INSPIRING STORY OF THE SPRINTER WILMA RUDOLPH
INSPIRING STORY OF THE SPRINTER WILMA RUDOLPH Wilma Rudolph was an Olympic sprinter, who became the first American woman to win three gold medals in a single Olympic game. She won three gold medals in the 100-meter and 200-meter individual events and the 4*100-meter relay at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy. Wilma was born prematurely in a poor family as 20th child among 22 children in Tennessee, weighing 2 kg (4.5 pounds) on June 23, 1940. EARLY LIFE Wilma suffered from several early childhood illnesses. At the age of four, she had double pneumonia with scarlet fever and she contracted infantile paralysis (caused by poliovirus) at the age of five. She recovered from polio, but lost strength in her left leg and feet, physically disabled for much of her early life. She had to wear a leg brace and an orthopedic shoe. The doctor said she would never put her foot on the earth. But her mother encouraged her; she told Wilma that with God-given ...