Pascal Richard was born on March 16, 1964 in Vevey, Switzerland, and began his career in cyclo-cross, winning the gold medal in the 1988 World Championship, but switched to road racing when it became clear that he was very talented at climbing.
He made his lone Olympic appearance in the road race in 1996 in Atlanta. Just weeks earlier, he had competed in the Tour de France, where he had won the 12th stage, which was the most mountainous of the race. The 1996 Olympics were the first where professional cyclists were allowed to compete, including Richard.
The race was extended due to professional athletes being added, measuring at 221.85 km. There was a massive group of 111 riders that stayed together for most of the race, but with 33 km remaining, Richard broke away from the main group, and was joined by two other riders. That trio pulled farther and farther from the main group for the rest of the race, then sprinted it out at the finish, where Richard was able to pull ahead and finish a split second ahead of Rolf Sorensen of Denmark to take the gold medal.
After the medalists crossed the line, it was over a minute before any other riders finished. It was the largest time difference for a breakaway finish in Olympic history, and though he continued riding professionally through 2000, he never tried to compete in the Olympics again. Winning the breakaway by such a large margin is what makes Richard one of the greatest Olympians of all time.
Vitali Veniadziktavich Shcherba (also spelled Scherbo) was born on January 13, 1972 in Minsk, USSR, now part of Belarus. He was trained in the Soviet gymnastic schools as a child, and made his international debut when he was 19 years old at the World Championships, where he won all-around silver, plus 2 more individual silvers and a bronze to go along with team gold.
By the next year, the Soviet Union no longer existed, but he was selected to be part of the Unified Team that represented the former Soviet Union in Barcelona. In the team event, the Unified Team had the highest overall score in all 6 apparatus, and they easily won the gold medal by just more than 5 points over China, giving Shcherba his first gold medal.
Shcherba was the top qualifier in the individual all-around based on his scores from the team event, with the highest score on 4 apparatus. Those scores no longer counted toward the individual all-around, just qualifying, but he had the best score on 3 apparatus in the final, which enabled him to beat his Ukrainian teammate, Hryhoriy Misiutin, for the gold medal by 0.1 points, reversing their places from the previous world championship.
The top 8 on each apparatus in the team event advanced to the individual event finals, with a maximum of 2 per country, and Shcherba qualified for 5 of the 6 event finals, only missing out on the horizontal bar. Previously, final scores were the average of the qualifying and the final performance, but by this point, that had been changed to only count the final performance toward the medal.
He was the top qualifier in the floor exercise, but on his final pass in his final performance, he stepped out of bounds, and the deduction landed him in 6th place, causing him to miss out on a medal. In the vault, he was the #2 qualifier behind Misiutin, and the final score was determined by the average of 2 vaults in the final. Shcherba had the 2 best vaults of the final, and won the gold medal over Misiutin by 0.75 points, which is a pretty large margin for an individual event.
Shcherba was the top qualifier on the parallel bars, but the favorite was Li Jing of China, who was the two-time world champion, but on his dismount, Li took a step, while Shcherba was able to nail his, scoring a 9.9 to pull off the upset and win his 4th gold medal in Barcelona. He was also the top qualifier on the rings, and after a 9.937 in the final, he took another gold medal, also over Li, this one by 0.62 points.
Shcherba was also the top qualifier in the pommel horse, along with teammate Valery Belenky, but Belenky faltered in the final, and Shcherba posted a 9.925, which ended up tying for the top score in the final with Pae Gil-Su of North Korea, so the two shared the gold medal, with no silver awarded. It was Shcherba's sixth gold medal of the games, and he is still the only gymnast ever to win 6 golds at a single Olympics.
After the Olympics, Shcherba moved to the United State, settling in State College, Pennsylvania, but at that point began competing for his homeland of Belarus, newly independent after the breakup of the Soviet Union. He won 8 gold medals at the World Championships over the next 3 years, including all-around gold in 1993, but he took bronze and silver in the all-around the next two years. He was still an easy choice to represent Belarus in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
In the 1996 team event, the former Soviet republics had most of the best teams, with Russia taking the gold medal, China repeating as silver medalist, and Ukraine coming in bronze. Belarus, despite being much smaller, still managed a 4th place finish, and came in just 0.16 points behind Ukraine for the bronze medal.
Shcherba was the #2 overall qualifier for the individual all-around, thanks to 4 scores among the top 4 in an apparatus. He ended up matching those placements almost exactly in the final, but Li Xiaoshuang of China finished among the top 7 in every apparatus, and moved ahead of everyone else for the gold, and Shcherba ended up winning the bronze medal.
