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What makes you watch the Olympic Games? For some, it’s the chance to watch gifted athletes perform in the sports they love. For others, it’s a time to cheer on their countrymen and women as they square off against the best in the world. But for many of us, what truly makes the Olympics a must-see event are those timeless moments when an individual transcends what we thought was possible and accomplishes something truly incredible. Here are our top 25 most unforgettable Summer Olympic moments of all time.
#25. Steve Redgrave Wins Rowing Gold for 5th Straight Olympics (Sydney 2000)
After Atlanta in ’96, British rower Steve Redgrave declared “anybody who sees me in a boat has my permission to shoot me.” Fortunately, he changed his mind, and was back at the Games in 2000. Redgrave’s excellence and longevity earned him his first gold at age 22 and his last at 38. He won three different rowing events, including 2000’s gritty battle in the “fours without coxswain” against Italy. During his career, he coped with severed tendons in his right hand, back surgery, ulcerative colitis and Type 2 diabetes. The 6’ 5” Redgrave, who was also a national bobsled champ, kept a level head throughout, referring to himself as “an ordinary guy who went quite quick in a boat.”
#24. Al Oerter’s Fourth Discus Gold Medal (1968 Mexico City)
Oerter and the discus essentially grew up together. When the U.S. thrower took his first gold in 1956, he set an Olympic record of 184’ 11”. When he won for the fourth time in ’68, his new mark was 212’ 6”. He led Americans sweeps of all three discus medals in 1956 and 1960 but by ’64 and ’68, he had to thwart the threat of the growing Eastern European sports machines. Oerter was an uncannily clutch performer in a pressure-packed event in which nerves play a major factor. In ’68, after a long rain delay, Oerter spun the discus five feet further than he ever had before and triumphed by his biggest Olympic margin, more than six feet.
#23. Derek Redmond and His Father Finish a 400 (1992 Barcelona)
Great Britain’s Redmond had battled injuries for years to reach the Olympic track in 1992. Less than halfway through a 400-meter semifinal, his hamstring snapped and he crashed to the track in excruciating pain. He rose up, determined to complete the one-lap race. While he desperately hobbled around the track, his father, Jim, ran past security and reached his son on the track, giving him a shoulder to lean on. The stonefaced father and the agonized son slowly completed their circuit of the oval track, providing an enduring image. Derek Redmond asserts “life can never be fully predicted and sometimes it becomes necessary to handle the unexpected.” He and his dad did just that.
#22. A Hobbled Kerri Strug Comes Through for USA Gymnastics (1996 Atlanta)
Tiny and squeaky-voiced Strug was just 18 but had already endured a slew of injuries to pursue her Olympic dream. The USA women had never won team gymnastics gold, but in 1996 seemed poised to do so --until some subpar performances in the vault, including Strug’s first effort, in which she landed badly and heard something snap in her ankle. Strug limped out for a second try and improved from a 9.162 to a 9.712 with a strong landing, after which she was seen hopping on her one uninjured foot. Coach Bela Karolyi had to carry Strug, who by then wore a soft cast on her leg, to the medals stand. She had provided one of the most courageous moments ever in an Olympic team sport.
#21. ‘Blood on the Water’ in the Water Polo Pool (1956 Melbourne)
There are times when Olympic events and “outside world” realities inevitably intersect. Less than a month after the Soviet Union put down a budding anti-Communist uprising in Hungary, teams from the two nations met what became to be known as water polo’s “Bloodbath of Melbourne.” Kicking and wrestling and gouging went on above and below the water, and after Hungary amassed a 4-0 lead, a Soviet player punched Hungarian star Ervin Zador in the face. Zador emerged with blood streaming down his face – and the irate spectators may have done even worse to the Soviet players if referees hadn’t stopped the contest. “We were playing not just for ourselves but for our whole country,” Zador said later. “This is the only way we could fight back.”
#20. Track’s Haile Gebrselassie-Paul Tergat Rivalry (1996 Atlanta, 2000 Sydney)
As distance running showdowns go, nothing rivals the two 10,000-meter match-ups between two men who would later gain even greater fame as marathon world recordholders. In 1996, Gebrselassie of Ethiopia and Tergat of Kenya ran far ahead of the rest of the field. The race ended with Tergat gaining, but “Geb” prevailing by six meters. They would finish 1-2 again at the World Championships in 1997 and 1999. And in 2000, Gebrselassie chased down Tergat on the homestretch, outleaning him by just 9/100ths of a second after 27:18 of running. By then, the two tenacious track warriors had become friends, and Tergat declared “I can do no better than that. I had nothing left at the end.”
