10 Olympic athletes everyone should know

Michael Phelps won 28 medals, 23 of them being gold and is the most decorated Olympian of all time. At 15, he was the youngest male to make a U.S. Olympic swim team in 68 years. Phelps holds 39 world records and has set more records than any other swimmer.

Moriam “Seun” Adigun is a UHCL graduate. She graduated in December 2017. Adigun competed in 2012 Summer Olympics in 100 meter hurdles. She formed the first female Nigeria bobsleigh team in 2016 and the team became the first to represent an African country in bobsleigh.

Shaun White is a three-time Olympic medalist. He holds the record for the most X-Games gold medals and is the most decorated snowboarder in history.

Larisa Latynina won 18 medals, nine of them being gold. She is the world record holder for the most individual medals won at the Olympics. Latynina was the first female Olympian to win nine gold medals.

Ray Ewry won 10 gold medals at the Olympics. When he was eight years old he was diagnosed with Polio and overcame it to later in life become an Olympic gold medalist. Ewry set a world record in the standing long jump which stood until the event was discontinued in 1930.

Carl Lewis won 10 medals, nine of them being gold. He has back-to-back wins in the 100-meter dash. Lewis became the first athlete to win four gold medals in Olympic competition.

Usain Bolt won nine gold medals. He swept the 100-, 200- and 4×100-meter relays twice and is the world record holder for 100- and 200-meter relay. Bolt has achieved all of his accomplishments with Scoliosis.

Lindsey Vonn is a four-time Olympian and a three-time Olympic medalist. She is known as the most successful female ski racer in the world. Vonn is the only American woman to capture downhill gold at the Olympics and the only American woman with four World Cup overall titles.

Chloe Kim became the youngest woman to win an Olympic snowboarding medal when she won gold in the women’s snowboard halfpipe at the age of 17 years at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Kim also was the first American woman to win a gold medal in snowboarding at the Winter Youth Olympic Games in 2016.

Nadia Comaneci won five gold Olympic medals. She received a 10.0 score on the uneven parallel bars and is remembered for perfection. At the age of nine, Comaneci became the youngest gymnast ever to win the Romanian Nationals.