Alma Richards
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| Olympic medalist | |||
 Alma Richards |
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| Medal record | |||
| Men's athletics | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Gold | 1912 Stockholm | High jump | |
Alma Wilford Richards (February 20, 1890 – April 3, 1963) was the first resident of Utah to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games, in 1912, in the running high jump event.
Alma Richards was an eighth grade farm boy living in Utah who decided to stop school and explore the world. But shortly after his departure he met a Native American named Thomas Trueblood who convinced Richards to return to school.
In high school, a coach saw Richards playing basketball, and instructed him to jump over a six foot high bar. He did so easily. The coach then proceeded to raise money to get Richards to the 1912 Trials in the High Jump. Richards proceeded to defeat American champion George Horine in the final and win the gold medal.
Richards graduated from Cornell University in 1917, where he was also a member of the Quill and Dagger society.
[edit] External links
| Olympic champions in men's high jump |
|---|
| 1896: Ellery Clark | 1900: Irving Baxter | 1904: Samuel Jones | 1906: Cornelius Leahy | 1908: Harry Porter | 1912: Alma Richards | 1920: Richmond Landon | Harold Osborn | 1928: Robert King | 1932: Duncan McNaughton | 1936: Cornelius Johnson | 1948: John Winter | 1952: Walter Davis | 1956: Charles Dumas | 1960: Robert Shavlakadze | 1964: Valeriy Brumel | 1968: Dick Fosbury | 1972: Jüri Tarmak | 1976: Jacek Wszoła | 1980: Gerd Wessig | 1984: Dietmar Mögenburg | 1988: Gennadiy Avdeyenko | 1992: Javier Sotomayor | 1996: Charles Austin | 2000: Sergey Klyugin | 2004: Stefan Holm |
Categories: 1890 births | 1963 deaths | American track and field athletes | Athletes at the 1912 Summer Olympics | Cornell University alumni | High jumpers | Latter Day Saints | Olympic gold medalists for the United States | Sigma Phi Epsilon brothers | United States track and field athletics biography stubs | LDS stubs
