Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #143 - Amy Van Dyken

Amy Van Dyken

USA

Swimming

Overall Rankings

#43 among American Olympians

#10 among Swimmers

#9 among American Swimmers

#3 among Female Swimmers

Olympic Results

1996

50m Freestyle - Gold

4x100m Freestyle Relay - Gold

100m Butterfly - Gold

4x100m Medley Relay - Gold

2000

4x100m Freestyle Relay - Gold

4x100m Medley Relay - Gold

Total

Events - 8

Gold - 6

Amy Deloris Van Dyken was born on February 15, 1973 in Englewood, Colorado, and attempted to make the Olympic team right out of high school, but fell just short of making the team for the 1992 Olympics in the 50m Freestyle.

In 1994, she set a national record in the 50 yard freestyle at the NCAA Championships, and also took second place in two other events. In 1995 she broke the world record in the 50m butterfly, which had stood for nearly 3 years, but she held it for only 12 days before it was broken by Angela Kennedy of Australia.

She easily made the 1996 Olympic team, and after finishing in a close 4th place in her first event, she rattled off 4 consecutive gold medals, beginning with the 4x100m relay, where she swam the fastest leg as the USA beat China by more than a second. She followed that with an upset over the favored Liu Limin in the 100m Butterfly, which she won by one hundredth of a second.

Next, she swam the anchor freestyle leg in the 4x100m Medley Relay, starting out with a full second lead and extending it to more than two seconds by the time she finished. Her final event was the 50m Freestyle, where she came from behind in the final 5 meters to overtake Le Jingyi to win by 3 hundredths of a second. That win made her the first American woman ever to win 4 gold medals in a single Olympics.

She suffered a shoulder injury not long after her Olympic breakthrough, and multiple surgeries caused her to lose more than a year of training, but she worked hard to make it back and earned a spot on the 2000 Olympic team.

She started off with the 4x100m freestyle relay, where she swam the leadoff leg. She had the USA in second place behind Australia at the handoff, but each of her 3 teammates swam faster times as the Americans set a new Olympic record and won by more than 3 seconds. In the 4x100m Medley Relay, she swam the anchor leg in the heat round, which qualified the Americans for the final, where Dara Torres took the freestyle leg and the USA set a World Record and again won by more than 3 seconds. 

In her final event, the 50m Freestyle, she caused some controversy in the semifinal heat when she finished second to eventual champion Inge de Bruijn, then spit in her opponents lane and accused her of being a man, which, unfortunately, is the same kind of crap that we still hear today from sore losers. She ended up finishing in 4th place in the final, just short of another medal.

She retired after the 2000 Olympics, and afterward has spent time competing in triathlons, coaching high school swimming, and hosting radio shows. She was in a serious ATV accident in 2014, which left her temporarily paralyzed, but she was able walk again after several months of rehab. Based on her performance in the pool, where she earned 6 gold medals and two 4th place finishes in her 8 events, she is obviously one of the greatest Olympians of all time.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #144 - Kennedy McKinney

Kennedy McKinney

USA

Boxing

Overall Rankings

#44 among American Olympians

#5 among Boxers

#2 among American Boxers

Olympic Results

1988

Bantamweight - Gold

Total

Events - 1

Gold - 1

Kennedy McKinney was born on January 10, 1966 in Hernando, Mississippi, and took up boxing as a young adult while serving as a Private First Class in the US Army. He competed in the US Amateur Championships every year from 1985 to 1988, finishing second or third each time.

At the 1988 Olympic Trials, he faced the two men who had beaten him in the two most recent Amateur Championships, and got his revenge on both, which earned him the USA bantamweight spot on the team headed to Seoul.

At the Olympics, he won his first bout by TKO in just one minute and 44 seconds. His second opponent forfeited, so he was very fresh heading into the quarterfinals, where he defeated his opponent by unanimous decision, advancing to the semifinals.

