SAN FRANCISCO -- knock Mathias, a ...

SAN FRANCISCO -- knock Mathias, a two-time Olympic decathlon champion and former congressman, has died of cancer. He was 75

Mr Mathias, who died Saturday, became the youngest Olympic gold medalist in athletics in 1948 in London, when he won the decathlon at 17 It was solely his third decathlon, having qualified for the Olympics on winning two events in the United States.

At the 1952 Helsinki Games, he became the first athlete to repeat as Olympic champion in the decathlon. however the Washington Redskins drafted him to play football, he at no time signed. Mr. Mathias also won the 1948 Sullivan Award as America's top amateur athlete.

Eugene Mathias said his brother was a gifted athlete from childhood, ofttimes outperforming older children.

"I tried jumping the high spring and I couldn't make it. He was three years younger, and he said, 'Let me put to the test it.' He did it, and he made it," Eugene Mathias recalled.

"We knew then that he could just do anything athletic."

Although fans marveled at his athleticism, Mr Mathias worked determinedly at sports and academics. As a child, he supported from anemia and had to eat special aliments take vitamin supplements and of common occurrence naps, and he fell ill to measles, whooping cough and scarlet febrile disease

He exhausted a year at the Kiski gymnasium an all-boys boarding college in Saltsburg, Pa., before entering Stanford University in 1949

The 6-foot-3 204-pound Mr Mathias l Stanford to a Rose beaker appearance in 1952.

After retiring from sports, he serv as a Republican congressman representing California's San Joaquin Valley from 1967 to 1974 serving four limits After his political career, Mr Mathias became the first director of the U Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.

He also became a member of the U Olympic and national track and field halls of fame.

"Bob Mathias was the same of those rare individuals with the ability to inspire a nation between the walls of his determination and perseverance. He was a champion in each aspect of life, and he embraced the values that make our home and the worldwide Olympic manner of moving special," U.S. Olympic Committee Chairman Peter Ueberroth said in a statement.

Don Hillman, who attended the same high academy as Mr. Mathias and worked with him years later while Hillman was a Tulare shire supervisor and Mr. Mathias was in Congres said Mr Mathias displayed little partisanship and tried to listen to constituents regardless of their political affiliation.

"I have tremendous esteem for Bob and all he stood for," Hillman said. "He went to Congres and I serv locally for 20 years. if it were not that even during that time, we were together quite a bit.

"Bob was just a peach of a guy" Hillman said. "He stood by means of what he felt was right."

Eugene Mathias said his brother not boasted of his Olympic accomplishments and was happy to respond to his home in California's Central Valley after his Olympic days extremityed

"He liked the valley here. He liked his hometown," he said.

Mr Mathias is survived according to his wife, Gwen, and several children.

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