Legends of Olympic Games - 1984 to 2016
TOKYO (AFP) — The 32nd Summer Olympics finally start on July 23 in Tokyo after a year’s delay because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Here is AFP Sport’s set of five legends of the Games - 1984 to 2016.
‘Awesome’ Steve Redgrave
At Lake Lanier outside Atlanta in 1996, Britain’s Redgrave declared: “Anybody who sees me go near a boat has my permission to shoot me.” Redgrave had, at the age of 34, just won rowing gold for the fourth consecutive Games and announced his retirement in unequivocal fashion.
Yet at Sydney 2000 — after being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and suffering for eight years with debilitating ulcerative colitis — Redgrave, 38, achieved another Olympic triumph.
‘One-lap master’ Michael Johnson
The American dominated the 200m and 400m sprints in the final decade of the 20th century, winning four gold medals.
He remains the only man to win the Olympic 400m twice, in 1996 and 2000, after taking his first gold in the Barcelona 4x400m relay.
‘King’ Ian Thorpe
The swimmer’s five gold medals in freestyle make “Thorpedo” the most decorated Australian Olympian. Three came in his home Sydney 2000 Games and two more in Athens 2004.
Michael Phelps opted to compete in the Athens 2004 200m freestyle in a quest to win a record eight gold medals, which Thorpe called “impossible”.
The final was dubbed the “Race of the Century” as Thorpe and Phelps lined up against two former world record-holders, Pieter van den Hoogenband of the Netherlands and Australia’s Grant Hackett.
It proved Thorpe’s greatest victory.
‘Golden’ Michael Phelps
By the time he had swum his last race in Rio five years ago the American had become the most decorated Olympian of all time with 23 gold medals, three silver and two bronze — 13 of the golds in individual events, another record.
Although Ian Thorpe said, “impossible”, Phelps earned eight golds at Beijing 2008.
“Never in my life have I been so happy to have been proved wrong,” said Thorpe, at poolside to witness Phelps’s eighth win.
‘Lightning ’ Usain Bolt
The fastest man the world has ever seen, “Lightning Bolt” shot to worldwide fame in Beijing in 2008 as the first man to win both the 100m and 200m since American Carl Lewis in 1984.
He went on to become the only man to complete the sprint double twice when he repeated the feat in London — and then swept all before him for a third time in Rio.
The charismatic Jamaican smashed both 100m and 200m world records in Beijing before lowering them to 9.58sec and 19.19sec respectively, times which are still to be beaten.