Wilma Rudolph wore a leg brace until 12, then became the world's fastest woman
Polio struck Wilma Rudolph at age five and left her left leg weak; she wore a brace until she was twelve. Eight years later, at the 1960 Rome Olympics, she won the 100 metres, the 200 metres and the sprint relay, the first American woman to take three track golds at one Games.
She was born prematurely in 1940 in Saint Bethlehem, Tennessee, weighing 4.5 pounds, the 20th of 22 children from her father's two marriages. He was a railway porter and her mother a maid in Clarksville homes. Pneumonia and scarlet fever came before polio. Because Black residents of Clarksville had little access to medical care, she and her mother rode the bus to Meharry Medical College in Nashville, about 50 miles away, every week for two years, while relatives massaged her leg four times a day at home.
Frequent illness kept her out of school until second grade. At the all-Black Burt High School she followed her sister Yvonne into basketball, scoring 803 points as a sophomore, a state record for high school girls; her coach called her Skeeter, short for mosquito, because she moved so fast. Tennessee State's track coach, Ed Temple, spotted her on the basketball court. She lost her first major track race, at Tuskegee Institute, and resolved to keep going.
At 16 she ran in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, earning bronze in the relay. Her daughter Yolanda was born in 1958, weeks before she enrolled at Tennessee State, where a work-study programme covered her education. Worldwide television coverage of the Rome Games made her an international celebrity alongside Cassius Clay, and as one of the most visible Black women of her era she helped raise the status of women's athletics in America.
She retired in 1962 at her peak, holding world records in the 100, 200 and relay, then graduated in education in 1963 and worked as a teacher and coach. She died of cancer in 1994. A US postage stamp, films and many children's books keep her story alive, and she is honoured as a pioneer for civil rights and women's rights.
Source: Wilma Rudolph
