Dick Fosbury
It wasn’t enough for Dick Fosbury to learn the basics and a few tricks like a high jumper at the age of 16. The traditional method was too hard for him to master, where a jumper had to cross the bar facing down, called the straddle method. So he experimented with his own, and this would be commonly practiced today, called the Fosbury Flop- running in a curve, rotating the body once over the bar, leaping backward, and landing on one’s shoulders and neck.
He set the high jump record and won the gold medal in the 1968 Olympics with his revolutionized style. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1993 and became the Blaine County commissioner.
Birgit Fischer
At the age of 18, Birgit Fischer became the youngest Olympic champion kayaker. She competed for twenty years, and throughout this span, she has won eight Olympic gold medals. She participated in eight Olympic games and represented East Germany in several World Championships.
Fischer initially retired after the 1988 and 2000 Olympic Games, but her love for the sport and competition would overcome her decisions on both occasions. She became the oldest Olympian canoeing champion at the age of 42. She displays her works of photography through the Art of the Olympians organization.
Janet Beth Evans
Janet Evans didn’t seem at first like she had a promising future as a distance freestyle swimmer. She is shorter than most of her competitors, and her build wasn’t typical; slight, seemingly less powerful. But even as a teenager she was known to have set age-group records, beating older, taller opponents.
She was known for her unconventional swimming style. Her windmill stroke allowed her to win four Olympic gold medals. Two at the 1988 Olympics, and another pair in 1992. After retiring from her athletic career, she’s become a motivational speaker. She’s married to Bill Wilson, and they have two children together.
Larisa Latynina
Larisa Latynina has devoted most of her strength and vigor to whittling her skills in gymnastics. Most of her life has been about keeping composure, balancing, and keeping equilibrium while tumbling up in the air. She has won 14 gold medals in the individual all-around, plus four team medals, a medal tally that made her the record holder for most Olympic gold medals for decades until Michael Phelps superseded her.
Even after she retired as a competitor, she dedicated her time coaching young gymnasts of the Soviet Union, guiding them through 1968, 1972, and the 1976 Olympic Games. She retired shortly after her last Olympics in 1977 and retired in Semenovskoye, Russia.
Sawao Kato
There are Olympians, and there are those who even raise themselves farther up the echelon as among the very few elites. Only ten athletes in the world have ever won eight or more gold medals in the Olympics, and Sawao Kato is one of them, as a retired Japanese gymnast. From his Olympic debut in 1968 to 1976, he has won 12 medals, making him one of the best, most successful Olympic athletes of all time.
Kato retired while still on top of his game, defending his title in the parallel bars. He aimed to win an unprecedented third gold medal in the all-around event during the 1976 Summer Olympics but failed, as he was defeated by Nikolai Andrianov. No Japanese Olympian up to this day has more Olympic golds than this legendary gymnast. Sawao Kato worked as a professor at the University of Tsukuba.