Let us have a look at some of the big names in the history of Olympics.
Jesse Owens: Jesse Owens specialised in the sprints and the long jump and was recognised as "perhaps the greatest and most famous athlete in track and field history". His achievement of setting three world records and tying another in less than an hour at the 1935 Big Ten track meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has been called "the greatest 45 minutes ever in sport" and has never been equalled. At the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Owens won international fame with four gold medals: 100 meters, 200 meters, long jump, and 4 × 100 meter relay. He was the most successful athlete at the games.
Bob Beamon: Robert "Bob" Beamon is an former US track and field athlete, best known for his world record in the long jump at the 1968 Mexico Olympics, which remained the world record for 22 years, 316 days until it was broken in 1991 by Mike Powell. Beamon entered the 1968 Mexico Olympics as the favourite, having won 22 of the 23 meets he had competed in that year, including a career best of 8.33 m and a world's best of 8.39 m. On October 18, 1968, Beamon set a world record for the long jump with a jump of 8.90 m. Thouth Mike Powell broke his reacord, Beamon's jump is still the Olympic record and 47 years later remains the second longest wind legal jump in history.
Edwin Moses: This US athlete has won gold medals in the 400 m hurdles at the 1976 and 1984 Olympics. Between 1977 and 1987, Moses won 107 consecutive finals (122 consecutive races) and set the world record in his event four times. His trademark technique was to take a consistent 13 steps between each of the hurdles, pulling away in the second half of the race as his rivals changed their stride pattern. In his first Olympics, Edwin Moses had set a world record of 47.63 seconds in 400m hurdles. Moses was also an innovative reformer in the areas of Olympic eligibility and drug testing. In 2000, he was elected the first Chairman of the Laureus World Sports Academy, an international service organization of world-class athletes.
Sergei Bubka: Bubka, a pole-vaulter, represented Soviet Union between 1981 and 1991 and thereafter for Ukraine. Bubka started competing on the international athletics scene in 1981. But the 1983 World Championship held in Helsinki was his actual entry point, where a relatively unknown Bubka snatched the gold, clearing 5.70m. The years that followed witnessed the unparalleled dominance of Bubka, with him setting new records and standards in pole vaulting. He cleared 6.00m for the first time on July 13, in Paris. This height had long been considered unattainable. With virtually no opponents, Bubka improved his own record over the next 10 years until he reached his career best and the then world record of 6.14 m. Despite his dominance in pole vault, Bubka had a relatively poor record in the Olympic Games. The first Olympics after Bubka's introduction to the international athletics was held in 1984 and was boycotted by the USSR along with the majority of other Eastern Bloc countries. Two months before the Games he vaulted 12 cm higher than the eventual Olympic gold medal winner Pierre Quinon. In 1988 Bubka competed in the Seoul Olympics and won his only Olympic gold medal clearing 5.90 m. In 1992 he failed to clear in his first three attempts (5.70, 5.70, 5.75 m) and was out of the Barcelona Olympics. At the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 a heel injury caused him to withdraw from the competition without any attempts. In 2000 at the Sydney Olympics he was eliminated from the final after three unsuccessful attempts at 5.70 m.
Carl Lewis: This former US track and field athlete has dominated the tracks during his prime days. He has won 10 Olympic medals, including nine gold, and 10 World Championships medals, including eight gold. At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, Lewis was entered into four events with realistic prospects of winning each of them and thereby matching the achievement of Jesse Owens at the 1936 Berlin Games. Lewis started his quest to match Owens with a convincing win in the 100m, running 9.99s, followed it up with long jump gold with a jump of 8.54m. His third gold medal came in the 200 m, where he won in a time of 19.80 s, a new Olympic record and the third fastest time in history. Finally, he won his fourth gold when the 4 × 100 m relay team he anchored finished in a time of 37.83 s, a new world record. His 65 consecutive victories in the long jump achieved over a span of 10 years is one of the sport's longest undefeated streaks. Over the course of his athletics career, Lewis broke ten seconds for the 100m 15 times and 20 seconds for the 200m 10 times.
Jim Thorpe: For the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, two new multi-event disciplines were included, the pentathlon and the decathlon. Jim Thorpe won gold medals in both the events. Along with the decathlon and pentathlon, he competed in the long jump and high jump. The first competition was the pentathlon. He won four of the five events and placed third in the javelin, an event he had not competed in before 1912. Although the pentathlon was primarily decided on place points, points were also earned for the marks achieved in the individual events. He won the gold medal. Thorpe's final event was the decathlon, his first — and as it turned out, his only — Olympic decathlon. Strong competition was expected from a local favourite, but Thorpe easily defeated Wieslander by more than 700 points. He placed in the top four in all ten events, and his Olympic record of 8,413 points would stand for nearly two decades. Overall, Thorpe won eight of the 15 individual events comprising the pentathlon and decathlon.
Michael Johnson: This former US sprinter has won four Olympic gold medals and eight World Championships gold medals.Johnson currently holds the world and Olympic records in the 400 m. His 200m time of 19.32 at the 1996 Summer Olympics stood as the record for more than 12 years until it was broken by Usain Bolt in 2008. He is the only male athlete in history to win both the 200m dash and 400m dash events at the same Olympics, a feat he accomplished at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
Usain Bolt: A Jamaican sprinter, Usain Bolt is regarded as the fastest person ever timed, he is the first man to hold both the 100 metres and 200 metres world records since fully automatic time measurements became mandatory in 1977. Along with his teammates, he also set the world record in the 4×100 metres relay. He is the reigning Olympic champion in these three events, and the first man at the modern Olympic Games to win six gold medals in sprinting, and an eleven-time World champion. He was the first in the modern Olympics era to achieve the "double double" of winning 100 m and 200 m titles at consecutive games (2008 and 2012), and topped this through the first "double triple" (including 4×100 m relays). Bolt's personal best in 100m is 9.58s. He also has the second fast time (9.63s) and shares the third fastest time of 9.69s with Tyson Gay and Yohan Blake. Bolt's 9.63s is the Olympic record, set at the 2012 London Games.