His semifinal bout was another quick one, with another TKO in 2:32, which put him in the gold medal match against Aleksandar Hristov of Bulgaria, and the American won again by unanimous decision, meaning that he had won the gold medal without a single judge picking his opponent as the winner.

He turned pro the following year, but his star fell soon after, as we went to jail for attempting to abduct a teenage girl and spent time in drug rehab to deal with his addiction to cocaine. By 1992, he was able to win the IBF Super Bantamweight title, which he defended successfully 7 times over the next 2 years before losing it in 1994. 

He finished his pro career in 2003 with a 36-6-1 record, and now works as a boxing coach at a gym in Southaven, Mississippi, near his hometown. He only competed in the Olympics once, which was very common in the era when only amateurs were allowed to compete, but he completely dominated the tournament, which makes him one of the greatest Olympians of all time.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #145 - Seimone Augustus

Seimone Augustus

USA

Basketball

Overall Rankings

#45 among American Olympians

#4 among Basketball players

Olympic Results

2008

Women - Gold

2012

Women - Gold

2016

Women - Gold

Total

Events - 3

Gold - 3

Seimone Delicia Augustus was born on April 30, 1984 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she attended high school and college. While at LSU, she led the Tigers to 3 straight appearances in the Final Four, and then was the #1 pick in the 2006 WNBA Draft.

She finished as the #2 scorer in the league as a rookie and was named Rookie of the Year, then set a career-high with 22.6 points per game in 2007. She made the 2008 Olympic team, which ran through the tournament, winning their games by an average of over 37 points each and earned her first gold medal.

She tore her ACL in 2009, missing most of that season, but when she was back at full health in 2011, she led the Minnesota Lynx to a championship and was named the Finals MVP. This helped her make the Olympic team again in 2012, and that team again swept their way to the gold medal, winning by an average of almost 35 points per game.

She won another WNBA title in 2013, then missed much of the 2015 season to a knee injury before returning in time for the playoffs, where she earned her 3rd league title. She was back on the Olympic team in 2016, and that team again won every game they entered by an average of more than 37 points, and Augustus had her third gold medal.

In 2017, she and the Lynx reached their 6th WNBA Finals in 7 years, and won it for the 4th time, giving her one more WNBA title than Olympic gold medal. She played 3 more years before retiring in early 2021, taking a role as an assistant coach with the LA Sparks. She is currently an assistant coach at LSU, her alma mater.

Augustus was not the top scorer on any of her Olympic teams, but she was always one of the biggest contributors, and the 3 Olympic teams she belonged to were the three most dominant women's teams in history, which earns her a spot as one of the greatest Olympic athletes of all time.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #146 - Teofilo Stevenson

Teofilo Stevenson

Cuba

Boxing

Overall Rankings

#6 among Boxers

#3 among Cuban Olympians

#2 among Cuban boxers

Olympic Results

1972

Heavyweight - Gold

1976

Heavyweight - Gold

1980

Heavyweight - Gold

Total

Events - 3

Gold - 3

Teofilo Stevenson Lawrence was born on March 29, 1952 in Puerto Padre, Cuba. His father was an immigrant from Saint Vincent, and his mother's parents had immigrated from Saint Kitts. His father had boxed briefly as a young man, and Teofilo began training at the age of 9, and began his career at age 17.

In 1972, at age 20, he made the Cuban Olympic team, and he won each of his first three bouts by TKO, including an opening bout that only lasted 3 minutes. He advanced to the final, where he was to face Ion Alexe of Romania, but he was unable to fight due to an injury from his previous fight, and Stevenson won the gold medal by default.

After winning the World Championship in 1974, he returned to defend his title in 1976 in Montreal, and he was even more dominant, winning two bouts by knockout and one by TKO on his way to the final, where he faced another Romanian, Mircea Simon, who bowed out in the third round, earning Stevenson his second straight gold medal.

