Wilma Rudolph.

Wilma Rudolph. Wilma Rudolph (1940-1994), American track-and-field athlete, who was the first American woman to win three track-and-field gold medals at a single Olympic Games. Born in Saint Bethlehem, Tennessee, Rudolph was educated at Tennessee State University. Although she contracted double pneumonia, polio, and scarlet fever at the age of 4 and could not walk normally until the age of 11, she became an outstanding basketball player in high school and competed in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, winning a bronze medal in the 4 x 100-meter relay race. At the 1960 Olympics in Rome, she won the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes and ran the anchor (last) leg on the winning 4 x 100-meter relay team. In 1961 she won the James E. Sullivan Memorial Award, given annually by the Amateur Athletic Union of the United States (AAU) to the nation's top amateur athlete. Rudolph retired from competitive sports that same year and later became a teacher and coach. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.