#19. Steffi Graf Completes the Golden Slam of Tennis (1988 Seoul)
The “Golden Slam” didn’t even exist in people’s minds until Graf won titles at the Australian and French Opens, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open against four different finals opponents before announcing her intention to compete for Germany in Seoul. She came to Korea with a 35-match winning streak, and dispatched her pal Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina easily in the final. Her participation in Seoul was a vital indication that the world’s top players, despite their wealth, really did covet the Olympic experience.
#18. Greg Louganis, After Hitting His Head, Wins Both Diving Golds (1988 Seoul)
Louganis was a silver medalist in platform diving in 1976, when he was only 16. He developed into one of history’s greatest divers, winning springboard and platform golds by enormous margins in Los Angeles in 1984. By 1988, China was developing into a formidable force in diving, but Louganis did not back down. He secured two more golds by very slim margins, but only after a springboard mishap in which his head hit the board after during a dive and he emerged from the water bleeding from his head. Louganis required stitches before he could continue. “My pride was hurt more than anything else,” he would comment. What only a very few people knew, and what was not revealed until several years later, was that Louganis was HIV-positive and was taking AZT drugs at the time of the incident.
#17. Triathlon is Added to the Olympics (2000 Sydney)
Telecasts of gripping and gritty Hawaii Ironman finishes boosted triathlon’s popularity, and its inclusion in the Olympics, on a scenic and challenging Australian course, was long overdue. Though the bike phase is much longer, the 10k run is often the determining factor. In Sydney, the top five men’s triathletes, led by Canada’s Simon Whitfield, had the five fastest times in the run phase. In the women’s race, host Australia had hopes of securing a gold medal, and local hero Michellie Jones led as the run phase began. But Switzerland’s Brigitte McMahon caught her 200 meters from the finish and won the inaugural Olympic women’s triathlon by two seconds.
#16. Spiridon Louis is Greece’s Marathon Hero at First Modern Olympics (1896 Athens)
When the ancient Greek tradition of the Olympics was revived for the modern era, the most anticipated event was a footrace commemorating a legendary messenger who arrived in Athens, having run about 25 miles, to announce a Greek victory over Persia at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. Sadly, the Greeks hadn’t been faring too well at their own ’96 Games, so the victory by poor farmer Spiridon Louis, fueled by copious amounts of wine, was the competitive highlight for the host country. Louis’ valor and steadfastness helped solidify the Olympics as more than just a one-shot gathering. The Marathon-to-Athens route was revived for the 2004 Athens Games and was again the emotional capstone to the Olympiad.
#15. Carl Lewis Matches Jesse Owens’ 4 Gold Medals (1984 Los Angeles)
Lewis was the host country’s most heralded athlete going into the Los Angeles Games, experiencing an unprecedented storm of advanced publicity and close personal scrutiny. Anything less than a sweep of his four events would have been labeled as failure. No worries. Lewis came from behind to win the 100 meters by an Olympic record margin of eight feet, ran the best 200 ever at low altitude in into-the-wind conditions, took his specialty, the long jump, by a foot, and anchored a world record 4x100-meter relay for the U.S. He would amass a total of nine Olympic golds during his career.
#14. In Australia, Aboriginal Hero Cathy Freeman Triumphs (2000 Sydney)
There may be no more momentous example of an Olympic host country hero than Freeman, who'd been winning national track championships in Australia since age 17 in 1990. A 1996 silver medalist, Freeman was the representative of the aspirations of her Australia’s indigenous population. “I feel for my people all the time,” she said, and she sported a prominent tattoo declaring "Cos I'm Free." But Freeman was lovingly embraced by all of Australia and was selected to light the Olympic cauldron in Sydney in 2000, something that made her more nervous than her upcoming 400-meter race. In the Olympic final, before a crowd of 112,000 people, she proceeded cautiously and turned on her speed in the last 100 meters to get her gold.
