Today I"d like to talk about a well-known sportswoman. Wilma Rudolph won
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and broke 200-meter dash world record in the Rome Olympic Games of 1960. How could anyone believe it if he knew her as a young girl,
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, including polio, which made doctors predict that she would not be able to walk all her life. Her life journey was a manifesto of
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.
Wilma was born prematurely and weighed
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. Again, because of racial segregation, she and her mother were not permitted to be cared for
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. It was for whites only. There was only
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in Clarksville, and the Rudolphs" budget was tight, so Wilma"s mother
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nursing Wilma through one illness after another: measles, mumps, scarlet fever, chicken pox and
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. It was also discovered that Wilma"s left leg and foot were becoming
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. But Mrs. Rudolph would not give up on Wilma.
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helped too, and they did everything to encourage her to be strong and
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. Finally, by age 12, she could
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, without the crutches, brace, or corrective shoes. It was then that she decided to
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. Her first accomplishments were to stay alive and get well! In high school, she
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, who set state records for scoring and led her team to
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. Then she became a track star, going to her first Olympic Games in 1956 at the age of 16. She
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in the 4×400-meter relay. On September 7th, 1960, in Rome, Wilma became the first American woman to win three gold medals in the Olympics. She won
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, the 200-meter dash, and ran the anchor on
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.
Her triumphs against the odds were testimonial that what a person can accomplish
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no matter how hard they seem at the time. Most limitations in our life are the imposition of
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.