Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #89 - Ville Ritola

Ville Ritola

Finland

Athletics

Overall Ranks

#27 among Track & Field Athletes

#21 among Male Track & Field Athletes

#3 among Finnish Olympians

#2 among Finnish Track & Field Athletes

Olympic Results

1924

5000m - Silver

10000m - Gold

Steeplechase - Gold

Team Race - Gold

Cross Country - Silver

Cross Country Team - Gold

1928

5000m - Gold

10000m - Silver

Total

Events - 9

Gold - 5

Silver - 3

Vilho Eino Ritola, known as Ville, was born on January 18, 1896 in Peraseinajoki, Finland, which at the time was part of the Russian Empire. He was the 14th of 20 children, and he joined 7 of them in emigrating to the United States in 1913 to find work as a carpenter. He didn't begin training as a runner until he was 23 years old.

In 1922, he won a couple of gold medals in the AAU Championship, and came in second in the Boston Marathon, after which he felt he was ready to try to make the Olympics, competing for his home country of Finland. Some other American Finns helped raise money to send him home to Finland to compete in the Olympic trials, where he set a world record in the 10000m, breaking the record previously held by fellow Finn Paavo Nurmi.

Ritola went to Paris to compete in 6 events. His first was the 10000m, where he was a heavy favorite, thanks partly to his new world record, and partly due to Nurmi choosing to sit out to conserve his energy for other events. He pulled away early, with only Edvin Wide of Sweden keeping pace, but after 4000m, Wide dropped back, and Ritola continued his pace, winning the race by 32 seconds, nearly half a lap, and breaking his own world record by 12 seconds, giving him a dominant gold medal in his first event.

His next event was the steeplechase, which he had never run before. He didn't have the technique down, but his speed and endurance were enough as he won the race by over 11 seconds, setting a new Olympic record, and coming up just 0.2 seconds short of the world record. 

Up next was the 5000m, in which he would finally face Nurmi. Nurmi had just won the gold medal in the 1500m less than an hour earlier, so Ritola and Wide took off early, hoping that Nurmi would be too tired to catch them, but at the 2000m mark, Nurmi had caught up to the leaders, and by 3000m, Wide had dropped off the pace, leaving the two Finns to battle for gold. Nurmi passed Ritola at the 4000m mark, then held him off the rest of the way, winning the gold, and leaving Ritola with a silver by 0.2 seconds.

The cross country event was next, which covered nearly 10000m on one of the hottest days in Paris history. Nurmi and Ritola took off ahead of the pack again, but Ritola was unable to keep pace, and ended up losing by almost a minute and a half, though he still won silver by over a minute. More than half of the racers were unable to finish due to the heat.

The cross country team event scoring was based on placement of the top 3 runners from each country in the individual event, so Finland was a massive favorite due to having the top 2 finishers. Heikki Liimatainen was the third Finnish runner, and he was stumbling toward the finish, then stepped off the course thinking that he had finished, but he was still 30 meters short. After the crowd let him know that he hadn't finished, he returned to the course, and staggered for two minutes toward the line, finally crossing just in time to earn Finland the gold ahead of the USA.

The final event was the team 3000m race, in which the places of the top 3 finishers counted toward each country's score. Nurmi and Ritola again finished in first and second, but they didn't have to wait as long this time, as teammate Elias Katz came in fifth, earning the Finns an easy gold medal, the fourth for Ritola at his first Olympics. His 6 total medals are still the record for a track athlete at a single Olympics, and his 4 golds only trail Nurmi's 5 from the same Olympics.

He returned to the US after the Olympics and returned to work in construction, rarely training, but still competing in some meets. He decided to compete in the Olympics again in 1928, heading to Amsterdam, where he would go head to head with Nurmi in 3 events again.

The first event was the 10000m, where Ritola was the defending champ, but Nurmi was now the world record holder, and the two of them, along with Wide, left the field behind early again, with Ritola in front. Wide kept up with the Finns until 8000m, then fell behind, leaving the two favorites to fight for gold again. Nurmi stayed right behind Ritola until the final straightaway, when he passed his teammate and pulled away slightly to win by 0.6 seconds in Olympic record time, both more than 40 seconds ahead of Wide, the bronze medalist.

In the 5000m final, the same three runners pulled away from the pack again, with Ritola taking the lead around the halfway point. Wide fell behind with 600m left, while Ritola started to pull away from Nurmi, and ended up winning the race by 2 seconds, while Nurmi held on for the silver.

His final event was the steeplechase, where he was the defending champ. He qualified for the final, but hurt his ankle in the process, and while he still ran, he was unable to finish the race, the first time he had ever failed to win a medal in an Olympic event.

