Grady

[DoubleRBar]

Happy birthday today (Wednesday) to an Olympic champion who started out as a high jumper, but won the Olympic gold medal in a running event.

Born 99 years ago this day in February (Ronald Reagan was born 102 years ago today), our birthday athlete died at the age of 77.

This athlete's father was a blacksmith and this athlete had five siblings.

After high school, our birthday person drove a taxi.

You may eliminate all the weight events and all the distance events when trying to figure which track and field event our birthday athlete won Olympic gold.

Married to Martha, this athlete had two boys.

Our Olympic star served in the U.S. Army during World War II.

Three weeks after winning the Olympic gold medal, our birthday person set a new world record at the age of 22.

A NCAA champion, this athlete went on to coach at the same college.

You probably know our birthday medalist by now.

Twenty-eight years before our birthday individual won the Olympic Games gold medal, another person with the same first name won the Olympic gold medal in the same event.

Enough clues. Name this gold medal winner.

[Per Andersen]

Forrest Towns. WR in Oslo, 13.7.

[DoubleRBar]

Per Andersen, you are correct. Very nice work. Happy birthday today to Forrest Towns who won the 1936 Berlin 110 hurdles. You're right, three weeks later, Forrest set a new world record of 13.7 in Norway, breaking his own world record. Forrest Towns was an amazing athlete and most of you know that he coached track and field for many years at the University of Georgia. Over the years, I have wondered what he could have done had he used an all-weather track and trained like today's professional athletes. Of course we'll never know, but it is fun to speculate.