Bob Beamon: The Event Destroyer
At every Olympic Games during the modern era there have been athletes who stamp their mark on their events imperiously, silencing critics and shrugging off rivals. At the 1988 Seoul…
Gal Fridman: The First Israeli Gold Medallist
The modern Olympic Games and Jewish athletes have not had the best of relationships. Unfrtunately, due to some very un-Olympic attitudes towards race and religion the efforts of the Jewish…
Konrad Freiherr Von Wangenheim: The Arm In The Sling Gold Medallist
Without a doubt the 1936 Berlin Summer Games were the largest, most controversial and most nationalistic games of the modern era before the beginning of the Second World War. Originally…
Jim Shea: The Moonshine Gold Medallist
When one compares the Winter and Summer Olympics, the former appears to have the more potential for death and dismemberment when it comes to the individual sports. For every dangerous…
Gaby Andersen-Scheiss: Staggering Into History
Up until 1984 and the games of the XXIIIrd Olympiad the iconic event of the marathon had been limited to male participation only. There had been one unoffical female runner…
Paea Wolfgramm: Mountain Man, Mountain Heart
As recorded elsewhere in this blog the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics were marred by a Soviet-led boycott, reducing the original number of invited competing nations. The 16 countries that didn’t…
Brian Boitano and Brian Orser: The Battle of The Brians
Many of the greatest moments in modern Olympic history have been where two champions have met and not just competed against each other to win gold, but also they have…
Danyon Loader: The Kiwi That Really Could Swim
New Zealand has a long and very successful Olympic history, starting way back in 1894 when Leonard Cuff was voted one of the thirteen original members of the International Olympic…
Dick Fosbury: A Flop And A Gold Medallist
As noted in another entry in this compilation of the 101 Greatest Olympic Moments, the 1968 Mexico City Olympics saw a leap or two into the record books. One was…
Paraskevi Patoulidou: The Hellenic Heroine of Barcelona
When the modern Olympic Games were revived in Athens in 1896 the host nation’s competitors were all male and were also singularly successful. The revival of the Olympic tradition by…