He retired soon after the 1928 Olympics, returning to the United States, where he spent the next 30 years working construction until he was old enough to retire. A few years later, he returned to Finland, where he passed away a decade later in Helsinki on April 24, 1982. He was overshadowed by his teammate Nurmi through his whole career, but he finally beat him head-to-head in his final Olympic win, and he was so much better than anyone else at the time, that he is obviously one of the greatest Olympians of all time.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #90 - Yury Titov

Yury Titov

USSR

Artistic Gymnastics

Overall Ranks

#18 among Gymnasts

#12 among Male Gymnasts

#9 among Soviet Olympians

#5 among Soviet Male Gymnasts

Olympic Results

1956

Individual All-Around - Bronze

Team - Gold

Vault - Bronze

Horizontal Bar - Silver

1960

Individual All-Around - Bronze

Team - Silver

Floor Exercise - Silver

1964

Team - Silver

Horizontal Bar - Silver

Total

Events - 24

Gold - 1

Silver - 5

Bronze - 3

Yury Yevlampiyevich Titov was born on November 27, 1935 on Omsk, USSR, and took up grymnastics at age 14. By the time he was 19 years old, he had been named to the Soviet national team, and his first major international competition was the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne.

That year, all of the gymnastic events were held at once, with each gymnast's score counting toward the individual event, the all-around, and the team event at the same time. Titov's best individual event was the horizontal bar, where he scored a 19.4, good enough for the silver medal, but 0.2 points behind Takashi Ono of Japan, who won the gold.

He won another individual medal in the vault, this one a bronze. He was only 0.1 points behind the gold medalists, so his overall score was still very good. He came in 5th place in two of the other individual events, and finished in the top 10 in all 6, which helped him earn the bronze medal in the individual all-around, though he was more than 0.4 points behind the other medalists, Ono and Viktor Chukarin, his Soviet teammate.

The team event was close. The USSR had won gold in 1952, and Chukarin had won his second straight all-around gold, and with Titov as a strong second scorer on the team, the Soviets were able to defeat the Japanese team by 1.85 points, earning a gold medal for the team. This would be the last time Japan lost the team event until 1980, when they didn't compete.

In 1960, the format had been updated so that the individual events had a final round after the team and all-around events had been completed. In the individual all-around, Titov finished third again, earning a repeat bronze, with Ono again taking the silver, and a new Soviet teammate, Boris Shakhlin, taking the gold.

In the team event, the 6 Japanese gymnasts all finished among the top 9 overall, making them very hard to beat. With Shakhlin and Titov's impressive individual scores, they were able to make it close, but the Soviets still lost by 2.5 points, but were 13.65 points ahead of Italy, who won bronze.

Titov qualified for all 6 event finals, but only managed to medal in one, the floor exercise. In that event, he qualified in second, and managed to hold on to it after the final performance, though the third place finisher closed the gap a little, but he still managed to take silver. He had qualified third in both the rings and the pommel horse, but poor final performances dropped him out of the medals in each, but it was still very impressive that he qualified for all 6 finals.

The format remained the same in 1964, when Titov returned for his third Olympics. By that time, he had been surpassed by several of his teammates, and finished 13th overall in the individual all-around, fifth among the Soviets, and a full point short of the medals. In the team event, there were still just two teams competing for gold, but the Soviets lost to Japan again by an identical 2.5 point margin to repeat as silver medalists.

Titov qualified for only one event final that year, the horizontal bar, where he had earned his first medal back in 1956. He qualified #2 behind Shakhlin, then scored a 9.8 in his final performance, which allowed him to hold onto his spot and earn another silver medal. He remained on the national team for two more years, then retired after the 1966 World Championships, with 9 Olympic medals to his name.

After competing in the Olympics 3 different times, Titov ended his career with only 1 gold medal, which came in the team event in 1956, but he won 5 silvers and 3 bronzes as well, and was in the top six 7 other times. While he was never the best in the world, or even in his own country, he was near the top so often and for so long, that he has earned a spot as one of the greatest Olympians of all time.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #91 - Aleksandr Dityatin

Aleksandr Dityatin

USSR

Artistic Gymnastics

Overall Ranks

#19 among Gymnasts

#13 among Male Gymnasts

#10 among Soviet Olympians

#6 among Soviet Male Gymnasts

Olympic Results

1976

Team - Silver

Rings - Silver

1980

Individual All-Around - Gold

Team - Gold

Floor Exercise - Silver

Vault - Silver

Parallel Bars - Silver

Horizontal Bar - Silver

Rings - Gold

Pommel Horse - Silver

Total

Events - 16

Gold - 3

Silver - 6

Bronze - 1

Aleksandr Nikolayevich Dityatin was born on August 7, 1957 in Saint Petersburg, USSR (then known as Leningrad). He trained in gymnastics from a young age, and when he was 15, he received a special exception to be allowed to compete with adults in the senior division of the national championships.