He qualified for 4 of the event finals, all but the rings and the pommel horse, both of which he had won at the last Olympics. He was the number 2 qualifier in the floor exercise, but again had a big mistake in his final routine, and ended up finishing in 7th place. He qualified 4th in the vault, but had won the last gold and 2 recent world championships, so he was a threat to medal. In the final, he had two very good vaults, but was only able to finish in third place, winning another bronze medal.
He was also 4th in qualifying in the parallel bars, but was the defending Olympic and world champion in the event. He received a 9.8 for his final routine, but two others beat that score, and he ended up winning his third bronze. He was the #2 qualifier in the horizontal bar, and again scored a 9.8 in the final, which was again good enough for just a bronze medal.
In 1997, he broke his hand in a motorcycle accident, and retired soon afterward. 20 years later, Tatiana Gutsu, who had been his teammate on the Unified Team in 1992 and had won the women's all-around, accused him of raping her when they were training together in 1991, when he was 19 and she was 15. He has denied the allegations, and no charges were ever filed.
Shcherba's performance at the 1992 Olympics alone would be enough to put him on this list, as the only gymnast ever to win 6 gold medals at the same Olympics, but coming back to win 4 bronzes in 1996, including one in the all-around, helped move him much higher on the list of the greatest Olympians of all time.
Nicole Uphoff was born on January 25, 1967 in Duisburg, West Germany, and began riding in competitions with her horse, Rembrandt, when she was 18 years old, and by the time she was 21, she was recognized as one of the best in the world, and made her first Olympic team, riding for West Germany.
In the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, her first event was the team competition, where up to 4 riders from each nation went through the process, and the three highest scores counted toward the overall score. Uphoff was the highest scorer of any competitor overall, and with one of her teammates finishing in 3rd, the German team won easily, 138 points above the Swiss, who came in second.
The top 18 riders advanced to the final in the individual event, with only 3 per nation allowed to compete, leaving one West German out. Uphoff had scored 1458 in the team round, just 3 points ahead of the next qualifier, but in the final, she was nearly perfect, and raised the bar to 1521 points, which allowed her to run away with the gold by 59 points.
She followed up her pair of Olympic golds with 2 pairs of World Championship golds, and she was the favorite heading to Barcelona in 1992, competing for the newly reunified Germany. In the team event, she again had the highest score, with 1768 under a different scoring system than before, and she was 6 points ahead of Isabell Werth, her teammate, which helped them win the team gold by nearly 500 points.
The top 16 riders advanced to the individual final, except that the 4th German rider was left out again, even though they were #4 in qualifying. In the final, the German trio again finished at the top, sweeping the medals, with Uphoff finishing 75 points ahead of Werth to successfully defend her gold medal, becoming just the second rider in history to win twice in a row, while Rembrandt became the first horse ever to repeat as champion.
In the next World Championship, she ended up only in second place, and by 1996, she failed to make the German team for the Atlanta Olympics, but as defending individual champion, she had the right to compete in the individual event, which she accepted. That event was expanded by a round that year, and she was in 9th after qualifying and 8th after the first round of the final, but dropped out before the final round, which was won by Werth, her teammate.
Rembrandt retired after the 1996 Olympics, and Uphoff spent a few years looking for a new horse. She won a competition in 1999 on a new horse, Borbet Rubinstein, but again failed to make the Olympic team in 2000, and never again attempted to return to the Olympics, though she didn't officially retire until 2013. While she was at the top of her game, she was unbeatable, winning all 4 of her Olympic gold medals in blowout fashion, making her one of the greatest Olympians of all time.
Jennifer Beth Thompson was born on February 26, 1973 in Danvers, Massachusetts, and began swimming when she was 7 years old. At age 13, she moved to Dover, New Hampshire for training, and by the time she was 19, she held the world record in both the 50m and 100m freestyle races, just in time for the Barcelona Olympics.
Going into the 100m race in 1992, she was the favorite going into the event, thanks to her world record at the Olympic trials. In the prelim, she set a new Olympic record of 54.69 seconds, but in the final Zhuang Yong of China took the lead early and was able to hold off Thompson clear to the end, winning by 0.2 seconds and beating Thompson's new Olympic record, while leaving her with the silver medal.