#13. Mary Lou Retton Wins Overall Gymnastics Title (1984 Los Angeles)
Retton, a 16-year-old West Virginian standing just 4’ 9” tall, became enchanted with gymnastics by watching Nadia Comaneci perform at the 1976 Games. Retton had scant international experience and had just recovered from knee surgery heading in to the ’84 Games, the first summer Olympics hosted in the U.S. in 52 years. The games needed an America’s sweetheart, and the broadly smiling Retton filled the bill. She was trailing Romania’s Ecaterina Szabo in the all-around competition until she bravely turned in perfect 10.0 performances in the vault and floor exercises. Retton became the first women’s all-around gymnastics gold medalist from outside Eastern Europe – and got her picture on a Wheaties box.
#12. Cassius Clay (Muhammed Ali) Enchants the World (1960 Rome)
An 18-year-old from Louisville, Clay (not yet named Ali) was a gregarious and relentlessly cheerful teen who became the charismatic leader of the entire U.S. Olympic squad, fully taking advantage of his Games experience to meet, greet, and be photographed with athletes from all over the globe. He was a lanky light heavyweight, facing rivals in the ring hailing from across Europe. In his gold medal match, Clay took on a Pole who had over 230 fights to his credit and scored a dominating decision victory. His win was one of many that launched world champion boxing careers, including Floyd Patterson, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Sugar Ray Leonard, Oscar de la Hoya, Pernell Whitaker, and Leon and Michael Spinks.
#11. Abebe Bikila’s Barefoot Marathon (1960 Rome)
For drama and historical significance, almost nothing tops the 26.2-mile triumph of the skinny Bikila at night in Italy, a country which had warred with his native Ethiopia. Dueling with a favored Moroccan, Bikila made his decisive move on a downhill stretch near a landmark obelisk the Italians had stolen from his homeland. Bikila’s victory was a pioneering one for Africans, who up until then had been invisible at the Games but today dominate Olympic distance running events. Bikila had an appendectomy 40 days before the 1964 Olympic marathon in Tokyo, but he was so superior to the rest of the field that, wearing shoes, he took gold by more than four minutes to become history’s first two-time marathon gold medalist.
#10. Rulon Gardner Defeats the Invincible Russian (2000 Sydney)
Gardner, who’d grown strong while working on his family’s Wyoming dairy farm, reached the final of the Greco-Roman wrestling superheavyweight division in Sydney against a formidable obstacle, Alexander Karelin, a three-time Olympic gold medalist who hadn’t lost a match in 13 years. Karelin, who looked like a menacing, muscled, clean-shaven version of Ming the Merciless, embodied the stereotype of a grimly driven, humorless Soviet supervillain. However, his mistake – losing grip around Gardner, resulting in a penalty point – cost him the match. For the rest of the match, Gardner resisted his opponent’s trademark “Karelin Lift,” and scored one of the most colossal upsets in Olympic history.
#9. Michael Phelps Swims to a Record Eight Golds (2008 Beijing)
Expectations were so high for the 6’4” Phelps that if he’d only come home with, say, just seven gold medals in his eight events, he’d have been deemed a disappointment. Phelps was up the task, opening with a world record 400 individual medley and ultimately setting four world records of his own and three more in victorious American relays. He endured one close call, defeating a Serbian rival in the 100-meter butterfly by 1/100th of a second. In a world with many more national powerhouses in swimming than 36 years before, Mark Spitz, who’d amassed seven golds in 1972, declared Phelps “epic” and “the greatest racer who ever walked the planet.”
#8. Usain Bolt Sets Three World Records in the Sprints (2008 Beijing)
The media had played up a tight three-way battle between Bolt, fellow Jamaican Asafa Powell, and American Tyson Gay, but as the Olympics neared it was pretty clear the Games would be the Usain Bolt Show. The tallest world-class sprinter ever seen (and probably the most charismatic), Bolt’s long strides devoured huge patches of the Beijing track as he broke his own world record in the 100, surpassed Michael Johnson’s seemingly invincible 200-meter standard, and set a third world record in the 4x100 relay with his teammates. His joie de vivre and natural performing sense elevated him from obscurity to perhaps the #1 spot in world athletics within a matter of days.
#7. USA Triumphs in First Women’s Soccer Tournament (1996 Atlanta-Athens GA)
It was fitting that the first appearance of Olympic women’s soccer would take place in Athens …even if it was Athens, Georgia. Three years before a dramatic World Cup victory that elevated the American team to international superstar status, much of the same cast – Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, Joy Fawcett, Kristine Lilly, Brandi Chastain, Briana Scurry – played in the Olympics. The contests were close; the USA and China fought to a 0-0 tie in a preliminary round. A pass from Foudy to Shannon MacMillian gave the USA a 1-0 semifinal win over Norway, and Tiffeny Milbrett got the gold medal goal in a 2-1 finals triumph over China. Soccer was well on its way to becoming the #1 athletic endeavor of American girls.
