James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens was an American track and field athlete and four-time gold medalist in the 1936 Olympic Games.
Lennox Claudius Lewis, is a retired professional boxer who competed from 1989 to 2003. He is a three-time world heavyweight champion, a two-time lineal champion, and remains the last heavyweight to hold the undisputed title. Holding dual British and Canadian citizenship, Lewis represented Canada as an amateur at the 1988 Summer Olympics, winning a gold medal in the super-heavyweight division after defeating Riddick Bowe in the final.
Mark Andrew Spitz is an American former competitive swimmer and nine-time Olympic champion. He was the most successful athlete at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, winning seven gold medals, all in world record time. This was an achievement that lasted for 36 years until it was surpassed by fellow American Michael Phelps, who won eight golds at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
Frederick Carlton "Carl" Lewis is an American former track and field athlete who won nine Olympic gold medals, one Olympic silver medal, and 10 World Championships medals, including eight gold. His career spanned from 1979 to 1996, when he last won an Olympic event. He is one of only three Olympic athletes who won a gold medal in the same individual event in four consecutive Olympic Games.
The 1980 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Moscow, Soviet Union, in present-day Russia.
Ian James Thorpe, is an Australian retired swimmer who specialised in freestyle, but also competed in backstroke and the individual medley. He has won five Olympic gold medals, the most won by any Australian. With three gold and two silver medals, Thorpe was the most successful athlete at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.
Toni Kukoč is a Croatian former professional basketball player who is currently Special Advisor to Jerry Reinsdorf, the owner of the Chicago Bulls. After a highly successful period in European basketball, he was one of the first established European stars to play in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He won the NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award in 1996.
Edwin Corley Moses is an American former track and field athlete who won gold medals in the 400 m hurdles at the 1976 and 1984 Olympics. Between 1977 and 1987, Moses won 107 consecutive finals and set the world record in the event four times. In addition to his running, Moses was also an innovative reformer in the areas of Olympic eligibility and drug testing. In 2000, he was elected the first Chairman of the Laureus World Sports Academy, an international service organization of world-class athletes.
Michael Duane Johnson is an American retired sprinter who won four Olympic gold medals and eight World Championships gold medals in the span of his career. He formerly held the world and Olympic records in the 200 m and 400 m, as well as the world record in the indoor 400 m. He also once held the world's best time in the 300 m. Johnson is generally considered one of the greatest and most consistent sprinters in the history of track and field.
Taufik Hidayat is a retired Indonesian badminton player. He is a former World and Olympic champion in the men's singles. He has also won the Indonesia Open six times.
Justin Gatlin is an American sprinter who specializes in the 100 and 200 metres events. He is the 2017 100m World Champion. He is the 2004 Olympic champion in the 100 metres, the 2005 and 2017 World champion in the same event, and the 2005 World champion in the 200 metres. Gatlin was banned from competing between 2006 and 2010 by the USADA for failing a second drugs test, testing positive for testosterone.
Pullela Gopichand is a former Indian badminton player. Presently, he is the Chief National Coach for the Indian Badminton team. He won the All England Open Badminton Championships in 2001 becoming the second Indian to achieve this feat after Prakash Padukone. He runs the Gopichand Badminton Academy. He received the Arjuna Award in 1999, the Dronacharya Award in 2009 and the Padma Bhushan – India's third highest civilian award – in 2014.
Ryan Steven Lochte is an American competitive swimmer and 12-time Olympic medalist. Along with Natalie Coughlin, Dara Torres, and Jenny Thompson, he is the second-most decorated swimmer in Olympic history measured by total number of medals, behind only Michael Phelps. Lochte's seven individual Olympic medals rank second in history in men's swimming, tied for second among all Olympic swimmers. He currently holds the world records in the 200-meter individual medley. As part of the American teams, he also holds the world record in the 4×200-meter freestyle and 4x100-meter freestyle (mixed) relay.
Usain St Leo Bolt, is a Jamaican former sprinter. He is a world record holder in the 100 metres, 200 metres and 4 × 100 metres relay. Owing to his achievements and dominance in sprint competition, he is widely considered to be the greatest sprinter of all time.
Eliud Kipchoge EGH is a Kenyan long-distance runner who competes in the marathon and formerly the 5000 metres. He is the world record holder in the marathon with a time of 2:01:39, set on 16 September 2018, at the 2018 Berlin Marathon. His run broke the previous world record by 1 minute and 18 seconds. Described as "the greatest marathoner of the modern era", Kipchoge has won 12 of the 13 marathons he has entered.
Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius is a South African former professional sprinter and convicted murderer. In 2015 he was found guilty for the 2013 murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Sir Mohamed Muktar Jama Farah,, commonly known as Mo Farah, is a British distance runner. The most successful British track athlete in modern Olympic Games history, he is the 2012 and 2016 Olympic gold medalist in both the 5000 m and 10,000 m. Farah is the second athlete in modern Olympic Games history, after Lasse Virén, to win both the 5000 m and 10,000 m titles at successive Olympic Games. He also completed the 'distance double' at the 2013 and 2015 World Championships in Athletics. He was the second man in history, after Kenenisa Bekele, to win long-distance doubles at successive Olympics and World Championships, and the first in history to defend both distance titles in both major global competitions – a feat described as the 'quadruple-double'. Since finishing 2nd in the 10,000 metres at the 2011 World Championships in Athletics, Farah had an unbroken streak of ten global final wins. The streak ended in Farah's final championship track race, when he finished second to Ethiopia's Muktar Edris in the 2017 5000 metres final. In his final track race, the 2017 Diamond League Final in Zurich in August 2017, Farah gained his revenge, edging out world champion Edris to win his only IAAF Diamond League title at 5000 metres.
Michael Fred Phelps II is an American former competitive swimmer and the most successful and most decorated Olympian of all time, with a total of 28 medals. Phelps also holds the all-time records for Olympic gold medals (23), Olympic gold medals in individual events (13), and Olympic medals in individual events (16). When he won eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Games, Phelps broke fellow American swimmer Mark Spitz's 1972 record of seven first-place finishes at any single Olympic Games. At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Phelps had already tied the record of eight medals of any color at a single Games by winning six gold and two bronze medals. At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Phelps won four gold and two silver medals, and at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, he won five gold medals and one silver. This made him the most successful athlete of the Games for the fourth Olympics in a row.
The 1992 United States men's Olympic basketball team, nicknamed the "Dream Team", was the first American Olympic team to feature active professional players from the National Basketball Association (NBA). The team has been described by American and international journalists as the greatest sports team ever assembled. Eleven of its players and three of its coaches were eventually inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Adam George Peaty, is an English competitive swimmer who specialises in the breaststroke. He has represented Great Britain at the Olympic Games, World Championships and European Championships, and England in the Commonwealth Games. He won the gold medal in the 100 metre breaststroke at the 2016 Olympics, the first by a male British swimmer in 24 years. He is the current holder of the world record in 50 metre and 100 metre breaststroke events.
