Grady

[DoubleRBar]

Happy birthday today (Thursday) to an Olympic champion who won that Olympic gold medal on Cordner Nelson's (Co-Founder of TFN) 18th birthday.

Born 106 years ago this day in February, our birthday champion died at the age of 77 just a few months before the World Championships in Tokyo, Japan.

This birthday athlete competed in only one Olympic Games and won the gold medal on a Thursday at the age of 22.

You might be interested to know that our birthday person was born on Ronald Reagan's third birthday and then again, maybe you wouldn't be interested.

Our birthday individual competed in other sports, but track and field was the best.

Now, name our birthday athlete for this first Thursday of February.

[KDFINE]

Well since the clue doesn't mention that the athlete didn't compete in the hurdles, and won gold in 1936, my guess is Glen Hardin.
P.S. I'm wrong.

[DoubleRBar]

A very good guess, KDFINE, however you picked the wrong athlete.

Glenn Hardin competed in two Olympics (silver medal in Los Angeles in 1932) and was about four years older than our birthday athlete.

[bambam1729]

Forrest Towns - his middle name is Grady

[DoubleRBar]

Forrest Grady Towns it was bambam1729. Nice going. Towns, of course, won the 1936 Berlin Olympic 110 hurdles on the first Thursday of August. This coming April (9th) will mark 29 years since his death at the age of 77. Forrest Towns won the gold medal with a time of 14.2 and three weeks after the Olympics in Berlin, he ran 13.7 in Oslo, Norway to become the first athlete to run the 110 hurdles under 14.0. That 13.7 broke his own world record of 14.1 which he set about seven weeks before the Olympics in Berlin and then tied it in the qualifying heats (semi-final) at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.