#6. Bob Beamon’s Great Leap Forward (1968 Mexico City)
In the most mindboggling quantum leap (pun intended) in Olympic history, long jumper Beamon lifted the men’s world record from 27’ 4 3/4” to 29’ 2 ½” on his first jump in Mexico City. It was a new world’s best by 22 inches and an Olympic victory by 28, in an event in which medals are often settled by fractions of an inch. In the thin air of Mexico City, Beamon did hit the takeoff board perfectly and seeming to hang aloft for an inhumanly long time. Realizing the magnitude of his feat, Beamon covered his face and collapsed at the knees. Lynn Davies, Britain’s 1964 gold medalist, correctly stated “compared to this jump, we are all children.” There’s a valid reason Beamon’s autobiography was titled “The Man Who Could Fly.”
#5. Nadia Comaneci Achieves a Perfect 10.0 (1976 Montreal)
Women’s gymnastics had become a global phenomenon four years earlier thanks to Russian pixie Olga Korbut, but 14-year-old Romanian Comaneci lifted her sport to an even higher level in Montreal. No one at this level of gymnastics had ever been awarded a perfect judges’ score of 10.0 until Comaneci did so on the uneven bars during the team competition. She was more athletic and more graceful than Korbut and just as adept at charming the crowds. Comaneci would get six more perfects 10.0s in Montreal and took home golds in all-around, uneven bars, and balance beam. No single individual did more to make little girls around the world take up the sport of gymnastics.
#4. Joan Benoit Wins First Women’s Olympic Marathon (1984 Los Angeles)
Women’s marathoning enjoyed a groundswell of popularity since the 1970s, in large part because of the heroics of Norway’s Grete Waitz in New York and local hero Joan Benoit in Boston. In 1983, the two women broke world records just one day apart. Benoit was lucky just to make it to Los Angeles; she’s had arthroscopic knee surgery just 17 days before the U.S. Olympic Trials. At the LA Games, Benoit took command of the marathon in the third mile, occasionally looking back and rolling her eyes in disbelief that no one was coming after her. A small, shy woman from Maine, she thought entering the Los Angeles Coliseum to finish as the home country’s champion might be too emotionally overwhelming to handle. But she handled it.
#3. Fanny Blankers-Koen’s, Mom and Track Hero at Age 30 (1948 London)
Through the 1940s, Olympic track and field had had no bigger female hero than Blankers-Koen, who did more than any single athlete to change notions of what a woman, and a mother of two, could accomplish. At 16, she’d been on a Dutch relay quartet at the 1936 Olympics. World War II cancelled the 1940 and 1944 Games. In ’48, at age 30, she buoyed the spirits of her native Netherlands by winning four events, not even entering the long jump, in which she was a world recordholder. She took the 200-meter dash by a full seven meters and took the 4x100 relay baton in fourth place before her sizzling anchor leg lifted the Netherlands to victory. Blankers-Koen also took home gold in the 100 and the high hurdles.
#2. The Dream Team Enchants the Basketball World (1992 Barcelona)
The dream of having NBA players in the Olympics, approved in 1991, was actually the world’s dream, even moreso for Americans. European teams wanted their players to have the option of being in the NBA and the Olympics, too, and silver and bronze medallists Croatia and Lithuania had NBA stars on their squads. For the American team, that meant Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, David Robinson, Karl Malone, John Stockton and more. The Americans never called a single time out and won games by an average of 43 points and the final by 32. Five of the ’92 players returned to give America another basketball gold in Atlanta in 1996.
#1. Jesse Owens Wins Four Golds at Adolf ******’s Olympics (1936 Berlin)
The German leader had hoped the first Olympics in Germany would prove his theories of “Aryan supremacy,” but he might have muted that propaganda if he’d seen Jesse Owens set six world records in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1935. In Berlin, Owens won the 100 and 200-meter dashes, led the gold medal U.S. 4x100 relay, and took first in the long jump after befriending Germany’s Luz Long, who gave him tips on his runway approach. (Luz earned a silver medal.) ****** tried to shun Owens, but Owens passed so close to the Fuhrer while waving to him that the exasperated ****** had no choice but to wave back. Despite **** propaganda against America’s minorities, Owens was an immensely popular figure with the German public, who awakened him from his sleep to sign autographs.
