Usain Bolt doing his best Hulk Hogan pose (Reuters)
By Dan Satherley
Occasionally at the Olympics, an athlete will pull off a feat so amazing, a gold medal hardly does them justice.
But now there's a new honour, even greater than becoming Olympic champion – appearing on this list.
10. Michael Johnson
Rare
among world-beating sprinters of his era, Michael Johnson achieved
everything he did without the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Or
perhaps more accurately, he never got caught.
He
was at the peak of his powers in 1996 at the Atlanta games when he
smashed his own 200m world record by more than a third of a second - and
he did it in mis-matched golden shoes, one size 10.5 and the other size 11.
Johnson
also won the 400m by more than a second – and is the only male athlete
in history to win both events at one Olympics, and the only to ever
defend an Olympic 400m title.
In 1997 he took
on 100m champ Donovan Bailey for the title of "World's Fastest Man", but
two-thirds of the way into the 150m race pulled up with a quadricep
injury. Still, he pocketed US$500,000, which works out to $5000 a metre.
If I got that every time I ran… I'd still be broke.
9. Dick Fosbury
It
sounds like a hairstyle, but the 'Fosbury Flop' – named for its
inventor, Dick Fosbury – completely revolutionised the otherwise simple
sport of high jump.
Before the 1968 Mexico
Olympics, athletes would either jump forwards over the bar, or do a kind
of scissor-kick motion and clear the bar whilst almost upright.
Then
along comes Fosbury with a technique some described as an "airborne
seizure", and by the next Olympics, nearly three-quarters of athletes
were using the technique.
Four decades later, it's the only way to jump. Not a bad effort for a white guy.
8. Alfred Asikainen and Martin Klein
At
the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, someone thought it would be a great
idea to host the Greco-Roman wrestling outdoors in the blistering sun.
Finland's Alfred Asikainen and Estonia's Martin Klein were so evenly matched, they fought for a record 11 hours and 40 minutes.
Klein eventually got the better of Asikainen, but was so exhausted he pulled out of the final and settled for silver.
Kind of makes the epic showdown between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania XII seem like a walk in the park at just an hour long.
7. Paavo Nurmi
At
Paris in 1924, Paavo Nurmi won the 1500m and the 5000m – the latter
held only 26 minutes after the former. So far, so painful.
Two
days later, he then won the individual and team 10,000m race on a day
said to be the hottest ever in Olympic history. Yeowch.
The day after that, he won the 3000m team race, without collapsing dead.
If
he was getting paid the same rate as Michael Johnson, he'd have earned
$97,500,000 for three afternoons' work. Not bad for an amateur.
6. US softball team
At
the 2004 Olympics in Athens, softball was one of the few sports only
for women. But the US side was so dominant, it's surprising they weren't
accused of being men.
Through the seven round-robin games and the semi-finals, the US scored 46 runs and conceded zero.
It
wasn't until the final Australia managed to put a point on the board
against them – but a single run wouldn't be enough, the US adding five
to its overall tournament tally of 51 for, one against.
Since
the US had also easily won the previous two gold medals in the event,
Olympic officials decided from 2012, it wouldn't be an Olympic sport.
So just to be awkward, in 2008 the US lost the final to Japan, but the damage was already done.
5. Usain Bolt
The
most-appropriately named athlete in history (especially so if you
pretend 'Usain' translates into English as 'turbo'), Usain Bolt set both
the 100m and 200m world records at Beijing in 2008.
But
that's not what gets him onto this list – it's the fact he ran the last
30m of his record-breaking 9.69s 100m run showboating for the camera.
In fact, he was running so fast, it took him another half a lap to stop.
4. Michael Phelps
Michael
Phelps has twice won eight medals at a single Olympic Games – six golds
and two bronze at Athens in 2004, and a whopping eight gold medals at
the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
The incredible
thing about his performance in Beijing – apart from the fact he won
eight gold medals – is that he won one of them even though he came second.
In London Phelps is only competing in seven events, but don't be surprised if he still manages to pull in eight medals while taking a hit from a bong.
3. Flo-Jo
At
the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Florence Griffith-Joiner, better known as
Flo-Jo, set the women's world records in the 100m and 200m – and no one
has come close to beating them since.
Not even Flo-Jo herself, as she retired shortly after the Seoul Olympics, literally quitting while she was ahead.
The closest anyone has come to beating her 10.49s was a 10.64s posted by Carmelita Jeter in 2009.
Flo-Jo's 200m time – 21.34s – is still the best by any woman by a massive 0.28 seconds.
And like Michael Johnson, she did it without ever testing positive for banned substances, even if her name sounds like something Lil Wayne would drink.
2. Bob Beamon
Usually,
world records get better incrementally – an inch there, a couple of
hundredths of a second there. But sometimes, they're obliterated, and in
1968 at Mexico City, Bob Beamon well and truly obliterated the world
record for the long jump.
The record at the time
was 8.35m, set the year before. Beamon went into the event as favourite,
but no one expected him to beat the silver medallist by over two feet.
Beamon
didn't immediately realise what he had done. Being an American, he was
only familiar with imperial units – feet and inches – so though he knew
it was a good jump, when the scoreboard showed 8.90m he was happy, but
his expression didn't change. When his coach broke the news – he'd
beaten the world record by almost two feet – Beamon dropped to his knees
in disbelief, and covered his face with his hands.
The
jump was so long, officials had to measure it with tape – the optical
measuring device wasn't designed to handle such awesomeness.
Defending
Olympic champion Lynn Davies told Beamon he'd "destroyed" the event.
Silver went to an East German with surely the greatest name of any
Olympic athlete ever, Klaus Beer, who posted a pitiful jump of 8.19m.
1. Nadia Comaneci
At Montreal in 1976, 14-year-old Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci stunned the world by scoring a perfect 1.0 on the uneven bars.
At least, that's what the scoreboard read – it wasn't designed to handle perfect 10s, which is what she actually scored.
It
was the first time in history a female gymnast had ever scored a
perfect 10 – and it wouldn't be the last. Comaneci scored six more at
the very same Olympics.
And, Comaneci did all
this whilst growing up in Romania under mad dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
She later escaped, and decided to settle in – where else? – Montreal.
Then, for reasons probably best left unexplored, she moved to Oklahoma and starred in Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice. She also had a cat on TV show Lost named after her, perhaps the highest honour that can be bestowed on an Olympic gymnast, aside from receiving the Olympic Order.
Or appearing on this list.