He was selected to the national team when he was just 18, competing in his first Olympics in Montreal that year. The team competition came first, and the Japanese had won 4 straight golds at that point, and were favored to win again. The Soviets, however, didn't listen, and beat Japan in both the floor exercise and the rings, but ended up losing overall by 0.4 points, earning them a silver medal.

The top 36 competitors from the team event advanced to the individual all-around final, with a max of 3 per nation, and Dityatin was the third Soviet to qualify, in sixth place overall. In that event, he tied for the best score on the rings, and was second place in floor exercise overall, and had top 5 scores in three of the other events, but he came in 20th in the horizontal bar, which dropped his score enough that he ended up in 4th place, just outside the medals.

He qualified for two event finals, the rings and the pommel horse. The rings were his best event, and he was third after qualifying, but after his teammate, Vladimir Markelov, dropped out, he was able to move up to 2nd after posting the best score in his final performance, giving him a silver medal. In the pommel horse, he was the 6th and final qualifier, and he didn't improve his standing in the final. He still walked away with 2 silver medals at his first Olympics.

In 1980, he was again on the Soviet team, this time competing at home in Moscow. The Japanese team had joined the American boycott, so the home team was a big favorite in the team event, and they left no doubt, as they posted the highest score in each of the 6 parts of the competition, winning the gold medal by 8.45 points over East Germany.

In the individual all-around, Dityatin was the #1 qualifier, just ahead of his teammate, Nikolay Andrianov, who was the defending champion. Dityatin beat or tied his teammate in all 6 disciplines, and with no other major challengers, the gold medal went to Dityatin by 0.425 points, a pretty decent margin for an individual event.

He qualified for all 6 of the individual event finals. He was the #4 qualifier for the floor exercise, but after earning a 9.9 in his final performance, he moved up to third and took the bronze medal. He had tied for #2 in qualifying for the vault, but after a 9.925 in the final, tied for best score in that round, he earned the silver medal alone.

He was #3 in qualifying for the parallel bars, but after a poor performance from Stoyan Delchev of Bulgaria, the leader, plus a 9.9 score from Dityatin, he moved up to take another silver. In the horizontal bar, he was again behind Delchev in qualifying, and was unable to pass him in the final, instead settling for another silver medal.

He was the top qualifier in the rings, where he had won the silver in 1976, and this time he scored an impressive 9.5 in the final to put it out of reach for everyone else, giving him his first individual event gold by 0.15 points over his nearest competitor. In the pommel horse, he scored a 9.9 in all three rounds, but it wasn't enough to overcome Zoltan Magyar of Hungary, who finished with a perfect 10 and left the silver to Dityatin.

In all, Dityatin had earned 8 medals in Moscow, the first Olympian ever to win 8 in a single Olympics, a feat that has only been matched by Michael Phelps twice. Soon after the 1980 Olympics, he was severely injured in training, and was forced to retire as a result, spending the next decade plus as a coach. Though he was the first to win 8 medals at one Olympics, only 3 were gold, but it was still an impressive achievement, and made him one of the greatest Olympians of all time.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #92 - Sylvia Fowles

Sylvia Fowles

USA

Basketball

Overall Ranks

#29 among American Olympians

#10 among Female American Olympians

#2 among Basketball Players

Olympic Results

2008

Women - Gold

2012

Women - Gold

2016

Women - Gold

2020

Women - Gold

Total

Events - 4

Gold - 4

Sylvia Shaqueria Fowles was born on October 6, 1985 in Miami, Florida, which is also where she grew up, and led her high school teams to 3 state championships and was MVP of the high school All-American game. She then attended college at LSU, where she led the Tigers to the Final Four in each of her 4 seasons.

She was the #2 draft pick in the 2008 WNBA Draft by the Chicago Sky, and made her Olympic debut that same year. She shot 64.3% from the field for the tournament, and led the USA in scoring with 13.4 points per game, as the Americans swept their way to an easy gold medal, with a 27-point win over Australia in the gold medal game.

In 2012, she was again chosen for the USA team, and played a slightly smaller role, but still averaged 6.0 points per game while shooting 61.1% from the field as the USA again went through the tourney without a loss, and beat France by 36 in the final game. She shot 69.0% in the 2016 Olympics, and the USA won another gold medal with a 29-point win over Spain.