By Peter Gambaccini
#25. Steve Redgrave Wins Rowing Gold for 5th Straight Olympics (Sydney 2000)
After Atlanta in ’96, British rower Steve Redgrave declared “anybody who sees me in a boat has my permission to shoot me.” Fortunately, he changed his mind, and was back at the Games in 2000. Redgrave’s excellence and longevity earned him his first gold at age 22 and his last at 38. He won three different rowing events, including 2000’s gritty battle in the “fours without coxswain” against Italy. During his career, he coped with severed tendons in his right hand, back surgery, ulcerative colitis and Type 2 diabetes. The 6’ 5” Redgrave, who was also a national bobsled champ, kept a level head throughout, referring to himself as “an ordinary guy who went quite quick in a boat.”
#24. Al Oerter’s Fourth Discus Gold Medal (1968 Mexico City)
Oerter and the discus essentially grew up together. When the U.S. thrower took his first gold in 1956, he set an Olympic record of 184’ 11”. When he won for the fourth time in ’68, his new mark was 212’ 6”. He led Americans sweeps of all three discus medals in 1956 and 1960 but by ’64 and ’68, he had to thwart the threat of the growing Eastern European sports machines. Oerter was an uncannily clutch performer in a pressure-packed event in which nerves play a major factor. In ’68, after a long rain delay, Oerter spun the discus five feet further than he ever had before and triumphed by his biggest Olympic margin, more than six feet.
#23. Derek Redmond and His Father Finish a 400 (1992 Barcelona)
Great Britain’s Redmond had battled injuries for years to reach the Olympic track in 1992. Less than halfway through a 400-meter semifinal, his hamstring snapped and he crashed to the track in excruciating pain. He rose up, determined to complete the one-lap race. While he desperately hobbled around the track, his father, Jim, ran past security and reached his son on the track, giving him a shoulder to lean on. The stonefaced father and the agonized son slowly completed their circuit of the oval track, providing an enduring image. Derek Redmond asserts “life can never be fully predicted and sometimes it becomes necessary to handle the unexpected.” He and his dad did just that.
#22. A Hobbled Kerri Strug Comes Through for USA Gymnastics (1996 Atlanta)
Tiny and squeaky-voiced Strug was just 18 but had already endured a slew of injuries to pursue her Olympic dream. The USA women had never won team gymnastics gold, but in 1996 seemed poised to do so --until some subpar performances in the vault, including Strug’s first effort, in which she landed badly and heard something snap in her ankle. Strug limped out for a second try and improved from a 9.162 to a 9.712 with a strong landing, after which she was seen hopping on her one uninjured foot. Coach Bela Karolyi had to carry Strug, who by then wore a soft cast on her leg, to the medals stand. She had provided one of the most courageous moments ever in an Olympic team sport.
#21. ‘Blood on the Water’ in the Water Polo Pool (1956 Melbourne)
There are times when Olympic events and “outside world” realities inevitably intersect. Less than a month after the Soviet Union put down a budding anti-Communist uprising in Hungary, teams from the two nations met what became to be known as water polo’s “Bloodbath of Melbourne.” Kicking and wrestling and gouging went on above and below the water, and after Hungary amassed a 4-0 lead, a Soviet player punched Hungarian star Ervin Zador in the face. Zador emerged with blood streaming down his face – and the irate spectators may have done even worse to the Soviet players if referees hadn’t stopped the contest. “We were playing not just for ourselves but for our whole country,” Zador said later. “This is the only way we could fight back.”
#20. Track’s Haile Gebrselassie-Paul Tergat Rivalry (1996 Atlanta, 2000 Sydney)
As distance running showdowns go, nothing rivals the two 10,000-meter match-ups between two men who would later gain even greater fame as marathon world recordholders. In 1996, Gebrselassie of Ethiopia and Tergat of Kenya ran far ahead of the rest of the field. The race ended with Tergat gaining, but “Geb” prevailing by six meters. They would finish 1-2 again at the World Championships in 1997 and 1999. And in 2000, Gebrselassie chased down Tergat on the homestretch, outleaning him by just 9/100ths of a second after 27:18 of running. By then, the two tenacious track warriors had become friends, and Tergat declared “I can do no better than that. I had nothing left at the end.”