She next competed in the 200m freestyle, and she was able to qualify for the B final, but decided not to race in order to focus on other events where she could win a medal. The next day, she swam the anchor leg in the 4x100m freestyle relay final. China took the lead on the first leg behind a great split from Zhuang, with the USA in third, but Dara Torres pulled them into second after her leg. When Thompson entered the pool, China was still ahead, but it was close. Thompson went out and swam the fastest relay leg in history to bring home the gold medal for the Americans, who finished 0.66 seconds ahead of China.
Next up was the 4x100m Medley Relay, where she again swam the freestyle anchor leg in the final. Germany and the Unified Team kept it close through the first half of the race, but the USA pulled away during the butterfly, and then Thompson swam the third-fastest split of all time to bring home another gold in world record time.
Her final event in Barcelona was the 50m, where she was also the world record holder. She won her prelim heat, but in the final, she came in 5th place, which was a major disappointment, but she still left her first Olympics with 2 golds and a silver.
In 1996, she failed to qualify for any of the individual events, but was still added to the Olympic team to compete in relays. In the 4x100m freestyle relay, she again had the honor of swimming the anchor leg in the final, and after Amy Van Dyken gave the USA the lead on the second leg, Thompson put it away at the end, giving the Americans the gold medal by more than a second over China.
In the 4x100m medley relay, Thompson swam the butterfly leg in the prelim, in which America had the bets time, and then they went on to win gold in the final without Thompson, instead using gold medalist Angel Martino in that slot. She also swam the anchor leg in the 4x200m relay final, where she was given a 1.5 second lead, which she held through the finish, as the Americans won the gold medal in world record time, beating the world record set in the prelim by 4.5 seconds.
Over the next three years, she won 3 straight world championships in the 100m freestyle, so she went to Sydney in 2000 expecting big things. She started again with the 4x100m freestyle relay, where she swam the anchor in the final, and stretched a 1.8 second lead to 3.2 seconds to set another Olympic record and win another relay gold.
She then swam in the 100m butterfly, and she won both of her heats to qualify for the final, but in the final, she was never really in contention, finishing 5th, more than 2 seconds behind the winner. She then swam anchor in the 4x200m freestyle relay, and the Americans trailed for most of the final, before Thompson pulled ahead of Australia at the final turn, and ended up winning by 0.7 seconds, again setting an Olympic record.
Next up was the 100m freestyle, where she was 3-time defending world champion, but she came in second in the semifinal round behind eventual gold medalist Inge de Bruijn, and ended up finishing in a tie for 3rd with Dara Torres of the USA for the bronze medal. In the 4x100m medley relay, she swam the butterfly leg in the final, and all 4 Americans had the fastest split for their stroke, and they easily beat Australia by over 3 seconds and set a world record.
She retired after the Olympics to pursue a medical degree, but decided to begin training again in 2002 for a possible Olympic return, and she ended up making the team. For the 4th straight Olympics, she swam the anchor leg in the final of the 4x100m freestyle, but unlike the last three times, she was passed on the final stretch by Jodie Henry of Australia, and the USA had to settle for a silver medal.
She qualified for the final in both the 100m butterfly and the 50m freestyle, but she ended up finishing 5th in the fly and 7th in the freestyle, ending her quest for an individual Olympic gold. She also swam the butterfly leg in the 4x100m medley relay final, where she was again passed during her leg, and the Americans finished with another silver medal.
She retired again after the Olympics to return to finish medical school, graduating in 2006, and she has worked since then as a pediatric anesthesiologist. Even though she never won individual gold in the Olympics, her 8 gold medals in the relays are a record, and only 1 behind Katie Ledecky for the most golds for an American woman, making her one of the greatest Olympians of all time.
Maria Valentina Vezzali was born on February 14, 1974 in Jesi, Italy, and began her fencing training with her father when she was a young girl, and quickly proved to be talented at it. She competed in her first world championship at age 19, finishing 6th, which would be the worst finish in any event in her entire career.
She finished 2nd in the World Championships in 1994, and 3rd in 1995, so she was one of the main medal contenders heading to Atlanta in 1996 for her first Olympics. The individual foil event was contested as a single-elimination tournament, with each bout going to 15 touches. As the #1 seed, Vezzali had a bye in the first round, then had a couple of close early matches before winning 15-10 in the quarterfinal and 15-7 in the semifinal. In the final, she faced Laura Badea of Romania, the defending world champion, and she ended up falling 15-10, leaving her with a silver medal.
The team event was also single-elimination, and Italy was the #1 seed, as they had two of the top 3 in the individual event. They destroyed China 45-24 in the quarterfinal, then had a close call against Hungary before beating Romania in the final 45-33, avenging their losses to Badea in the individual event and taking home the gold.
