About Henry Wittenberg
Henry Wittenberg was an American New York police officer, coach, competitor and Olympic champion in freestyle wrestling. He won two Olympic medals in freestyle wrestling, becoming the first American wrestler since 1908 to achieve this feat. After Army service in the early 1940s, he served with commendations as a New York City Police Officer until around 1954, worked as an instructor and college wrestling coach at Yeshiva and then City College of New York from 1967 to 1979, competed in, coached, and helped to organize the Maccabiah Games, and served as an American Olympic coach in 1968 at Mexico City. Four years after his first Olympics despite having trained only a year after a long time off, Wittenberg competed in the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki as the returning champion. He won two Olympic medals in freestyle wrestling (1948 and 1952), becoming the first American wrestler since 1908 to achieve this feat. Nearly undefeated, between 1939 and 1951 he wrestled and won nearly 300 matches in a row. In the first Israeli Maccabiah games in 1950 and again in 1953, he won gold medals in the freestyle heavyweight class and subsequently retired in 1953.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.