#19. Steffi Graf Completes the Golden Slam of Tennis (1988 Seoul)
The “Golden Slam” didn’t even exist in people’s minds until Graf won titles at the Australian and French Opens, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open against four different finals opponents before announcing her intention to compete for Germany in Seoul. She came to Korea with a 35-match winning streak, and dispatched her pal Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina easily in the final. Her participation in Seoul was a vital indication that the world’s top players, despite their wealth, really did covet the Olympic experience.
#18. Greg Louganis, After Hitting His Head, Wins Both Diving Golds (1988 Seoul)
Louganis was a silver medalist in platform diving in 1976, when he was only 16. He developed into one of history’s greatest divers, winning springboard and platform golds by enormous margins in Los Angeles in 1984. By 1988, China was developing into a formidable force in diving, but Louganis did not back down. He secured two more golds by very slim margins, but only after a springboard mishap in which his head hit the board after during a dive and he emerged from the water bleeding from his head. Louganis required stitches before he could continue. “My pride was hurt more than anything else,” he would comment. What only a very few people knew, and what was not revealed until several years later, was that Louganis was HIV-positive and was taking AZT drugs at the time of the incident.
#17. Triathlon is Added to the Olympics (2000 Sydney)
Telecasts of gripping and gritty Hawaii Ironman finishes boosted triathlon’s popularity, and its inclusion in the Olympics, on a scenic and challenging Australian course, was long overdue. Though the bike phase is much longer, the 10k run is often the determining factor. In Sydney, the top five men’s triathletes, led by Canada’s Simon Whitfield, had the five fastest times in the run phase. In the women’s race, host Australia had hopes of securing a gold medal, and local hero Michellie Jones led as the run phase began. But Switzerland’s Brigitte McMahon caught her 200 meters from the finish and won the inaugural Olympic women’s triathlon by two seconds.
#16. Spiridon Louis is Greece’s Marathon Hero at First Modern Olympics (1896 Athens)
When the ancient Greek tradition of the Olympics was revived for the modern era, the most anticipated event was a footrace commemorating a legendary messenger who arrived in Athens, having run about 25 miles, to announce a Greek victory over Persia at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. Sadly, the Greeks hadn’t been faring too well at their own ’96 Games, so the victory by poor farmer Spiridon Louis, fueled by copious amounts of wine, was the competitive highlight for the host country. Louis’ valor and steadfastness helped solidify the Olympics as more than just a one-shot gathering. The Marathon-to-Athens route was revived for the 2004 Athens Games and was again the emotional capstone to the Olympiad.
#15. Carl Lewis Matches Jesse Owens’ 4 Gold Medals (1984 Los Angeles)
Lewis was the host country’s most heralded athlete going into the Los Angeles Games, experiencing an unprecedented storm of advanced publicity and close personal scrutiny. Anything less than a sweep of his four events would have been labeled as failure. No worries. Lewis came from behind to win the 100 meters by an Olympic record margin of eight feet, ran the best 200 ever at low altitude in into-the-wind conditions, took his specialty, the long jump, by a foot, and anchored a world record 4x100-meter relay for the U.S. He would amass a total of nine Olympic golds during his career.
#14. In Australia, Aboriginal Hero Cathy Freeman Triumphs (2000 Sydney)
There may be no more momentous example of an Olympic host country hero than Freeman, who'd been winning national track championships in Australia since age 17 in 1990. A 1996 silver medalist, Freeman was the representative of the aspirations of her Australia’s indigenous population. “I feel for my people all the time,” she said, and she sported a prominent tattoo declaring "Cos I'm Free." But Freeman was lovingly embraced by all of Australia and was selected to light the Olympic cauldron in Sydney in 2000, something that made her more nervous than her upcoming 400-meter race. In the Olympic final, before a crowd of 112,000 people, she proceeded cautiously and turned on her speed in the last 100 meters to get her gold.
#13. Mary Lou Retton Wins Overall Gymnastics Title (1984 Los Angeles)
Retton, a 16-year-old West Virginian standing just 4’ 9” tall, became enchanted with gymnastics by watching Nadia Comaneci perform at the 1976 Games. Retton had scant international experience and had just recovered from knee surgery heading in to the ’84 Games, the first summer Olympics hosted in the U.S. in 52 years. The games needed an America’s sweetheart, and the broadly smiling Retton filled the bill. She was trailing Romania’s Ecaterina Szabo in the all-around competition until she bravely turned in perfect 10.0 performances in the vault and floor exercises. Retton became the first women’s all-around gymnastics gold medalist from outside Eastern Europe – and got her picture on a Wheaties box.
