Wilma rudolph biography for kids

Wilma Rudolph was born in the South in 1940s to strong, caring parents. When she contracted polio at the age of four, doctors told her she would never walk normally again.The ridicule from other children hurt her feelings terribly, but the support of her family kept her spirit strong.

She faithfully did the exercises she learned at therapy and practiced her walking more very day until finally, when she was ten years old, she could walk and run as fast as she wanted all by herself.

Wilma ran track in high school and kept her grades up, too, knowing that winning races would get her medals, but a good education would get her through life.At age 15, she won a bronze medal in the 1956 Olympic Games, and three years later became the first in her family of 22 children to go to college.She studied hard and excelled in track, learning how to lose with grace and improve with practice.

Her tenacious spirit propelled her to the 1960 Olympic Games, where she became the first woman in the Uni