Jochem Simon Uytdehaage was born on July 9, 1976 in Utrecht, Netherlands, and was among the best Dutch speed skaters for years before he finally broke through in 2001, performing well enough at the Olympic trials to make his first Olympic team, heading to Salt Lake City for the 2002 Games.
He qualified for the 3 longest events in speed skating, starting with the 5000m, the second-longest event. The Dutch had won this event 3 straight times, but it wasn't a sure thing this time, as the defending Olympic champ had missed the Olympic team due to being ill at the trials, and Uytdehaage was relatively unknown. The previous world record of 6:22.2 was broken twice before he took the ice in the penultimate pair, and he crushed the new record by over 3 seconds, lowering it to 6:14.66 and surprising everyone with a gold medal in his first Olympic race.
Even though he had just obliterated a world record, he still wasn't expected to compete for a medal in the 1500m, where the two men who had won the last 4 World Championships and the last Olympic gold were both competing. Uytdehaage was in the 9th pair out of 24, and he skated the race of his life, beating the world record by 3.3 seconds. He held onto the top spot for a long time, until Derek Parra of the USA finally beat his time by just over half a second in one of the final pairings, dropping Uytdehaage to a silver, which was still great due to coming in without expectations.
His final event was the 10000m, which the Dutch had also dominated recently, winning all 3 medals at the last Olympics, and each of the past 4 World Championships. The world record was 13:15.33 prior to this event, but it was lowered by Gianni Romme, another Dutch skater who held the record, in the second pair, down to 13:10.03. Uytdehaage raced in the 4th pair, and kept up a blistering pace throughout, finishing in 12:58.92, breaking the world record by over 11 seconds, and becoming the first to ever break 13 minutes. Nobody else came close to his time, and he won his second gold medal.
He won the 5000m at the 2003 World Championships, but that was his last major win. He failed to make the Olympic team in 2006, and retired in 2007. Even though he only ran 3 total Olympic races, all 3 set Olympic records, two of them by a lot, and both world records stood for nearly 4 years. All of that makes him one of the greatest Olympians of all time.
Rudolf Klein was born on July 17, 1920 in Budapest, Hungary, and later changed his surname to Karpati in order to hide the fact that he was Jewish from the Nazis. Following World War II, he joined the Hungarian national fencing team, which had dominated the sabre events for the decade prior to the war, and would continue to do so for the duration of Karpati's career.
His first Olympic experience came in London in 1948, where he competed in the team sabre event. Hungary got a bye in the first round, then had an easy victory over Egypt in the quarterfinals, where Karpati didn't compete, but he won 6 of his 8 matches in the semifinal pool as Hungary cruised into the final pool of 4 teams. Hungary beat all 3 of its opponents in the final pool, though Karpati struggled against runner-up Italy, losing 3 of his 4 matches, finishing with 5 wins in 10 tries in the final, but he still earned a gold medal as part of the dominant team.
He was again on the Hungarian team in Helsinki in 1952, and again competed in just the team event. This time he went 13-1 in his matches as Hungary went undefeated on their way to the final pool, and they also went undefeated in the final pool, though they were trailing Italy 7-6 with only two bouts left. After Tibor Berczelly won his bout, it was up to Karpati to determine the color of Hungary's medal, and he came through, keeping their streak of gold medals alive.
In 1956, Hungary was advanced straight to the semifinals, where they only needed a quick 9-1 victory over the USA to advance to another final. The toughest match of the final came against the USSR, who had just invaded Hungary a couple of weeks earlier, and they were able to pull out a hard-fought 9-7 victory, with Karpati supplying 3 of the victories, and Hungary won another gold without a loss.
He also competed in the individual event for the first time in 1956, alongside the past two champions of the event, Kovacs and Gerevich of Hungary. Karpati won both of his pools on his way to the final, where he was joined by his two countrymen in the field of 8, and after a round-robin among them all, Karpati came out on top, with a 6-1 record, and kept Hungary's gold medal streak alive, even though it was a bit of a surprise. After the Olympics, the other 3 Hungarian sabre fencers fled to the United States rather than return to Soviet-controlled Hungary, but Karpati, Kovacs, and Gerevich returned home.