#12. Cassius Clay (Muhammed Ali) Enchants the World (1960 Rome)
An 18-year-old from Louisville, Clay (not yet named Ali) was a gregarious and relentlessly cheerful teen who became the charismatic leader of the entire U.S. Olympic squad, fully taking advantage of his Games experience to meet, greet, and be photographed with athletes from all over the globe. He was a lanky light heavyweight, facing rivals in the ring hailing from across Europe. In his gold medal match, Clay took on a Pole who had over 230 fights to his credit and scored a dominating decision victory. His win was one of many that launched world champion boxing careers, including Floyd Patterson, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Sugar Ray Leonard, Oscar de la Hoya, Pernell Whitaker, and Leon and Michael Spinks.
#11. Abebe Bikila’s Barefoot Marathon (1960 Rome)
For drama and historical significance, almost nothing tops the 26.2-mile triumph of the skinny Bikila at night in Italy, a country which had warred with his native Ethiopia. Dueling with a favored Moroccan, Bikila made his decisive move on a downhill stretch near a landmark obelisk the Italians had stolen from his homeland. Bikila’s victory was a pioneering one for Africans, who up until then had been invisible at the Games but today dominate Olympic distance running events. Bikila had an appendectomy 40 days before the 1964 Olympic marathon in Tokyo, but he was so superior to the rest of the field that, wearing shoes, he took gold by more than four minutes to become history’s first two-time marathon gold medalist.
#10. Rulon Gardner Defeats the Invincible Russian (2000 Sydney)
Gardner, who’d grown strong while working on his family’s Wyoming dairy farm, reached the final of the Greco-Roman wrestling superheavyweight division in Sydney against a formidable obstacle, Alexander Karelin, a three-time Olympic gold medalist who hadn’t lost a match in 13 years. Karelin, who looked like a menacing, muscled, clean-shaven version of Ming the Merciless, embodied the stereotype of a grimly driven, humorless Soviet supervillain. However, his mistake – losing grip around Gardner, resulting in a penalty point – cost him the match. For the rest of the match, Gardner resisted his opponent’s trademark “Karelin Lift,” and scored one of the most colossal upsets in Olympic history.
#9. Michael Phelps Swims to a Record Eight Golds (2008 Beijing)
Expectations were so high for the 6’4” Phelps that if he’d only come home with, say, just seven gold medals in his eight events, he’d have been deemed a disappointment. Phelps was up the task, opening with a world record 400 individual medley and ultimately setting four world records of his own and three more in victorious American relays. He endured one close call, defeating a Serbian rival in the 100-meter butterfly by 1/100th of a second. In a world with many more national powerhouses in swimming than 36 years before, Mark Spitz, who’d amassed seven golds in 1972, declared Phelps “epic” and “the greatest racer who ever walked the planet.”
#8. Usain Bolt Sets Three World Records in the Sprints (2008 Beijing)
The media had played up a tight three-way battle between Bolt, fellow Jamaican Asafa Powell, and American Tyson Gay, but as the Olympics neared it was pretty clear the Games would be the Usain Bolt Show. The tallest world-class sprinter ever seen (and probably the most charismatic), Bolt’s long strides devoured huge patches of the Beijing track as he broke his own world record in the 100, surpassed Michael Johnson’s seemingly invincible 200-meter standard, and set a third world record in the 4x100 relay with his teammates. His joie de vivre and natural performing sense elevated him from obscurity to perhaps the #1 spot in world athletics within a matter of days.
#7. USA Triumphs in First Women’s Soccer Tournament (1996 Atlanta-Athens GA)
It was fitting that the first appearance of Olympic women’s soccer would take place in Athens …even if it was Athens, Georgia. Three years before a dramatic World Cup victory that elevated the American team to international superstar status, much of the same cast – Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, Joy Fawcett, Kristine Lilly, Brandi Chastain, Briana Scurry – played in the Olympics. The contests were close; the USA and China fought to a 0-0 tie in a preliminary round. A pass from Foudy to Shannon MacMillian gave the USA a 1-0 semifinal win over Norway, and Tiffeny Milbrett got the gold medal goal in a 2-1 finals triumph over China. Soccer was well on its way to becoming the #1 athletic endeavor of American girls.
