Biografia-Wilma Rudolf-Ingles

Wilma Rudolf
Biography

Wilma Rudolf was born premature on June 23, 1940 in Bethlehem, Tennessee. She was the 20th of 22 children. Her parents, Ed and Blanche Rudolph, were honest, hardworkingpeople, but were very poor. Mr. Rudolph worked as a railroad porter and handyman. Mrs. Rudolph did cooking, laundry and housecleaning for wealthy white families. Wilma weighed only 4.5 pounds but was notpermitted to be taken care of in the hospital because of racial segregation. She was a very sickly child, she got pneumonia and scarlet fever, later it was discovered she had polio. All theseailments contributed to a bad leg that some said would prevent her from ever walking. Her family made sure she got medical attention and provided physical therapy for her leg four times a day. She wore abrace for the time she was five until she was 11 or 12 years old.

Growing up in the South during days of segregation, Rudolph attended an African-American high school where she played on thebasketball team. A naturally gifted runner, she was later recruited for the track team. Rudolph qualified for the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia. At the age of 16, she was the youngest member ofthe U.S. team and won a bronze medal in the sprint relay event. After finishing high school, Rudolph enrolled at Tennessee State University, where she studied education. She also trained hard for thenext Olympics. She won 3 gold medals in the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, Italy.
After retiring from competition in the early 1960s, Rudolph worked as a teacher and a track coach. She shared herremarkable story with the world in 1977 with her autobiography, Wilma. Her book was later turned into a television film. In the 1980s, she was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame and established theWilma Rudolph Foundation to promote amateur athletics.
Rudolph died on November 12, 1994, at the age of 54, near Nashville, Tennessee, from brain cancer. In 2004, the United States Postal Service...