After that win, he was offered $5 million to face Muhammad Ali for the world heavyweight title, but it would mean giving up his amateur status, which would make him ineligible for the Olympics, so he declined, saying that the love of 8 million Cubans was worth more than a million dollars.

He began the 1980 Olympics with a pair of knockouts, after which he won his semifinal by unanimous decision, the first time in his Olympic career that a match had gone the full length. He advanced to the final, where he faced Soviet Pyotr Zayev in front of the Soviet crowd, but still managed to win the bout by split decision, becoming the second man in history to win 3 gold medals in boxing.

Stevenson lost in the 1982 World Championships, ending an 11-year unbeaten streak, and then lost another bout in 1983, but was still expected to contend for the gold medal in 1984, until Cuba decided to join the Soviet boycott of the Olympics. He continued fighting, winning another World Championship in 1986, but after Cuba decided to boycott the 1988 Olympics as well, Stevenson retired from boxing.

Following his retirement, Stevenson worked as a boxing trainer and as Vice President of the Cuban Boxing Federation, before passing away in 2012 of a heart attack. He is considered by many to be the greatest boxer to never turn pro, and his three dominant gold medal runs through the Olympics make him one of the greatest Olympians of all time.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #147 - Ding Ning

Ding Ning

China

Table Tennis

Overall Ranks

#10 among Chinese Olympians

#7 among Table Tennis athletes

#5 among Female Chinese Table Tennis Athletes

Olympic Results

2012

Singles - Silver

Team - Gold

2016

Singles - Gold

Team - Gold

Total

Events - 4

Gold - 3

Silver - 1

Ding Ning was born on June 20, 1990 in Daqing, China, and by the age of 5 had begun training for a career in table tennis. She was assigned to study at Xiannongtan Sports School, and by age 19 had made the national team.

She had her first major individual victories in 2011, when she won both the World Championship and the World Cup of table tennis. She entered the 2012 Olympics as the #1 ranked player in the world, and the favorite to win the gold medal, with her Chinese teammate Li Xiaoxia picked to win the silver.

Individual matches in the Olympics are played in a best of 7 format, and Ding lost only 3 games on the way to the final, while Li lost 4. In the final showdown, Li won the first two games by a small margin, then lost the third to Ding, before taking the final two games to take the gold and leave Ding with the individual silver.

The two finalists teamed up with Guo Yue in the team competition next, and the three Chinese swept through the entire tournament without losing a single game, earning the trio gold medals, the second for Guo and Li, but the first for Ding.

Leading up to the 2016 Olympics, Ding again won the World Championship in 2015, and was again the #1 seed in the singles tournament, where she dominated the competition on her way back to the gold medal match, losing only a single game along the way. The final was a rematch with Li, and it was an extremely close match, going all the way to 7 games, with Ding winning the final 2 to take the gold medal 4-3.

The two finalists again competed in the team event with a new teammate, first-time Olympian Liu Shiwen, but the result was exactly the same, with the Chinese winning every single game on its way to another gold medal.

Ding won another World Championship in 2017, but did not make the Chinese team for the 2020 games, as only 2 are allowed from each nation. She retired in 2021 to pursue a masters degree in physical education, and last year she was appointed the principal of the same sports school she attended as a child.

China has dominated the table tennis events at the Olympics since they were added, and Ding Ning is one of the best athletes to come from the country during that time, with her only loss coming in an Olympic final to a fellow countryman, making her one of the greatest Olympic athletes of all time.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #148 - Vic Wild

Vic Wild 

Russia

Snowboard

Overall Ranks

#7 among Russian Olympians

#1 among Snowboarders

Olympic Results

2014

Parallel Giant Slalom - Gold

Parallel Slalom - Gold

2022

Parallel Giant Slalom - Bronze

Total

Events - 4

Gold - 2

Bronze - 1

Victor Ivan Wild was born in White Salmon, Washington on August 23, 1986, and originally competed for the United States in international competitions, but after the US Olympic Committee decided to stop funding snowboard racing in 2010, and after his marriage to Russian snowboarder Alyona Zavarzina in 2011, he moved to Russia and applied for citizenship.