#6. Bob Beamon’s Great Leap Forward (1968 Mexico City)
In the most mindboggling quantum leap (pun intended) in Olympic history, long jumper Beamon lifted the men’s world record from 27’ 4 3/4” to 29’ 2 ½” on his first jump in Mexico City. It was a new world’s best by 22 inches and an Olympic victory by 28, in an event in which medals are often settled by fractions of an inch. In the thin air of Mexico City, Beamon did hit the takeoff board perfectly and seeming to hang aloft for an inhumanly long time. Realizing the magnitude of his feat, Beamon covered his face and collapsed at the knees. Lynn Davies, Britain’s 1964 gold medalist, correctly stated “compared to this jump, we are all children.” There’s a valid reason Beamon’s autobiography was titled “The Man Who Could Fly.”
#5. Nadia Comaneci Achieves a Perfect 10.0 (1976 Montreal)
Women’s gymnastics had become a global phenomenon four years earlier thanks to Russian pixie Olga Korbut, but 14-year-old Romanian Comaneci lifted her sport to an even higher level in Montreal. No one at this level of gymnastics had ever been awarded a perfect judges’ score of 10.0 until Comaneci did so on the uneven bars during the team competition. She was more athletic and more graceful than Korbut and just as adept at charming the crowds. Comaneci would get six more perfects 10.0s in Montreal and took home golds in all-around, uneven bars, and balance beam. No single individual did more to make little girls around the world take up the sport of gymnastics.
#4. Joan Benoit Wins First Women’s Olympic Marathon (1984 Los Angeles)
Women’s marathoning enjoyed a groundswell of popularity since the 1970s, in large part because of the heroics of Norway’s Grete Waitz in New York and local hero Joan Benoit in Boston. In 1983, the two women broke world records just one day apart. Benoit was lucky just to make it to Los Angeles; she’s had arthroscopic knee surgery just 17 days before the U.S. Olympic Trials. At the LA Games, Benoit took command of the marathon in the third mile, occasionally looking back and rolling her eyes in disbelief that no one was coming after her. A small, shy woman from Maine, she thought entering the Los Angeles Coliseum to finish as the home country’s champion might be too emotionally overwhelming to handle. But she handled it.
#3. Fanny Blankers-Koen’s, Mom and Track Hero at Age 30 (1948 London)
Through the 1940s, Olympic track and field had had no bigger female hero than Blankers-Koen, who did more than any single athlete to change notions of what a woman, and a mother of two, could accomplish. At 16, she’d been on a Dutch relay quartet at the 1936 Olympics. World War II cancelled the 1940 and 1944 Games. In ’48, at age 30, she buoyed the spirits of her native Netherlands by winning four events, not even entering the long jump, in which she was a world recordholder. She took the 200-meter dash by a full seven meters and took the 4x100 relay baton in fourth place before her sizzling anchor leg lifted the Netherlands to victory. Blankers-Koen also took home gold in the 100 and the high hurdles.
#2. The Dream Team Enchants the Basketball World (1992 Barcelona)
The dream of having NBA players in the Olympics, approved in 1991, was actually the world’s dream, even moreso for Americans. European teams wanted their players to have the option of being in the NBA and the Olympics, too, and silver and bronze medallists Croatia and Lithuania had NBA stars on their squads. For the American team, that meant Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, David Robinson, Karl Malone, John Stockton and more. The Americans never called a single time out and won games by an average of 43 points and the final by 32. Five of the ’92 players returned to give America another basketball gold in Atlanta in 1996.
#1. Jesse Owens Wins Four Golds at Adolf ******’s Olympics (1936 Berlin)
The German leader had hoped the first Olympics in Germany would prove his theories of “Aryan supremacy,” but he might have muted that propaganda if he’d seen Jesse Owens set six world records in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1935. In Berlin, Owens won the 100 and 200-meter dashes, led the gold medal U.S. 4x100 relay, and took first in the long jump after befriending Germany’s Luz Long, who gave him tips on his runway approach. (Luz earned a silver medal.) ****** tried to shun Owens, but Owens passed so close to the Fuhrer while waving to him that the exasperated ****** had no choice but to wave back. Despite **** propaganda against America’s minorities, Owens was an immensely popular figure with the German public, who awakened him from his sleep to sign autographs.
By Peter Gambaccini