He returned to defend his gold medals in 1960 in Rome, even though he was now 40 years old. This time, the individual event was held first, and he went 15-3 through the first 4 rounds of round robin pools, each of which he won, to advance easily to another final. In the final pool, he won 5 of his 7 bouts, which turned out to be enough, as 4 others tied at 4-3, so Karpati was able to walk away with another individual gold medal.
The Hungarian team was weaker than normal headed into the team event, after the defections of 1956. The three holdovers were all over 40 years old, but all were still very skilled. Karpati didn't need to compete in the first round win, which advanced them to the quarterfinals, where they beat Romania easily, 9-3, with 3 wins from Karpati. In the semifinals against Italy and the final against Poland, they were carried by their new younger teammates, and won both in close contests, 9-6 and 9-7 to successfully win another team gold.
Karpati retired in 1961, having competed in 6 Olympic fencing events, and winning gold in all 6. Four of his 6 gold medals came in team events, with Karpati making big contributions to two of them, and his two individual golds were closely contested and somewhat surprising, but he made it through each time, which makes him one of the greatest Olympians of all time.
Franz Xaver Pfnur was born on November 21, 1908 in Au, Germany. Not much is known of his early life, but he competed in 3 events at the 1934 World Championships, winning gold in the slalom and silver in the combined and the downhill.
Alpine Skiing was added to the Winter Olympics in 1936, held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, not far from Pfnur's hometown, with the Combined event being held for both men and women. Each skier ran the downhill course once, and were given a score between 0 and 100, with 100 points going to the skier with the best time. Then they ran the slalom course twice, with the two times being added together and then scored from 0 to 100 again, with a final score in the event calculated by averaging the two scores.
The first four skiers in the downhill had the 4 best times at the end, and Pfnur came in with the second-best time, 4.4 seconds behind the leader, Birger Ruud of Norway, and was awarded 98.49 points. In the slalom portion, Pfnur had the two fastest runs of any competitor, finishing with a combined 5.9 second lead over his nearest competitor. Ruud missed a gate on his first run, causing him to tumble down the rankings, though he rebounded on the second run to finish in 4th overall. Pfnur's 100 points in the slalom gave him an overall score of 99.25, 3 points ahead of the silver medalist, Gustav Lantschner, also from Germany.
After the Olympics, Pfnur joined the Nazi SS, and committed numerous war crimes over the next several years, for which he was never punished. He passed away in 1996. Even though he was a terrible human being, he was a great skier and one of the greatest Olympians of all time.
Fu Mingxia was born on August 16, 1978 in Wuhan, China. She began practicing gymnastics at age 5, but the coaches felt that she wasn't flexible enough for gymnastics, and that her body control would make her a good diver, so she switched sports at age 7 and never looked back.
She won a gold medal at the World Championships when she was just 12 years old, and qualified for the Chinese Olympic team at age 13. She competed in the platform diving event in Barcelona, which was only allowed because she was weeks away from turning 14, and absolutely crushed the competition, placing first in qualifying by nearly 32 points, then winning in the final by just short of 50 points. She was the youngest gold medalist in Barcelona, and is still the 5th-youngest of all time.
In 1994, she won another World Championship in platform diving, making her a big favorite to repeat her gold medal in Atlanta in 1996, and it went just as expected. She led after qualifying and the semifinal, increasing her lead as she went, and in the final she put it completely out of reach, winning by more than 42 points.
She also competed in the springboard in Atlanta, where the favorite was Tan Shuping, another Chinese woman and defending world champion. Tan had two bad dives in a row in the qualifying round, however, and failed to advance to the semifinal. Fu, meanwhile, qualified in 4th place, then held that spot through the semifinal round, before making her move in the final, which consisted of 5 dives. Vera Ilyina, the leader to start the final, succumbed to the pressure, and after two dives, Fu had moved ahead of her and into the lead, a lead which she extended over the next three dives to win the gold medal going away, with a final margin of 35.49 points, making her the first woman to win both diving events at the same Olympics since 1960.
