30 Olympic athletes who dominated their events

20. Ray Ewry

Ray Ewry’s incredible success as an Olympic track and field superstar is all the more astounding when his bout with polio is taken into consideration. Confined to a wheelchair for most of his childhood and adolescence, doctors told him he might never walk again. Thus, no one could have predicted Ewry would in fact recover his legs and then use them to become one of the greatest American athletes of all time.

Perhaps the best word to describe Ewry is “golden.” He earned eight medals over the course of his distinguished Olympic career, and not a one of them was silver or bronze. This record of eight individual gold medals stood for over a century until Michael Phelps broke it in 2008.

Standing at 6’1 and weighing just under 175 lbs, Ewry was a lanky farm boy from Lafayette, Indiana that never looked the part of a track star. He specialized in using his unique body frame to propel himself through the air and over hurdles, blasting his competition in the standing high jump, standing long jump, and standing triple jump events at three straight Summer Games. While none of these disciplines exist anymore in modern-day Olympic competition, an argument can be made that all three were actually more difficult in Ewry’s era than their modern versions, since athletes nowadays benefit from the added momentum of a running start.

Next: 19. Jesse Owens