With the Olympics kicking off at 7.30pm tonight in Paris (1.30am tomorrow in Malaysia), here’s the final part of AFP’s picks of sporting legends from previous Games.
Read part one here and part two here.
Carl Lewis: track-and-field icon
A legend of 20th-century track and field, US star athlete Carl Lewis won nine Olympic golds and was eight times crowned world champion.
Graceful and instantly recognisable with his million-dollar smile, long legs and crew cut, he sat out the 1980 Moscow Games due to the US Cold War boycott.
But he romped to victory in Los Angeles four years later, matching the legendary performance of Jesse Owens in Berlin in 1936 by winning four gold medals: in 100m, long jump, 200m, and 4x100m.
Lewis took the long jump again in Seoul in 1988, also winning the 100m after Ben Johnson’s doping disqualification, becoming the first man to retain his title in the discipline.
Two more golds followed in Barcelona and in 1996, returning from injury for a last Olympic hurrah at 35, he won a fourth consecutive long jump gold.
Lewis was also a savvy businessman who was one of the first athletes to develop his own clothing line.
Florence Griffith-Joyner: nails and glory
Known as “Flo-Jo” and admired as much for her multicoloured six-inch nails and glitzy outfits, the US sprinter is still the fastest woman ever, more than three decades after she set world records in the 100m and 200m.
She made history at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, winning her 100m heat in a record 10.49 seconds – which is still unsurpassed – and then collecting gold in the final with metres to spare on her closest challenger.
She also roared to victory in the 200m in 21.34 seconds – another world record that has never been beaten.
Her exploits on the track and rapid muscle development fuelled suspicions of doping, but she tested negative throughout her career. She retired at the height of her fame, just five months after Seoul.
The seventh child from a family of eleven, Flo-Jo’s life was cut short on Sept 21, 1998 when, at age 38, she died in her sleep after an epileptic fit.
Kohei Uchimura: the beautiful move
Kohei Uchimura, the son of gymnasts, was in the gym by the age of three. “King Kohei” strove for elegance in his every move and won back-to-back all-around Olympic titles at the 2012 and 2016 Games.
In 2016 in Rio, he snatched gold on the final apparatus after a dazzling horizontal-bar routine, a feat he later called his comeback miracle.
He became the first gymnast in 44 years to win back-to-back individual all-around Olympic golds.
Alas, his reign ended cruelly when he fell off the bar during the qualifying rounds at his home Olympics in Tokyo in 2021.
Allyson Felix: glut of medals
The grande dame of American track and field is the only woman to have won seven Olympic golds. With 11 medals, she is also the most-decorated Olympian.
She won her first medal, a 200m silver, at the 2004 Olympics in Athens; and her last, a bronze in the 400m, in Tokyo in 2021. In between, there was a 200m individual gold in London 2012 and six golds in relays.
Felix took part in the Tokyo Games three years after giving birth to a daughter after an emergency C-section.
A vocal advocate of the rights of working mothers, she split with long-time sponsors Nike when they refused to guarantee her a new contract after she became pregnant.
Katie Ledecky: freestyle queen
At the Paris Olympics, the 27-year-old US swim star is aiming to become the first woman swimmer to win four consecutive Olympic golds in the same event (800m freestyle in her case).
She was just 15 when she won her first 800m at the London Games in 2012, a feat she repeated in Rio and then Tokyo.
Ledecky was unbeaten in the event for 13 years, but in February she was bested by 17-year-old Canadian prodigy Summer McIntosh at an event in Florida.
She will also be trying for a third-straight gold in the longest pool event, the 1,500m. She has held both world records since 2013.
Ledecky has already made history: last year, she won her 16th individual title at the world championships, one more than the previous record set by Michael Phelps.
Simone Biles: preternatural talent
All eyes in Paris will be on the woman, widely considered the greatest gymnast of all time, who has redefined the sport.
The pint-sized 27-year-old Biles dazzled at the Rio Games in 2016, winning four golds: the all-around, vault, floor and team events.
Five years later, she dramatically pulled out of most of her events at the Tokyo Games, suffering from a debilitating temporary spatial-awareness condition known as “the twisties”.
She made a spectacular return to the international stage at the world championships last October, scooping four golds.