Phelps isn't the only current Olympian blowing people's minds. Swimmer Katie Ledecky is "among the greatest endurance athletes ever, full stop," according to Dr. Michael Joyner, a physician and Mayo Clinic researcher who is one of the world's top experts on fitness and human performance. Joyner says her world-record performance in the 800m swim this year was particularly something.
Check out how Ledecky is transforming what we think is possible when it comes to athletic performance.
Phelps has dominated swimming events for multiple Olympics now, but his stunning eight gold medals at the Beijing Games in 2008 were a particularly impressive moment.
In the 1976 Montreal Games, 14-year-old Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci did something that was considered so impossible the scoreboard hadn't been built to display her score: a perfect 10. She did it again six more times in those games, leaving with three gold medals, a bronze, and a team silver medal.
At the 1968 Mexico City Games, notable moments abounded. But one of the most dominant victories ever seen was Kip Keino's 1500m race at high altitude, which he finished in 3:34, leaving the event's world record holder, Jim Ryun, 15 to 20 meters behind.
In the 33 years before the 1968 Olympics, the world record for the long jump had crept up a measly 8 and a half inches, bit by bit. But in what's still considered one of the most shocking moments in sports history, at those games New Yorker Bob Beamon shattered that record by leaping 29 ft 21/4 in, beating the previous record by 1ft, 6.75 inches, a record that would stand til 1991. "At some level there is Beamon and then everyone else," says Joyner.
Sprinter Bob Hayes — the only athlete to win both a gold medal and a Super Bowl ring (as an NFL wide receiver) — excelled at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. After tying the world record in the 100m sprint, he then pulled off an amazing record-setting come-from-behind victory with his leg in the 4x100m relay race.
Famously chatty Czech distance runner Emil Zatopek swept the long races in the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, winning the 5k, 10k, and the marathon — which happened to be the first marathon he ever ran.
At the 1936 Berlin Games, Jesse Owens won a stunning four gold medals in track and field events, a feat only matched by Carl Lewis in 1984. Not only did he win the long jump, 100m, 200m, and 4x100m races, he did so on hostile territory in front of Hitler. Though as The Guardian points out, even after returning home, he wasn't allowed to use the main door to enter the Waldorf Hotel for a reception in his honor.
Source: The Guardian