After the 1996 Olympics, she retired in order to attend college, feeling burned out from nonstop training for nearly a decade. After a couple of years away from the sport, she started diving on the university's team, and rediscovered her love for it, and decided to give the Olympics another try. She once again made the team, and headed to Sydney for the 2000 Games.
Her first event was the Synchronized Springboard, a new event that year, paired with Guo Jingjing, an up-and-coming diver who would go on to win 4 Olympic gold medals herself in future Olympics. The pair was expected to win, but the Russian pair started strong and kept a safe distance ahead of the Chinese throughout, winning by 11 points and giving Fu her first-ever silver medal.
Her final event was the springboard, where she was defending champion, but not the favorite. That would be Guo, who had beaten her at the Chinese Olympic trials. Fu led the competition through the qualifying and semifinal rounds, but Guo closed the gap throughout, and took the lead after two dives in the final round. That's when Fu made her move, posting the best score among all divers on each of her final three dives, and she ended up defeating Guo by 11 points to win a final gold medal.
Following those games, Fu, now 22 years old, retired from diving for good. Even when she was just a child, she dominated the competition, with two of the biggest blowouts in Olympic diving history, and her 5 medal in 5 events make her the greatest Olympic diver of all time, and one of the greatest Olympians.
Quentin Denis Fillon Maillet was born on August 16, 1992 in Champagnole, France, and grew up in the French Alps near the Swiss border. He took up cross country skiing when he was 10, then transitioned into biathlon at age 14. From 2015 to 2017, he won medals in every world championship, but only in the relay events.
He was still able to make the French Olympic team for the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, but didn't do anything of note. He finished 48th in the sprint, 44th in the pursuit, and 29th out of 30 in the mass start. It was an ignominious start to what would become a great career.
In 2019, he won his first individual World Championship medal, a bronze in the sprint. He won several more over the next few years, but was by no means a star headed into the 2022 Olympics. He entered all 6 biathlon events in Beijing, and by the time he finished, he had become a star.
He started out in the mixed relay, which was raced by 4 skiers, each of whom covered 6 km. The women went first, and at the halfway point, they held a slight lead. After the third leg, they had fallen to third place, 17 seconds behind the leaders, but Fillon Maillet skied an incredible leg, getting through without missing a shot and skiing the second-fastest time of the day. In the end, he fell just short, losing by less than a second to the Norwegian team, but it earned him his first Olympic medal, a silver.
Next up was the individual 20km race, where each miss carried a one minute penalty applied at the end. Fillon Maillet was the best skier of the event, finishing 31 seconds ahead of Johannes Thingnes Bo, who had beaten him at the end of the mixed relay, and since each missed 2 shots, he remained ahead of Bo. Anton Smolski of Belarus finished without a missed shot, but since he was more than 2 minutes behind Quentin, he ended up taking the silver, with Fillon Maillet earning his first gold.
The third event was the 10km sprint, where each missed shot added a 150m penalty loop to the course. Fillon Maillet had one miss on the first round of shooting, which allowed Bo to build a big lead. Fillon Maillet was the fastest skier the rest of the way, and Bo missed a shot in the second shooting portion, but his lead was too big, and Fillon Maillet came in 25 seconds behind to take the silver, 13 seconds ahead of Bo's older brother, Tarjei, who took bronze.
The next event was the 12.5 km pursuit, where each skier started out based on the results of the sprint event the day before, so Bo started out with a big head start, but he struggled in the shooting portion, missing 7 times, which added 1050 meters to his race. Fillon Maillet was perfect on his shooting, and ended up beating Tarjei Bo by 28.5 seconds for another gold medal.
Up next was the relay, where Fillon Maillet again took the anchor leg. The Russian athletes took a big lead early and built it up throughout the race, with a lead of over 40 seconds when the final leg started. France was in second the entire way up to that point and looked to be fighting for silver when the final Russian skier missed two shots at the final stop, allowing Germany, France, and Norway to catch up. Despite being the only country that didn't miss a shot, the French ended up getting another silver after the final Norwegian skier turned on the jets to win the race by 27 seconds.
