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The greatest Olympic athlete from every U.S. state

By Adam Strangis

16th October 1964: Alfred A Oerter, American winner of the Gold Medal in the Tokyo Olympics 1964 for Discus throwing. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
16th October 1964: Alfred A Oerter, American winner of the Gold Medal in the Tokyo Olympics 1964 for Discus throwing. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images) /
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Louisiana: Karl Malone

Sport: Basketball

Olympics: Barcelona 1992 and Atlanta 1996

Widely considered to be one of the best power forwards of all time, Karl Malone was an incredibly accomplished NBA player and also was an important cog in the United States gold medals winning machine in his time with the national team. During his long and storied career in the NBA, Malone racked up the second most points by any player ever and earned the nickname “The Mailman” due to his consistency.

The 1992 squad was dubbed “The Dream Team” and is considered to possibly be the most dominant team in any sport. They won their games by an average of over 40 points and Malone himself shot over 60 percent from the field in ’92. He then returned to the Olympics in 1996 in Atlanta and helped the USA to another gold medal, even though his statistics don’t stand out above the pack. It just goes to show how stacked both of those basketball teams truly were.

Outside of the Olympics, Malone was elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010 (twice, once as an individual player and once as a player on the Dream Team). His NBA career was remarkable in many ways. Malone was an ironman on the court, only missing 10 games in his entire career, and three of those were due to suspension. He was an All-Star a whopping 14 times, All-NBA first team 11 times, and a two-time MVP. Malone holds records for free throws made and attempted and the only thing that really was ever missing from his career was an NBA title. As is the case with a lot of star players in the Michael Jordan era, Malone is massively underrated and is one of the best players ever to play the game.

Honorable Mention: Audrey “Mickey” Patterson, track and field in London 1948

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