RUDOLPH, WILMA

born June 23, 1940, St. Bethlehem, near Clarksville, Tenn., U.S. died Nov. 12, 1994, Brentwood, Tenn. Wilma Rudolph, 1961. in full Wilma Glodean Rudolph sprinter, the first American woman runner to win three gold medals at a single Olympics. Wilma Rudolph winning the 200-metre race at the 1960 Summer Olympic Games in Rome. A series of illnesses in infancy left Rudolph without the use of one leg, and only constant exercise and care enabled her finally to learn to walk when she was eight. Three years later she had progressed enough to discard her specially reinforced shoe. She became a star basketball player and sprinter at Clarksville High School and attended Tennessee State University from 1957 to 1961. When she was 16, the team of which she was a member won the bronze medal in the 4 100-metre relay race in the 1956 Summer Olympic Games at Melbourne, Australia. In 1960, before the Olympic Games at Rome, she set a world record of 22.9 seconds for the 200-metre race. In the Games themselves she won gold medals in the 100-metre dash (tying the world record: 11.3 seconds), the 200-metre dash (see photograph), and as a member of the 4 100-metre relay team, which had set a world record of 44.4 seconds in a semifinal race. Her strikingly fluid style made Rudolph a particular favourite with spectators and journalists. She won the Amateur Athletic Union's 1961 Sullivan Award as the year's outstanding amateur athlete. After retiring as a runner, Rudolph worked on Operation Champion to provide children and teenagers in the nation's largest ghettos with sports training from star athletes. She also founded the Wilma Rudolph Foundation in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1982 to encourage community-based track and field programs. She was named to the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1974, the International Sports Hall of Fame in 1980, and the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1983. Her autobiography, Wilma, was published in 1977.