In the final event, the mass start, it appeared that Fillon Maillet was going to win his 6th medal of the games, but on the final shooting portion, the wind kicked up, causing him to miss 3 shots, which added 450 meters to his race, and he ended up 13 seconds out of third place, just one place away from the medal. Even without it, he was the first biathlete ever to win 5 medals in a single Olympics, 3 days before Bo matched him.
He returned to compete again in the 2026 Olympics, again qualifying for all 6 events. In the mixed relay, which went first, the race started with the men's legs first, and Fillon Maillet handed off to the first female skier in third place, but after she posted the best time by a woman in the entire race, the French had a 19 second lead, which they extended to 26 seconds by the end to earn the gold medal.
He was the defending champion in the individual 20km, and was the favorite to repeat, but despite having the fastest time, he missed 4 shots, which added 4 penalty minutes, causing him to drop to 8th place at the end. He made up for it in the sprint, where he was one of the favorites since both Bo brothers had retired, leaving him as the only returning medalist. He was one of 5 skiers to shoot perfectly, then passed teammate Emilien Jacquelin on the home stretch to take home a gold medal.
That gave him a 16 second lead to start the next event, the pursuit, but he struggled with his shooting again, with 5 total missed, which caused him to fall to 7th place at the end. In the relay, Norway was expected to win, and started with a 50 second lead after the first leg, with France clear back in 13th place. 3 misses by the next Norwegian skier brought them back to the pack, and a perfect leg by Jacquelin gave France a slight lead at the halfway point. Fillon Maillet held that slight lead through his leg, and the final French skier was able to pull away to give them an upset victory by 10 seconds.
In the final event, the mass start, Fillon Maillet struggled again with his shooting, missing once in the first section, which put him way behind. He moved up to 9th by the second shooting section, where he didn't miss, and was in 5th by the next time he shot. He missed twice, which slowed his progress, but he still pushed through to get to 4th at the final shooting spot, then passed Philipp Horn of Germany on the home stretch to steal the bronze medal, despite having 4 missed shots, 3 more than any of the other top 4.
He has recently announced that he will continue to compete and plans to ski again in the 2030 Olympics. Even though his first Olympics did not go well, he earned 9 medals in the past 2 Olympic games, 5 of which were golds, and has already established himself as one of the greatest Olympians of all time, with more possibly to come.
Karin Janz was born on February 17, 1952 in Lubben, East Germany, and began training in gymnastics at age 5, with her father coaching her, and by age 10, she had been moved into a sports training school. She became national champion at age 14, and made her first Olympic team at age 16.
In the 1968 Mexico City games, she started out in the individual all-around competition, where she performed well, but finished in 6th place, though only 0.3 points behind the silver medalist. In the team event, she was the second-highest scoring member of the East German team that won the bronze medal, but they were more than 3 points behind Czechoslovakia for the silver.
She qualified for the individual finals in the uneven bars and the balance beam. In the balance beam, she was #4 heading into the final, and she improved on her qualifying score, but not as much as the other finalists, so she ended up staying in 4th place. In the uneven bars, she had a very good performance, but she was competing against Vera Caslavska of Czechoslovakia, who won 4 golds in 1968, so Janz ended up having to settle for silver.
In 1970, she was the world champion in the uneven bars and the runner-up in the vault, which positioned her well for the 1972 Olympics across the border in Munich. This time the competition started with the team event. The Soviets were in the middle of their dominant 40-year run, but East Germany put up a fight, finishing 3.95 points behind the USSR overall, but beating them in the uneven bars, and they took home the silver medal.
Janz was tied with Lyudmila Turishcheva of the USSR as the top qualifier for the individual all-around, but after going through each of the apparatuses again, Janz had fallen to second, thanks to Turishcheva's winning margin of 0.2 points on the floor exercise. It was her second silver medal of 1972, and her third overall.
