Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #95 - Nedo Nadi

Nedo Nadi

Italy

Fencing

Overall Ranks

#6 among Fencers

#6 among Italian Olympians

#5 among Male Fencers

#5 among Male Italian Olympians

#3 among Italian Fencers

#2 among Male Italian Fencers

Olympic Results

1912

Individual Foil - Gold

1920

Individual Foil - Gold

Team Foil - Gold

Team Epee - Gold

Individual Sabre - Gold

Team Sabre - Gold

Total

Events - 8

Gold - 6

Nedo Nadi was born on June 9, 1894 in Livorno, Italy, the son of Beppe Nadi, a famous Italian fencing master, who began training his two sons as fencers from the age of 7. His father trained him on the foil and the sabre, but refused to teach the epee, as he considered it "undisciplined," so Nedo and his brother Aldo trained together in secret on the epee.

He made his Olympic debut in Stockholm in 1912, just after his 18th birthday. His first event was the individual foil, which was made easier due to a French boycott over a rule disagreement. Nadi dominated the event, losing only 1 bout the entire way, during the quarterfinal round, and he finished it off with a perfect 7-0 romp in the finals to become the youngest fencing gold medalist in history, a distinction he still holds over 100 years later.

The sabre events were up next, but they didn't go quite as well. Italy lost in the semifinal pool of the team event, which left them tied for 5th place. In the individual event, the Hungarians had already begun their dominance 4 years earlier, and 1912 may have been their peak. Nadi lost only 3 bouts through the 3 rounds leading up to the final, in which he was the lone competitor not from Hungary in the field of 8. He fought well, winning 4 of 7 bouts, which was good enough for 5th place, but not enough for a medal.

Nadi served in the Italian army during World War I, then returned to fencing after the war concluded. Hungary was not allowed to compete in 1920 due to their role in the war, leaving some events more open than usual, so Nadi entered 5 events, competing with all 3 weapons in Antwerp.

His first event was the team foil. The Italians had 8 matches total, and won all 8 of them, with the only close match in the final coming against France, but they came out ahead 9-7 to win the gold medal. Next up was the individual foil, where he was the defending champion, and he crushed the competition, winning 22 out of 23 bouts to take his third career gold medal easily.

The next event was the team epee, the weapon that his father hated. Italy advanced to the final with just a single loss, against Portugal, but then swept the final pool, beating all 5 of their opponents to walk away with another gold medal. In the team sabre event, there were only 8 countries competing, so the event was a single round-robin to determine the winner. Italy won all 7 of their matches very easily, with the closest score of 12-4 against both Belgium and the Netherlands, giving Nadi a 4th gold in 1920.

In the individual sabre event, Nadi was once again dominant, losing only a single bout in the entire tournament and dominating the final pool without a loss, giving him another gold medal, his fifth in Antwerp and 6th overall. Notably, his younger brother, Aldo, won the silver medal, which went along with his 3 golds in the team events with his brother.

Nadi retired right after the 1920 Olympics, and became a fencing coach who travelled all over the world. He later coached the Italian fencing team at the 1936 Olympics, then passed away in 1940 at the age of 45. His 1920 Olympic performance alone would have been enough to make him one of the greatest Olympians of all time, but add in his earlier gold as the youngest fencer to win and you have an undoubtable great.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #96 - Laszlo Rajcsanyi

Laszlo Rajcsanyi

Hungary

Fencing

Overall Ranks

#7 among Fencers

#6 among Male Fencers

#3 among Hungarian Olympians

#3 among Hungarian Fencers

Olympic Results

1936

Team Sabre - Gold

1948

Team Sabre - Gold

1952

Team Sabre - Gold

Total

Events - 4

Gold - 3

Laszlo Rajcsanyi was born on February 16, 1907 in Budapest, Austria-Hungary, and began fencing when he was 17 years old. He won the World University Championship in 1928, and the Hungarian national championship in 1934, and qualified for his first Olympics in 1936 at Berlin.

His first event was the team sabre, which Hungary had been dominating for a decade, and would dominate for a few more decades. He participated in one match each in the quarterfinals and semifinals, winning all 4 of his bouts in each round. He was used in matches against Poland and Italy in the final round, going 2-1 against Poland, the only bout lost by Hungary in that match, and finishing 2-2 against Italy in a close-fought 9-6 finale that gave Hungary the gold. Overall, Rajcsanyi won 12 of his 15 bouts.