In 1999, she finally won her first World Championship gold in individual foil, after getting other medals in the previous three, and she was the favorite in Sydney in 2000, again starting as the #1 seed. This time, she made easy work of the entire competition, never allowing an opponent to score more than 8 touches, and winning the final 15-5 to take home a dominant gold medal, her first individual Olympic gold.
In the team event, Italy was again the top seed, thanks to again having two medalists on the team. They won all three of their matches without much trouble, scoring at least 6 points more than each opponent, and they successfully defended their gold medal from Atlanta.
She won the next two World Championships, running her total to 3 in a row, and was again the favorite in Athens. The team events are held on a rotating basis, so there was no team event that year, so she made the most of her time in the individual. She made it back to the final again without allowing an opponent to score more than 8, but her final match was closer, facing teammate and 2-time bronze medalist Giovanna Trillini. The score went back and forth, but Vezzali pulled away at the end to win 15-11 for a repeat gold.
She won 2 more World Championships before the Olympics headed to Beijing in 2008, and she was the #1 seed for the 4th straight time in the individual foil. She once again dominated all the way to the final, where she faced Nam Hyeon-Hui of South Korea. The bout was a defensive struggle, and was tied at 5 with just a few seconds left when Vezzali scored the winning touch to take her third straight gold medal, becoming the first athlete ever to win the event three times in a row.
The Italians were again heavy favorites in the team event, with 3 of the top 4 individuals, and they beat the Chinese hosts easily to reach the semifinal, but they were surprised by the Russians in the semifinal, losing a low-scoring battle 22-21, with Vezzali scoring 13 of her team's points. They rebounded to beat Hungary 32-23 in the bronze medal match, but it was still a disappointment for the favorites.
In the 2009 World Championships, she failed to medal for the first time since 1993, when she was a rookie. She bounced back to win again in 2011, but she was starting to show a little weakness. In London in 2012, she was the #2 seed, behind Nam, but it didn't matter much in the early rounds, as she easily reached the semifinals again. In the semifinal, however, she was upset by Arianna Errigo, also from Italy, losing 15-12, and was forced to face Nam again, this time for bronze rather than gold. She would take care of business, winning another close match 13-12, giving her a fifth straight medal in the individual foil event.
Italy won all 3 medals in the individual event, so they were heavy favorites in the team foil. They destroyed the host Brits 42-14, then did the same to the French, 45-22, to advance to the final. They faced Russia in the final, and they got their revenge, beating them 45-31, giving Vezzali a third gold medal in the team event, and a 6th overall.
She was elected to the Italian Parliament in 2013, but continued to compete, winning several medals in the World Championships, but after she failed to make the Olympic team in 2016, she retired from competition. She competed in 9 Olympic events over 5 Games, and won medals in every single one, six of them gold, and she is one of only 5 athletes in history to win a medal in the same individual event at 5 straight Olympics, making her easily one of the greatest Olympians of all time.
Kerry Lorenzo Harrison, who goes by Kenny, was born on February 13, 1965 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he was a track star in high school, before going south to Kansas State University, where he won 3 NCAA titles, one in long jump and two in triple jump.
He won the 1991 World Championship in the triple jump, and was preparing to participate in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona when he suffered a knee injury that required surgery. After rehabbing from surgery, he began competing in preparation for the 1996 Olympics, and he spent the three years leading up to the games ranked #2 in the world.
He was healthy when the 1996 Olympics came around, and was expected to compete with Jonathan Edwards of Great Britain, the world record holder who was ranked #1 in the world. In the preliminary round, he 17.58 meters on his first jump, which was 0.38 meters better than the second-best, by defending champion Mike Conley (father of the basketball player).
In the final round, where there were 12 jumpers, Harrison jumped 17.99 on his first jump, which would have been enough to win on its own, but on his third jump, he set a new Olympic record of 18.09 meters, while Edwards only managed a best jump of 17.88, giving Harrison the upset gold. At the time, it was the second-longest jump in history, and today, it still ranks #5. It was also the longest jump ever into a headwind until 2024, when Jordan Diaz of Spain jumped 18.18.
He competed for a couple more years, but decided to retire in 1998. His gold medal jump in 1996 is still the Olympic record 30 years later, and it's bigger because he beat the world record holder head to head to accomplish it, making him one of the greatest Olympians of all time, with only one event to his name.
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.
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.
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.
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.
