9781422273685

The best athletes in the world train to make the Olympics every four years, and it is almost inevitable that some type of record will either be tied or broken during the games. As athletes from around the world hone their skills for the ultimate competition, records are bound to fall. The record might be an Olympic standard that falls in one event, or it may be a number of records that get broken at any given Summer Games. American swimmer Mark Spitz won seven gold medals at the 1972 Munich Games, and American swimmer Michael Phelps won eight at the 2008 Beijing Games. Spitz retired at just twenty-two after Munich, while Phelps went to four Olympics and won 28 medals, with 23 of them gold — both records. Sometimes an athlete can achieve something that has never been done before, or they might match one record and go on to further Olympic achievements like Carl Lewis did in four Olympic appearances. The Olympics often see world records set that stand several years, or even decades. Some marks that are solely Olympic records have stood more than 30 years. There are teams that have broken records like U.S. women’s beach volleyball and China table tennis, or individual athletes who, like Americans Wilma Rudolph in 1960 or Bob Beamon in 1968, gave memorable performances. Some athletes, like Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci, achieved perfection, and others, like American Greg Louganis, got redemption after what appeared to be a crushing setback. Usain Bolt, the Flying Finn, Jesse Owens, and Flo-Jo are all names that are also etched in Olympic history because they did things that no human had ever done before—they were record breakers.

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