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Show Hall of hame awaits Alma Richards Alma Richards, a Parowan native who won the Olympic Gold Medal in the high jump, may soon join the track and field immortals in the national Hall of Fame in Charleston, West Virginia. Richards, one of the charter members of the Utah Sports Hall of Fame, was the only one, to win an far the only one, to win an Olympic Gold Medal. In 1910 Richards represented Murdock Academy of Beaver in the State Interscholastic meet and won the high jump and shot put, then placed second in pole vault and broadjump. He led the Academy to the State Championship. Then in 1911 in an intercollegiate meet in Provo he won again and in 1912 at a meet in Logan he won the high jump, pole vault, and broadjump, and placed second in the discus. Alma Richards was a great athlete and defeated Jim Thorpe many times. Thorpe was in the field of contestants when Richards won the Gold Medal in Stockholm and in 1915 Richards won the national AAU decathlon championship cham-pionship in connection with the world's Fair in San Francisco. He set a new worlds record. He also broke Jim Thorpe's Olympic Decathlon record. Richards competed over a 23 year span which qualifies for championship performances per-formances over the longest span. He reached his greatest heights in the U. S. Expeditionary Ex-peditionary Forces Games in Paris in 1919 when he won the high jump, standing broad jump, placed second in the triple jump and third in the broadjump. He also qualified for the finals in the shot and discus but was unable to compete as he had too many events scheduled for the final day. In awarding awar-ding the four medals General John Pershing said "Lieutenant Richards you are the greatest athlete in the Armed Forces." The Olympic Gold Medal was just the beginning of his career as he won his first in the high jump in Chicago in 1913 and won his last medal in the 56 pound weight toss in 1932. Richards' "best performances" per-formances" wouldn't make headlines in modern track and field, but, consider he competed on a national level in high jump, broadjump, pole vault, discus, 56 pound weight, 100 meters and 400 meters over his career. The highlight of his long career was when King Gustav stepped forward and placed the Gold Medal around nis neck after he won the high jump and broke the Olympic Record in Stockholm at the Olympic Games. |