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Wim Hof, or The Iceman, is a Dutch extreme athlete and motivational speaker who holds a Guinness record for the fastest half-marathon completed barefoot on ice/snow. He has also devised the Wim Hof Method, which helps one gain control over one’s body through extreme cold tolerance.
Athlete and martial artist Jim Kelly won hearts with his Afro hairstyle and his roles in action film such as Enter the Dragon and Black Belt Jones. Apart from films, he also excelled in karate, winning contests such as the International Middle Weight Karate Championship. He has also played professional tennis.
While he had been a promising soccer player in school, Galen Rupp later discovered track and field and became one of the best long-distance runners of the U.S. He is a three-time Olympian and has two Olympic medals, a silver and a bronze, in his kitty.
Retired Icelandic gymnast and track athlete Katrín Davíðsdóttir scripted history as the second woman to be a CrossFit Games champion twice. She was 18 when she began her CrossFit career. She later appeared in the 30th season of the reality game show The Amazing Race.
Jahking Guillory is an American rapper and actor who has been active in the entertainment industry since the mid-2010s. Beginning his career as a teenager, he played the leading role of Brandon in the film, Kicks. His role in the Netflix series On My Block also earned him much appreciation. Since then, he has appeared in many popular TV shows.
With his 2008 Beijing Olympic bronze medal, Louis Smith became the second Black male gymnast to have won the medal. A pommel horse expert, he later won three more Olympic medals. He had ADHD as a child and later also won a choral scholarship but chose to focus on gymnastics instead.
Jim Ryun is an American former track and field athlete who won a silver medal at the 1968 Summer Olympics. At the peak of his career, Ryun was considered one of the top middle-distance runners in the world. He later became a politician and served in the US House of Representatives. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2020.
Merlene Ottey is a Jamaican-Slovenian retired track and field sprinter. She represented Jamaica in international events for 24 years before representing Slovenia for 10 years. In 1993, she clocked 21.87 seconds to set the world indoor record for 200 metres; she has been holding that record ever since. Merlene Ottey is also known for winning several medals at Olympic Games.
Lloyd Eisler is a Canadian former pairs skater who won the Olympic bronze medal in 1992 and 1994 along with his partner Isabelle Brasseur. Eisler also won a gold medal, three silver medals, and two bronze medals at the World Championships between 1985 and 1994.
When British racing driver Max Chilton made his Formula 3 debut at 16, he became the youngest deriver to do so. He now represents the North American racing series IndyCar. While he initially wished to be a farmer, he began his racing career at age 10, racing in karts.
Christine Ohuruogu is a British athlete who has won an Olympic gold medal, two World Championships, and a Commonwealth gold medal in the 400m event. She also has an Olympic silver medal and a couple of bronze medals under her belt. In 2016, she became the second British track and field athlete to win Olympic medals at three consecutive Games.
Alistair Brownlee made history by becoming the only athlete with two Olympics medals in the triathlon event. His brother, Jonathan Brownlee, too, is a star athlete. Born to a runner father and a swimmer mother, he was introduced to triathlon by Simon Hearnshaw, his uncle, who was also an avid athlete.
Allan Wells is a Scottish former athlete who specialized in sprinting. He represented Great Britain at the 1980 Moscow Olympics where he won a gold medal and a silver medal in the 100 meters and 200 meters events, respectively. Allan Wells also won gold medals at other important tournaments, such as the IAAF World Cup, Commonwealth Games, and European Cup.
Scottish runner Laura Muir scripted history by becoming the first athlete to earn 2 golds at 2 consecutive events at any European Indoor Championship. Not known to many, she is also a trained vet. She also won a silver at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Surprisingly, her clean diet bars coffee.
Olympic bronze-winning Serbian long jumper Ivana Spanovic has also been a 2-time European Champion, a 3-time European Indoor Champion, and a 2-time World Indoor Champion. She has also won 4 Diamond League titles. She is also known for her love for long nails and neon nail paint on field.
Belgian Paralympic gold medalist Marieke Vervoort suffered from a complicated condition called reflex sympathetic dystrophy. Proficient in wheelchair basketball, swimming, triathlon, and wheelchair racing, the multi-talented and openly lesbian athlete stunned the world by choosing to die by euthanasia at age 40. She had also penned a couple of books.
Veronica Campbell-Brown is a Jamaican retired track and field sprinter who won eight Olympic medals, including three gold medals, during her illustrious career. Veronica Campbell-Brown also won three World Championship gold medals and two gold medals at the World Indoor Championships.
Five-time Olympian Bulgarian athlete Ivet Lalova-Collio is a master of the 100m and 200m sprint. She has been a European Champion and has won gold medals at the European Junior and Indoor Championships. He career almost ended after colliding with a fellow athlete during a warm-up session and breaking her right femur.
Two-time national champion and retired Canadian figure skater Nam Nguyen has also been a World Junior Champion in 2014. While he started his training in ice hockey at age 5, he later switched to figure skating. Post-retirement, he has been working as a power skating coach.
Filip Ingebrigtsen is a middle distance runner from Norway best known for winning the gold medal in the men's 1500 meters event at the 2016 European Championships in Amsterdam. The following year, he won the bronze medal in the same event at the World Championships in London. In 2018, Ingebrigtsen won a gold medal at the European Cross Country Championships.
Hairul Azreen is a Malaysian martial artist, stuntman, and actor. An exponent of Taekwondo, Azreen is known for appearing in Malaysian action films like PASKAL: The Movie and Polis EVO 2. Also a popular TV personality, Azreen has taken part in reality series like Fear Factor Selebriti Malaysia where he won the first place along with Dazrin Kamaruddin in 2013.
Miruts Yifter was an Ethiopian athlete who specialized in long-distance running. He is best remembered for winning two gold medals at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. He also won four gold medals at the IAAF World Cup. Miruts Yifter also had success at the 1973 All-Africa Games where he won a gold medal and a silver medal.
Apart from being a professional snooker player, David Grace is also a painter. He is also known for his towering 6’5” frame. Not only has he won the 2008 European Snooker Championships but he has also made a name for himself for his portraits of snooker players, which he sells.
Icelandic born athlete and actor Peter Ronson is known for taking part in the 110 metres hurdles event at the 1960 Summer Olympics held in Rome. He is also remembered for essaying the role of Hans Bjelke and contributing as a technical adviser in the blockbuster hit 1959 American science fiction adventure film Journey to the Center of the Earth.
Percy Williams was a Canadian athlete best remembered for winning two gold medals at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam. He also won a gold medal at the 1930 British Empire Games in Hamilton. Percy Williams is widely regarded as the greatest Canadian Olympic athlete of all time.
The son of a strength sports specialist, Scottish strongman Gregor Edmunds is a World Highland Games champion and world record holder. Known for his huge 6’4.5” frame, he was named Scotland’s Strongest Man and was also a runner-up at the Britain’s Strongest Man contest. He now heads a highland games consultancy.
Padma Shri- and Arjuna Award-winning discus thrower Krishna Poonia created history when she became the first Indian discus thrower to qualify for the Olympic finals. Apart from a Commonwealth gold, she also has two Asian Games bronze medals in her kitty. She is now a Congress Party MLA.
