended the season ranked number 1. It was the first time since 1985 that another American outranked Jackie Joyner-Kersee

Jackie Joyner-Kersee

Jacqueline "Jackie" Joyner-Kersee is a retired American athlete, ranked among the all-time greatest athletes in the women's heptathlon as well as in the women's long jump. She won three gold, one silver, and two bronze Olympic medals, in those four different events...

 in the multi except for 1989 when Joyner-Kersee didn't compete.

In 1982, while at Wichita East High School (the same high school as national record holder in the mile, Jim Ryun

Jim Ryun

James Ronald Ryun is an American former track athlete and politician, who was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1996 to 2007, representing the 2nd District in Kansas. In the 2006 election, Ryun was defeated by Democratic challenger Nancy Boyda...

, she set the NFHS national high school record in the high jump

High jump

The high jump is a track and field athletics event in which competitors must jump over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without the aid of certain devices in its modern most practiced format; auxiliary weights and mounds have been used for assistance; rules have changed over the years....

at 6' 2 1/4". The record lasted for three years.