WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH - WILMA RUDOLPH

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilma_Rudolph

Wilma Rudolph was born prematurely at 4.5 lbs. , with 21 brothers and sisters, and caught infantile paralysis (caused by the polio virus) as a very young child. She recovered, but wore a brace on her left leg and foot which had become twisted as a result. By the time she was twelve years old, she had also survived scarlet fever, whooping cough, chickenpox, and measles. Her family drove her regularly from Clarksville, Tennessee to Nashville, Tennessee for treatments to straighten her twisted leg.


Wilma Rudolph at the finish line during 50 yard dash at track meet in Madison Square Garden, 1961In 1952, 12-year-old Wilma Rudolph finally achieved her dream of shedding her handicap and becoming like other children.

Wilma Glodean Rudolph (June 23, 1940 – November 12, 1994) was an American athlete. Rudolph was considered the fastest woman in the world in the 1960s and competed in two Olympic Games, in 1956 and in 1960.

In the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome she became the first American woman to win three gold medals in track and field during a single Olympic Games.[1] A track and field champion, she elevated women's track to a major presence in the United States. She is also regarded as a civil rights and women's rights pioneer. Along with other 1960 Olympic athletes such as Cassius Clay, who later became Muhammad Ali, Rudolph became an international star due to the first international television coverage of the Olympics that year.[2]

The powerful sprinter emerged from the 1960 Rome Olympics as "The Tornado," the fastest woman on earth.[3] The Italians nicknamed her "La Gazzella Negra" (the Black Gazelle); to the French she was "La Perle Noire" (The Black Pearl).[4][5] She is one of the most famous Tennessee State University Tigerbelles, the name of the TSU women's track and field program.

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