Education
All of his feats were equalled by female pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva, completed in 2012.
All of his feats were equalled by female pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva, completed in 2012.
He competed in the 1948, 1952, and 1956 Summer Olympics as a pole vaulter, and as a decathlete in 1956. He also was 13th in the 1956 decathlon. Richards was the second man to pole vault 15 ft (457 m).
While a student at the University of Illinois, Richards tied for the national collegiate pole vault title and followed that with 20 national Amateur Athletic Union (Amateur Athletic Union) titles, including 17 in the pole vault and three in the decathlon.
The first man to clear 15 feet was Dutch Warmerdam, who set the world record of 4.77 m (15 ft 73⁄4 in) in 1942, long before Richards came into his prime. Richards later became involved in promoting physical fitness and continued to vault in his later years.
He was the first athlete to appear on the front of Wheaties cereal boxes in 1958 (though not the first depicted on all parts of the packaging), and also was the first Wheaties spokesman, setting up the Wheaties Sports Federation, which encouraged participation in Olympic sports. As he aged, Richards continued participating in Track and Field in a variety of events, particularly throwing events.
He was one of the first regular participants in the origins of what now has become Masters athletics.
In 1984 Richards ran for President of the United States on the newly formed far-right Populist Party ticket. He and running mate Maureen Salaman earned 66,324 votes. In 1988 that same party nominated white-supremacist David Duke for President.
In 1957 the actor Hal Stalmaster played Richards as a teenager in an episode of the American Broadcasting Company anthology series Cavalcade of America.
In 2010 Richards reportedly expressed support for a white nationalist political party called the American Third Position Party.