Despite not being able to walk in her early years she pushed through and Wilma Rudolph became the fastest woman runner in the world and won three gold medals in the Olympics.
Background:
Wilma Rudolph was born in Saint Bethlehem, Tennessee on June 23, 1940 (Streissguth 4). Wilma was born a sick baby weighing only 4.5 pounds and struggling to breathe. In her early years she also caught many sicknesses for example, measles, mumps, double pneumonia, scarlet fever, and chickenpox (Streissguth 6 - 8). She also lived in a segregated town so her family was looked down upon and criticized for being black. As a result of this they were poor (Streissguth 4 - 5, 6). She also had other difficult hardships.
Body Paragraph: Wilma went through many hardships throughout her life but her worst was Polio. At age four Wilma caught. There are different types of Polio one type can affect your muscles but Wilma got the worst type which paralyzed her legs (Streissguth 6 - 8). Another type of hardship was that she was black and she lived in a segregated town so her family was looked down upon. Also Blanche Rudolph, Wilma’s mother was not able to take Wilma to a decent hospital to treat her Polio. The closest hospital that they could go to was almost fifty miles away in Nashville (Streissguth 8 - 9). They also had little money so …show more content…
her parents could not afford to buy treatments for Wilma. Her parents also had to work overtime to get extra money, so Blanche Rudolph could not spend a lot of time trying to assist Wilma in healing her leg. But, she used all of the little time she had to try to heal Wilma’s leg. Through many techniques Wilma overcame Polio and her other hardships.
Body Paragraph: Wilma used many techniques to overcome her obstacles. Blanche would run her hands up and down Wilma’s leg to try to strengthen it. She would also wrap hot towels and put wilma under heavy blankets to try to sweat out the disease (Streissguth 10). Wilma would also hop around her kitchen to try to strengthen her leg (Streissguth 11). Her siblings also would give her confidence and push her to walk and exercise her leg to heal it. Wilma would also take all the criticism and use it to push through the pain (Streissguth 11).
Body Paragraph: Despite all of her hardships she had many great accomplishments. For example, she won her first high school track meet and was recruited by the tigerbelles which was the best track team in America (Streissguth 38). As a result of this she got a scholarship to Tennessee State University. She also made it onto the Olympic team and was the fastest on the team (Streissguth 45). At her first Olympics in Rome she was only 16 years-old and won a bronze medal. She then trained for the next Olympics in four years. In her next Olympics she won two gold medals (Streissguth 71). Then in her third Olympic games she won another gold medal and was considered the fastest woman in the world.
Conclusion:
Sadly Wilma died on November 2, 1994 as a result of brain cancer.
She also died in her hometown, Clarksville, Tennessee (Schraff 92). On November 17, four thousand people gathered at Tennessee State University to honor Wilma at her memorial. This also shows the amount of people who supported her and cared for her (Schraff 92). In Wilma’s lifetime of fifty four years she said many great things and a few are, “When the sun is shining I can do anything; no mountain is too high, no trouble too difficult to overcome.” , “The triumph can't be had without the struggle.”, and “No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helps
you.”