Mal Whitfield, a sleek middle-distance runner who won three Olympic gold medals for the United States, at one point as a Tuskegee Airman, and later became an American good-will ambassador promoting athletics abroad, died on Thursday in Washington. He was 91.

His daughter Fredricka Whitfield, an anchor at CNN, confirmed his death, at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospice center.

Orphaned as a child in the Watts section of Los Angeles, Whitfield went on to set records and achieve celebrity while running for Ohio State University. In 1954 he became the first African-American to receive the coveted Sullivan Award as the nation’s outstanding amateur athlete.

After his athletic career, Whitfield spent almost 50 years promoting sports and physical education in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, both for the United States Information Agency and through his own foundation.