Famous Olympic Players

The Greeks were the first to start the Summer Games in 776 BC (some 3000 years ago) in the plain of Olympia in Peloponnese. The ancient Summer Games grew and continued to be played every four years for nearly 1200 years.

In 393 AD, the Christian Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I abolished the Games because of their pagan influences. The successful campaign to revive the Summer Games was started in France by a young Frenchman Baron Pierre de Coubertin late in the 19th century. The first of the modern Summer Games opened on Sunday, March 24, 1896, in Athens, Greece.

Summer Games have been broadly divided into two major categories – Winter Olympics and Summer Olympics events. Number of great Olympians participate in both types of events to show their sporting talents. Initially, the Summer and the Winter Games were held in the same year but later it was decided that both of the events will be held after an interval of four years individually, and alternatively after a mutual gap of two years. The Winter Summer Games were started in 1924.

Winning an Olympic medal in any sport is an astonishing achievement; it is like a dream come true for a sports person and Olympian athletes. At present, almost 100,000 Olympians are known all around the world, who spread the message of Olympism. Some of the Olympian names that are considered the best among great athletes are: Frankie Fredericks, Merlene Ottey, Raelene Boyle, Ben Johnson, Marion Jones, Florence Griffith-Joyner, Heike Drechsler, Renate Stecher, Emil Zatopek and many more. At the first Summer Games, 311 male Olympian names appeared, but there were no female competitors.

Famous Olympic Athletes, Medalists, Sports Heroes
Sport	Athlete	Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total Medals
Archery	Hubert Van Innis	Belgium	6	4	0	10
Athletics	Paavo Nurmi	Finland	9	3	0	12
Badminton	Gao Ling	China	2	1	1	4
Basketball	Teresa Edwards	USA	4	0	1	5
Boxing	László Papp	Hungary	3	0	0	3
	Teófilo Stevenson	Cuba	3	0	0	3
Canoeing	Birgit Fischer	Germany	8	4	0	12
Cycling	Chris Hoy	Great Britain	6	1	0	7
Diving	Guo Jingjing	China	4	2	0	6
Equestrian	Reiner Klimke	West Germany	6	0	2	8
Fencing	Edoardo Mangiarotti	Italy	6	5	2	13
Field Hockey	Leslie Claudius & Udham Singh	India	3	1	0	4
Football	Christie Rampone	USA	3	1	0	4
Gymnastics	Larisa Latynina	USSR	9	5	4	18
Handball	Andrey Lavrov	Russia	3	0	1	4
Judo	Tadahiro Nomura	Japan	3	0	0	3
Modern Pentathlon	András Balczó	Hungary	3	2	0	5
Rowing	Elisabeta Lipă	Romania	5	2	1	8
Sailing	Ben Ainslie	Great Britain	4	1	0	5
Shooting	Carl Osburn	USA	5	4	2	11
Swimming	Michael Phelps	USA	18	2	2	22
Synchronized Swimming	Anastasia Davydova	Russia	5	0	0	5
Table Tennis	Wang Nan	China	4	1	0	5
Taekwondo	Steven López	USA	2	0	1	3
	Hwang Kyung-Seon	South Korea	2	0	1	3
	Hadi Saei	Iran	2	0	1	3
Tennis	Venis and Serena Williams	USA	4	0	0	4
Triathlon	Simon Whitfield	Canada	1	1	0	2
Volleyball	Ana Fernández	Cuba	3	0	1	4
Water polo	Dezső Gyarmati	Hungary	3	1	1	5
Weight lifting	Pyrros Dimas	Greece	3	0	1	4
Wrestling	Aleksandr Karelin	Russia	3	1	0	4
Artur Taymazov	Uzbekistan	3	1	0	4
Baseball	Pedro Luis Lazo	Cuba	2	2	0	4
Polo	John Wodehouse	UK	1	1	0	2
Rugby Union	Daniel Carroll	Australia/USA	2	0	0	2
Softball	Laura Berg	USA	3	1	0	4

Aquatics
Alexander Popov Michael Phelps Mark Spitz Johnny Weissmuller Ian Thorpe Gregory Louganis	Michael Gross Mathew Biondi Krisztina Egerszegi Janet Evans Franziska Van Almsick Pieter Van Den Hoogenband

Athletics
Jesse Owens Cathy Freeman Sebastian Coe Fanny Blankers Koen Carl Lewis Florence Griffith Joyner Daley Thompson Betty Cuthbert Haile Gebrselassie Carl Schumann Nawal El Moutawakel Marie Jose Perec Bob Beamon Xiang Liu Jim Thorpe Alfred Oerter	Steve Ovett Mildred Didrikson Abebe Bikila Wilma Rudolph Edwin Moses Sergey Bubka Hicham El Guerrouj Hassiba Boulmerka Robert Mathias Lasse Viren Richard Douglas Fosbury Joan Benoit Spyridon Louis Emil Zatopek Jackie Joyner Kersee Jan Zelezny

Badminton

Susi Susanti

Basketball
Michael Jordan	Earvin Johnson

Boxing
Muhammad Ali Teofilo Stevenson	Felix Savon

Football

Mia Hamm

Gymnastics
Nadia Comaneci Larisa Latynina Olga Korbut	Vera Caslavska Vitaly Scherbo

Ice-Hockey

Pavel Bure

Rowing

Steven Redgrave

Skating
Daniel Jansen Tara Lipinski Sonja Henie Katarina Witt	Brian Boitano Jayne Torvill Kristi Yamaguchi

Skiing

Hermann Maier

Tennis
Andre Agassi Steffi Graf	Suzanne Lenglen

Weightlifting

Naim Suleymanoglu

Wrestling

Aleksandr Karelin

Last Updated On : May 23, 2016