 Sterkel represented the United States in three Summer Olympics.As a 15-year-old at the 1976 Summer Olympics, she won a gold medal as a member of the winning U.S. team in the women's 4×100-meter freestyle relay, together with her teammates Kim Peyton, Wendy Boglioli and Shirley Babashoff.After the U.S. women's team had been outshone in nearly every event by their East German rivals, Peyton, Boglioli, Sterkel and Babashoff achieved a moral victory by not only winning the relay gold medal, but also by breaking the East Germans' world record in the event final.