Bob Mathias

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Robert Bruce ("Bob") Mathias (born November 19, 1930 in Tulare, California) was an American decathlete, two-time Olympic gold medalist, and a Congressman.

Bob Mathias took up the decathlon at the suggestion of his coach at Tulare High School early in 1948. During the summer, he qualified for the United States Olympic team for the 1948 Summer Olympics held in London.

In the Olympics, Mathias' naïveté for the decathlon was exposed. He was unaware of the rules in the shot put and nearly fouled out of the event. He almost failed in the high jump but was able to recover. Mathias overcame his difficulties and won the Olympic gold medal easily.

Mathias continued to fare well in decathlons in the four years between the London games and the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. In 1948, Mathias won the Sullivan Award as the nation's top amateur athlete, but because his scholastic record in high school did not match his athletic achievement, he spent a year at The Kiski School, a well respected all boys boarding school in Saltsburg, Pa. He then entered Stanford University in 1949, and played college football for two years. Mathias set his first decathlon world record in 1950 and led Stanford to a Rose Bowl appearance in 1952.

At Helsinki, Mathias asserted himself as one of the world's best athletes. He won the decathlon by 912 points, an astounding margin, becoming the first to successfully defend an Olympic decathlon title. He returned to the United States as a national hero.

After the Olympics, Mathias retired from athletics having won two gold medals. He later appeared in a film about his early life called The Bob Mathias Story.

Between 1967 and 1974, he served in the United States House of Representatives as a Republican from California.

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