The individual sabre was contested over the next couple of days. In each of the first two rounds, he finished second in his pool, with the top 3 advancing. He finished 3rd in his semifinal pool, and was one of 3 Hungarians to reach the final pool, out of 9 total fencers. He went 5-3 in the final round-robin, with two of his losses coming against the gold and silver medalists, but it wasn't quite enough, and he finished in 4th place, just short of a medal.

The next two Olympics, which would have been during his prime, were cancelled due to World War II, so by the time he got to compete again, he was 41 years old. He only competed in the team event in 1948, going 6-1 on the way to the final pool. In the final pool, he went 5-2 in bouts against Belgium and the USA, but wasn't used against silver-medalist Italy as the Hungarians won another easy gold, with Rajcsanyi going 11-3 overall, nearly identical to his performance 12 years earlier.

He returned for one final Olympic run in 1952, as a 45 year old. Again just competing in the team event, he went 7-1 in the first round as Hungary easily won their pool. He won both of his bouts in round 2, but went 8-4 in the semifinals, where he was used in all 3 matches. In the final, they only used him against France, the eventual bronze medalist, where he went 2-2, while Hungary won a close match against Italy to keep their gold medal streak alive, getting Rajcsanyi a third gold medal to end his career.

He had earned a degree in mechanical engineering in 1930, and worked as a chief engineer throughout his entire fencing career, and he continued to do so after retiring from fencing. Even though all 3 of his gold medals came in team competitions, he was a big part of all 3, and nearly won an individual medal as well. All things considered, he was one of the greatest Olympians of all time.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #97 - Herb Elliott

Herb Elliott

Australia

Athletics

Overall Ranks

#29 among Track & Field Athletes

#23 among Male Track & Field Athletes

#2 among Australian Olympians

#1 among Australian Track & Field Athletes

Olympic Results

1960

1500m - Gold

Total

Events - 1

Gold - 1

Herbert James Elliott was born on February 25, 1938 in Subiaco, Australia, near Perth, and began running in high school, and did most of his training in his youth on sand dunes, which made running on a track easier by comparison. In August, 1958, he set his first world record in the mile, at 3:54.5, and later that month, he set the world record in the 1500m, at 3:36.

He attended the University of Melbourne while also preparing for the 1960 Olympics in Rome. His only event was the 1500m, and after easily qualifying for the final as the overwhelming favorite, he was content to sit behind Michel Bernard of France for the first half of the race. When there was about 600m remaining, he made his move, sprinting away from the field and cruising to an easy victory, only slowing down near the end when he knew he had the world record in hand. He won by nearly 3 seconds, and dropped the world record to 3:35.6.

After the Olympics, he transferred to the University of Cambridge in England, and though he still raced a bit over the next two years, he decided to retire in 1962 to focus on his studies. He only competed actively for about 5 years, and never lost a single race during that time. He held the world record in the 1500m until 1967, a span of 9 years from the first time he set it, and his dominant performance in his only Olympic event made him one of the greatest Olympians of all time.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #98 - Jochem Uytdehaage

Jochem Uytdehaage

Netherlands

Speed Skating

Overall Ranks

#3 among Speed Skaters

#2 among Male Speed Skaters

#1 among Dutch Olympians

Olympic Results

2002

1500m - Silver

5000m - Gold

10000m - Gold

Total

Events - 3

Gold - 2

Silver - 1

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.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #99 - Rudolf Karpati

Rudolf Karpati

Hungary

Fencing

Overall Ranks

#8 among Fencers

#7 among Male Fencers

#4 among Hungarian Olympians

#4 among Hungarian Fencers

Olympic Results

1948

Team Sabre - Gold

1952

Team Sabre - Gold

1956

Sabre - Gold

Team Sabre - Gold

1960

Sabre - Gold

Team Sabre - Gold

Total

Events - 6

Gold - 6

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.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #100 - Franz Pfnur

Franz Pfnur

Germany

Alpine Skiing

Overall Ranks

#3 among German Olympians

#2 among Alpine Skiers

#1 among German Alpine Skiers

Olympic Results

1936

Combined - Gold

Total

Events - 1

Gold - 1

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.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #101 - Fu Mingxia

Fu Mingxia

China

Diving

Overall Ranks

#7 among Chinese Olympians

#1 among Divers

Olympic Results

1992

Platform - Gold

1996

Springboard - Gold

Platform - Gold

2000

Springboard - Gold

Synchronized Springboard - Silver

Total

Events - 5

Gold - 4

Silver - 1

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.