Wilma Rudolph

According to the Wiki.. Wilma Glodean Rudolph (1940-1994) was an American athlete, and in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy, she became the first American woman to win three gold medals in track and field during a single Olympic Games, despite running on a sprained ankle. A track and field champion, she elevated women's track to a major presence in the United States.

I found this to be so amazing:

At the age of 4 it was discovered that she had polio. In 1947 her mother took her to Nashville's Meharry Medical College, a hospital for blacks 50 miles from their home, twice a week. Because of the expense and difficulty of obtaining professional medical care, Wilma's mother usually treated her ailing child at home. Rudolph remembered that during her youth, "my mother used to have all these home remedies she would make herself, and I lived on them". Many nights her mother, tired after a long day's work, would sit on Wilma's bed and massage her daughter's leg well into the evening hours. Blanche Rudolph kept telling her polio-stricken daughter she would one day walk without braces.

In 1952, 12-year old Wilma Rudolph finally achieved her dream of shedding her handicap and becoming like other children. Wilma's older sister was on a basketball team, and Wilma vowed to follow in her footsteps. While in high school Wilma was on the basketball team, when she was spotted by Tennessee State track and field coach Edward S. Temple. Being discovered by Temple was a major break for a young athlete. The day he saw the tenth grader Wilma Rudolph for the first time, he knew he had found a natural athlete.

Wilma and her mother are women of inspiration.. people who would not give up despite what doctors told them.. women who held onto their dreams and worked diligently to see them come to pass. They represent the best of humanity.