She qualified for all 4 individual event finals this time, and the only one where she didn't medal was the floor exercise, where she was 4th before the final, and remained in 4th afterward, behind 3 members of the Soviet team. Janz was #2 in qualifying for the vault, behind Turishcheva, but after she put up a 9.9 on her final vault, she vaulted to the gold medal.
In the uneven bars, she had a big lead after qualifying, and she posted another 9.9 in that final, giving her a very comfortable gold medal victory. In the balance beam, she started out slightly behind Turishcheva and Olga Korbut, and the two Soviets increased their lead in the final, leaving Janz to take the bronze medal.
After the 1972 Olympics, she announced her retirement from gymnastics in order to attend medical school. She became a world-renowned orthopedic surgeon, and was one of the inventors of the first artificial spinal disc. Though she was somewhat average in her first Olympics, she finished in the top 4 of every event in 1972, which helped make her one of the greatest Olympians of all time.
Xiong Ni was born on January 11, 1974 in Changsha, China, and was trained as a diver from a young age. At the age of 8, he was selected for the Hunan Province team, and by age 12 he was selected for the national training center. The next year, he won his first international competition, and at age 14, he represented China in the Olympics for the first time.
The favorite to win the Platform diving event in Seoul was Greg Louganis, the defending champion, but many were excited to see the young Xiong. He finished the qualifying round in second place, and was the only diver anywhere close to Louganis' score, sitting 16 points behind at that point. In the final round, which consisted of 10 dives, the two quickly pulled away from the rest of the field, and there were never more than 10 points separating them. After each had done his ninth dive, Xiong held a 3 point lead on the favorite, but Louganis pulled out the most difficult dive in his arsenal, and it was enough to put him ahead of the youngster by just more than a point, leaving Xiong with a hard-fought silver in his first Olympic appearance.
Louganis retired after the 1988 Olympics, leaving Xiong as the new face of platform diving, but in 1990, a new young Chinese diver named Sun Shuwei appeared, and in 1991 he beat Xiong at the World Championship. The two were co-favorites heading to Barcelona in 1992, at just 18 and 16 years of age.
The two Chinese teammates were far ahead of the competition in qualifying, with Xiong ahead by almost 6 points, but in the final, Sun showed why he was the world champion, performing every dive perfectly and pulling far ahead of everyone else. Xiong attempted a couple of very difficult dives that didn't end well, and as a result, he dropped down to bronze medal position by the end of the competition.
After Barcelona, Xiong switched his focus to the springboard rather than the platform, and it would be a great move for him. Another teammate, Yu Zhuocheng, was the favorite in Atlanta, but Xiong held a big lead through qualifying and the new semifinal round. In the final, Yu took the lead after their 4th of 6 dives, and still held it heading into the final dives, but Xiong performed his final dive nearly perfectly, and ended up winning the gold medal by 10.53 points.
He graduated from Hunan University with a degree in foreign trade in 1997 and announced his retirement, but changed his mind a year later and returned to competition. He competed in Sydney in the springboard again, and he also participated in the first Olympic synchronized springboard competition, with Xiao Hailiang as his partner.
The springboard came first, and Dmitry Sautin of Russia was the favorite, though Xiong was the defending champion and always a threat. Xiong led after qualifying by 12 points, with Fernando Platas of Mexico a surprise in second place, followed by Sautin. Sautin moved up to 2nd after the semifinal, and took the lead after the 5th dive in the final. On the final dive, Sautin missed slightly, opening the door for Xiong, who nailed his final dive and ended up with a gold medal, just 0.3 points ahead of Platas.
The synchronized springboard event was nowhere near as close. Each of the 8 pairs performed 5 dives, with only a single round determining the winner. The Chinese pair were the highest-scoring on every single dive, and they ran away with the gold medal by 35.61 points over the Russians.
After winning his second and third golds in 2000, Xiong retired again in 2001, this time for good. After his amazing performance as a 14-year-old in 1988, it seemed like greatness was on the way for Xiong, and he lived up to that potential, winning 5 medals in his 5 events, including 3 golds to close out his career, making him one of the greatest Olympians of all time.
