| Sprinter Wilma Rudolph, born this day in 1940 in St. Bethlehem, near Clarksville, Tennessee, was the first American woman to win three track-and-field gold medals in a single Olympics. After earning a bronze medal as a member of the 4 × 100-metre relay team at the 1956 Olympic Games at Melbourne, Australia, Rudolph won gold medals in the 100-metre dash, the 200-metre dash, and the 4 × 100-metre relay (anchoring the team to a new world record of 44.4 seconds in a semifinal race) at the 1960 Games in Rome. |