Wilma Rudolph .net - FanSite & Bookstore

American sprinter Wilma Rudolph is characterized by her tremendous gait on the track and her natural athleticism. Indeed she seems to have been born from a family that spawned well-conditioned children from the very start.

And what a family! The Wilma Rudolph family would reach 22 children by the end of Rudolph’s tenure with it, and several of them – Rudolph’s sister included, who was a star basketball player – excelled in sports. And despite polio-stricken legs that initially kept her bed-bound, Rudolph would quickly follow in their footsteps. Her polio was eventually done away with by her mother’s slew of home remedies and constant care, often administered after long days at work.

Her mother promised Rudolph that she would one day walk without her braces, and that promise came true. But could her mother have ever anticipated the heights to which Rudolph soared just a few years later?