Games, Gold, and Glory

For some people, winning an Olympic gold medal is the proudest moment in their life. This is a quiz about some of the greatest champions in the history of the Olympics Games and their remarkable achievements.

1. American Eddie Eagen won a gold medal for boxing at the 1920 Summer Games in Antwerp. He was also a part of a bobsled team that won a gold medal at the 1932 Lake Placid Winter Games. A Yale graduate who attended Harvard Law School and studied at Oxford, Eagen was also the first American to win the British Amateur Boxing Championship.

None of the other athletes mentioned participated in the Winter Olympics. Paavo Nurmi was a Finnish long distance runner, Carl Lewis was a middle-distance runner and jumper, and Steve Redgrave was a British rower.

2. Bekele also won the 10,000m race at the 2004 Olympics. Outside of the Olympics, he won eleven titles at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships and four titles at the World Championship in Athletics. From 2003 to 2011, he was unbeaten in races that were longer than 10,000m. He is considered one of the greatest long distance runners of all time.

Usain Bolt is a short-distance runner and Dan O'Brien was the 1996 decathlon winner. Haile Gebrselassie won the Olympic 10,000m races in 1996 and 2000.

3. Killy (France) dominated ski racing in the late 1960s. He won the first two FIS Alpine Ski World Cups in 1967 and 1968. At the 1968 Winter Olympics, he became the second person ever to win the Triple Crown of Alpine Skiing (these are the downhill, giant slalom, and slalom races). After the Olympics, he retired to race automobiles and make commercials.

4. It seems like there wasn't anything Jim Thorpe couldn't do. Not only was he a decathlon and pentathlon winner, but he was one of the few athletes to ever play football, baseball and basketball at a professional level. Thorpe was voted the Greatest Athlete of the Twentieth Century in a poll of sports fans conducted by ABC Sports.

Daley Thompson was British and he won the Olympic decathlon in 1980 and 1984. Edwin Moses was an American hurdler who won a remarkable 122 consecutive races (Olympic and non-Olympic) from 1977 to 1987. Michael Johnson was an American sprinter who became the first person ever to win both the 200m and 400m at the same Olympics (1996).

5. In 1952, Emil Zatopek became the first person to win gold medals in these three races at the same Olympics. What's also remarkable is that he won the marathon without even training for it. His difficult training methods helped his endurance considerably; interval training and hypoventilation training were two of his creations.

Sebastian Coe was a British long distance runner in the 1980s. Roger Bannister is famous for being the first person to break the 4-minute mile barrier (in May 1954), but he didn't run events that were longer than a mile. Michael Jordan was an American basketball player who played on the USA's "Dream Team" in 1992.

6. At the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Matt Biondi won five gold medals and broke world records in four of them (three in relays). Jenny Thompson won 12 medals (8 gold) at four Olympics 1992-96-00-04, but never five in the same Olympics. Wilma Rudolph and Donovan Bailey were sprinters.

7. Out of her 18 medals, 14 were individual medals. Latynina helped begin an era of Soviet domination in gymnastics. Starting in 1952, the Soviets won 8 straight gold medals in the team event.

Irina Rodnina won three straight Olympic golds for figure skating (pair skating). She is perhaps even more famous for winning 10 straight World Championships in (pair) ice skating. Nadia Comeneci was a Romanian that scored the first Perfect 10 in Olympic gymnastics history. Gabrielle Douglas won the 2012 individual gymnastics competition.

8. When asked why he ran the marathon barefoot, Adebe Bikila stated: "I wanted the whole world to know that my country, Ethiopia, has always won with determination and heroism." He was the first sub-Saharan to win an Olympic gold medal and he was the first person to win the Olympic marathon twice.

9. From 1956 to 1968, American Al Oerter won four consecutive gold medals for the discus throw. Despite being plagued by injuries before the 1964 games, he still won the gold and had a personal best throw. Not only did he become the first person to break 200 feet in the discus throw, but he broke the Olympic record in three of his four medal appearances. His longest throw came in 1968, when he reached 212.5 feet.

Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics for sprinting and long jump. Brigit Fischer was an eight time German canoeing champion. Bob Beamon was an American long jumper who famously cleared the world record by almost two feet in 1968.

10. Usain "Lightning Bolt" Bolt (men's 100m) and Shelly "Pocket Rocket" Pryce (women's 100m) both won these races at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. Bolt also won the 200m both times, setting Olympic records in both events. He became the first man to hold Olympic records in both events at the same time.

Fraser-Pryce went on to win the 100m, 200m, and 4x10 relay at the 2013 World Championships. In 2013, the two athletes were crowned male and female IAAF World Athletes of the Year for their achievements.

Hopefully it feels like you won a glorious "gold" for playing this game. But if not, there's always the Olympics. 

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