She was selected for her 4th Olympic team in 2020, and again had an enormous shooting percentage of 63.2% for the tournament. This time, the games were a little closer, and the Americans only managed to beat the host Japanese team by 15 in the gold medal game, but Fowles had earned her 4th gold medal.

She retired after the 2022 WNBA season as the league's all-time leader in field goal percentage, at 59.9%, and rebounds per game, at 9.8. She led the league in blocks twice, rebounding twice, and field goal percentage 7 times, and won 2 championships, in 2015 and 2017. Four gold medals in separate Olympics is a rare feat, and Fowles was a large part of those teams, which makes her one of the greatest Olympians of all time.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #93 - Sue Bird

Sue Bird

USA

Basketball

Overall Ranks

#30 among American Olympians

#11 among Female American Olympians

#3 among Basketball Players

Olympic Results

2004

Women - Gold

2008

Women - Gold

2012

Women - Gold

2016

Women - Gold

2020

Women - Gold

Overall

Events - 5

Gold - 5

Suzanne Brigit Bird was born on Oct 16, 1980 in Syosset, New York, and began playing AAU basketball in sixth grade. By the time she reached high school, she was a big star, and in her senior season, she led her team to an undefeated season and a state and national championship.

She attended the University of Connecticut, and after missing most of her freshman season to a torn ACL, she led the Huskies to a 36-1 record as a sophomore and a national championship. After a disappointing junior season where they lost 3 games and didn't win a title, her senior season was perfect, with a 39-0 record and another national title. She was drafted by the Seattle Storm with the #1 pick in the 2002 WNBA Draft. 

For her entire time as a pro, which covered 20 seasons, she was also a member of the US national team, starting with the 2002 World Championships, and stretching clear until the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. She wasn't one of the big stars on the 2004 Olympic team, averaging only about 3 points per game, but she came out of that year with both a gold medal and a WNBA championship.

By 2008, she had become the national team's starting point guard, and in the 2008 Olympic tournament, she led the team with 14 steals in 8 games, and they team went undefeated again en route to the gold medal. In 2012, she raised her scoring average to 6.1 per game and her assists to 4.5 while helping guide the US to its fifth straight gold medal, and her third.

She led the USA team in assists in each of the next two Olympics as well, tying the old record with 4 Olympic gold basketball medals in 2016, then breaking it in 2020, along with Diana Taurasi, when the pair won their fifth. Though she was never a big scorer, especially in the Olympics, her mastery at distributing the ball made her a very important piece of all of those gold medals.

In her professional career, she won 4 WNBA titles, 5 Euro League titles, and 5 Russian league championships. Add in her high school championship and 2 NCAA championships to her 5 Olympic gold medals, and you have one of the greatest champions ever in any sport, and one of the greatest Olympians of all time.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #94 - Christian Taylor

Christian Taylor

USA

Athletics

Overall Ranks

#31 among American Olympians

#28 among Track & Field Athletes

#22 among Male Track & Field Athletes

#19 among American Track & Field Athletes

#15 among American Male Track & Field Athletes

Olympic Results

2012

Triple Jump - Gold

2016

Triple Jump - Gold

Total

Events - 2

Gold - 2

Christian Taylor born on June 18, 1990 in Fayetteville, Georgia, and learned how to triple jump in elementary school. In high school, he set Georgia state records in the long jump, triple jump, and 400m. He then attended the University of Florida, and while there, won his first World Championship in the triple jump in 2011.

He and Will Claye took turns winning each meet through 2011 and 2012, with Taylor winning in the 2012 Olympic Trials, and they were co-favorites heading into the London Olympics. Taylor led the qualifying round with a jump of 17.21 meters, but in the 12-man final, he fouled on his first two jumps, giving him one more chance to get into the top 8 or be eliminated. He jumped 17.15, which earned him 3 more jumps, and on his very next jump he got 17.81, which ended up winning him the gold medal, leaving Claye to take the silver.

The following year he moved to England to train, and in 2015 he won the World Championship again, this time with a jump of 18.21, the second-longest in history. He was the favorite to win gold again in Rio, and he again led after qualifying. In the final, he hit 17.86 with his first jump, which was longer than any of the others had ever jumped, and it ended up winning him the gold. He also jumped 17.77 twice in the final round, which gave him the three longest jumps of the competition.

He repeated as World Champion in both 2017 and 2019, but an Achilles injury prevented him from competing in the Tokyo Olympics. When he returned in 2022 for the World Championships, he only managed to finish in 18th place, and in 2024 he officially retired. He owns the American record, 3 of the 10 best jumps in history, and two Olympic gold medals, making him one of the greatest Olympians of all time.

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.