He made his Olympic debut in 2014, competing in the Parallel Slalom and Parallel Giant Slalom. He posted the second-best qualifying time in the Parallel Giant, which moved him to the round of 16. Starting in that round, matches consisted of 2 snowboarders racing at the same time, with the best overall time after 2 races determining the winner. Wild won all but one race in the competition, taking the gold medal just hours after his wife won the bronze medal in the same event.

He earned the best qualifying time in the Parallel Slalom a few days later, getting him the top seed in the 16-man field, and again he won the competition while losing only a single race, a loss which came by 0.04 of a second to a 2-time world champion in the event. His win made him the first snowboarder ever to win multiple gold medals at the same Olympics, and he is still the only one to do it in 2 individual events.

The Parallel Slalom did not return after the 2014 Olympics, but Wild came back to defend his title in the Parallel Giant in 2018, but after placing 9th in qualifying, he lost in his first race and was eliminated.

Despite getting divorced in 2021, he decided to continue living in and competing for Russia, and he again competed in the Parallel Giant Slalom in 2022, again taking 9th place in the qualifying round. After upsetting fellow Russian Dmitry Loginov in the first round, he took down the #1 seed in the next, advancing to the semifinals. He lost his next race, then finished off the tournament with one final upset to earn himself a bronze medal.

Though Wild has only competed in 4 Olympic events in his career, and failed to medal in one of them, he dominated in both of his events in 2014, and another strong performance in 2022 earned him the title of best Olympic snowboarder of all time so far.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #149 - Aleksandr Karelin

Aleksandr Karelin

USSR - Unified Team - Russia

Wrestling

Overall Ranks

#8 among Russian Olympians

#5 among Wrestlers

#4 among Russian Wrestlers

Olympic Results

1988

Greco-Roman Super Heavyweight - Gold

1992

Greco-Roman Super Heavyweight - Gold

1996

Greco-Roman Super Heavyweight - Gold

2000

Greco-Roman Super Heavyweight - Silver

Total

Events - 4

Gold - 3

Silver - 1

Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Karelin was born on September 19th, 1967 in Novosibirsk, USSR. His father was a boxer, but Aleksandr decided at age 13 to train as a wrestler, and at that point he already stood 5'10" and weighed 174 pounds. 

He scored his first major victory in 1988, when he won the USSR Olympic trial against the nation's defending champion, after which he went on to win every match in the Olympics on the way to his first gold medal, becoming the youngest-ever champion in the super heavyweight class, just 2 days after his 21st birthday.

Over the next 3 years, he ran undefeated through the World Championships each time, then returned to the Olympics as a heavy favorite, this time representing the Unified Team after the breakup of the USSR the previous year. He once again flew through the tournament undefeated, even winning his 4th match in only 14 seconds on his way to gold medal number two.

He won 3 more World Championships from 1993 to 1995, never losing a match, but injured his shoulder and had to have surgery, returning just before the 1996 Olympics. He was considered vulnerable for the first time due to this, but swept through the Olympics undefeated, not even giving up a single point on his way to a third straight gold medal, this time representing Russia.

From 1997-1999, he ran his streak of World Championships up to 9, never surrendering a point in any of those matches, and was expected to continue his streak at the 2000 Olympics. He made it to the final match without giving up a point, but lost in the final to Rulon Gardner of the USA by a score of 1-0. It was the first point he had given up in 6 years, and his first loss in 13 years, and he went home with a silver medal.

He retired after that loss, turning to his new career in politics, where he had been elected to the Russian Duma in 1999, and he has served in Russian politics in some role ever since. Even with his long post-athletic career, he is still best-known as one of the most dominant wrestlers of all time, and one of the greatest Olympians of all time.