Hall of Fame

Bob Richards is the only man to win two Olympic gold medals in the pole vault and was the first athlete to appear on the front of a Wheaties box. The Champaign, Illinois, native won 20 national Amateur Athletic Union track and field titles, including 17 in the pole vault and three in the decathlon. He won the bronze medal in pole vault at the Olympic Games Berlin 1948. Four years later, Richards, then a theology professor and ordained minister, won his first gold at the Helsinki Games. He would defend his Olympic title at the Melbourne 1956 Games, becoming the first and only man to win two Olympic golds in the pole vault. His four sons each competed in pole vaulting, and as he aged, Richards himself continued to compete in track and field events in the origins of what is now masters athletics.