Good Luck for London 2012!
1896 The States was one of many first 13 nations to ship an athletic delegation to the Summer time Video games – among the many world’s most high-profile sporting events– on Greek soil. This 12 months was a key second for the worldwide’s sport.
1896 In Athens, the USA of America turned the main sports activities nation of the world after ending first in unofficial workforce standings within the First Trendy Olympiad. There, the 1896 U.S. Olympic squad earned a complete of 20 medals: 11 gold, 7 silver, and a couple of bronze. In the meantime, Boston-born James B. Connolly was the primary particular person to assert a gold medal in Olympic historical past after successful the triple bounce in Athens’ Panathinaiko Stadium. Again house in Boston, Mr. Connolly was given a hero’s welcome. Since 1896 -without interruption– America has been famend for producing worldwide champs.
1896 Thomas Burke’s rise to prominence got here in Athens when he was the primary winner of the lads’s 100m in Olympian historical past, making him the world’s quickest sprinter. Mr. Burke was recognized with the rising technology of American athletes within the late Nineties when he realized his dream of successful the Olympic gold.
1896 What hurdler was the primary American athlete to win an Olympic title? Reply: Thomas Curtis, a Massachusetts Institute of Expertise scholar. He made a time of 17,6 seconds to win the gold within the males’s 110m hurdles in Greece.
1900 With 47 worldwide medals (19 gold, 14 silver, and 14 bronze), the States as soon as once more turned one of many world’s elite sports activities powers within the multi-sport occasion in Paris (France).
1900 Alvin Kraenzlein was within the highlight as he, a born-athlete, led American workforce to win 4 golds in Paris: 60m, 110m hurdles, 200m hurdles, and lengthy bounce. To arrange himself to turn into an impressive sportsman, the USA hurdler made his first abroad go to to the UK. Hailing from Milwaukee (Wisconsin), Kraenzlein was the American star within the Video games of the Second Olympiad, adopted by Ray Ewry (3 golds), Margaret Ives Abbot (first feminine in US historical past to seize an Olympian championship), and Irving Baxter (2 golds), amongst different high-profile athletes. Alternatively, Kraenzlein’s life has been an inspiration to a number of sports activities folks in Wisconsin and the States.
1904 St. Louis (MO) was the location for the Video games of the Third Olympiad. Unequivocally, the 1904 Olympics had been within the focus of the eye of the world press.
1904 Within the Olympic diving match in Missouri, the Individuals swept the primary three positions.
1904 Pittsburgh-born runner James Lightbody was the winner of the lads’s 800m and 1,500m–He was the primary male to win each these competitions on the similar Olympics. Shortly afterward, he took numerous different main athletic titles, together with the Intercalated Video games in Greece.
1904 The host nation’s workforce -made up of 4 stars: Herman T. Glass, Edward Hennig, Anton Heida, George Eyser- claimed first within the gymnastics match on the III Olympiad in St. Louis (MO).
1908 On the IV Summer time Olympics in London (England), the US Olympic workforce was ranked second within the medal depend -23 golds, 12 silvers, 12 bronzes-behind solely Britain.
1908 With three wins (800m, 1500m and medley relay), New Jersey’s runner Mel Sheppard had an distinctive 12 months within the Briton capital of London.
1912 Oklahoma-born Jim Thorpe received each the decathlon and pentathlon within the Summer time Video games at Stockholm, Sweden. Many years later, many sportswriters and sports activities specialists chosen Thorpe as each “the best soccer participant and male athlete of the primary half of the twentieth Century”.
1912 With three gold medals within the capturing match, New York Metropolis-born Alfred Lane turned America’s most profitable athlete on the V Summer time Olympics on Scandinavian soil.
1912 Two future personalities competed within the Video games in Sweden: Firstly, Avery Brundage in pentathlon-elected President of the Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC); the primary U.S. sports activities chief to occupy the put up. Secondly, George S. Patton, Basic throughout World Struggle II.
1920 On the Summer time Olympic Video games in Antwerp (Belgium), the States turned undisputed champion when it was first within the medal standings with 95 medals. The U.S. workforce had greater than 40 Summer time Olympic Video games Champions.
1920 In Belgium, Duke Kahanamoku earned the lads’s 100m freestyle for the second time in a row. For the previous 4 years, Hawaii’s sporting icon turned the primary islander to overcome the coveted title (Stockholm Video games) and was a national-class swimmer within the States. Previous to 1916, the untapped athlete moved between his house, Hawaii, and frequent swimming occasions within the continental United States, the place his solely purpose was to coach to turn into the world’s quickest swimmer. There, he gained the nationwide trials, capturing tickets for the Summer time Olympics. In addition to being one of the excellent swimmers on Earth since 1912, Duke Kahanamoku reintroduced the game of browsing to the western world- he turned it into an incredible nationwide ardour within the continental U.S. Like Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop and the performer Don Ho, his immense private recognition added to Hawaii’s worldwide fame.
1924 Within the Olympics in Paris, France, America’s robust squad was first within the medal depend with 99 – 67 medals greater than Finland (second within the Video games).
1924 The US water polo workforce took third place within the worldwide competitors, changing into the primary American squad to be medalist within the Olympiad.
1924 After gaining 4 golds, America’s sportsmen turned champion within the free-style wrestling match within the Video games of the VIII Olympiad in Paris. The winners had been Robin Learn, Russel Vis, John Spellman, and Harry Steele.
1924 The US swimmer Albert White rapidly established himself because the “undisputed champ” within the Olympian Diving Event in France, successful golds in each springboard and platform diving.
1928 Through the IX Olympiad within the Netherlands, the States was the main nation within the medal depend, incomes 22 world titles -12 greater than Germany.
1928 Pennsylvania’s Olympic ambassador Johnny Weissmuller received the 100m freestyle for the second time in a row in Amsterdam (Holland/Netherlands). He was one of many prime favorites to win the title. Over a sporting profession that spanned greater than 10 years, he obtained 52 nationwide championships and 5 Olympian golds. Likewise, he set 67 world data within the States and Western Europe. After stepping down as swimmer, he turned a prime film star in Hollywood and co-starred with such outstanding actresses as Brenda Joyce and Maureen O’Sullivan.
1928 Elizabeth Robinson had the excellence of being the primary feminine to win the 100m (observe & discipline) within the IX Summer time Olympics.
1932 The Video games of the X Olympiad had been held in Los Angeles (CA)-for the second time within the historical past of the USA (St. Louis, 1904).
1932 World-class athletes led the US delegation to win the Los Angeles Video games: 103 medals! -well forward of Italy (36). Amongst Summer time Olympic stars: Jesse Owens (observe and discipline), Jim Bausch (decathlon, athletics), Edward Flynn (boxing), Michael Galitzen (diving)…
1932 The house nation took third place within the Water Polo Championship, incomes a bronze. The native workforce gained that distinction by beating Japan and Brazil.
1932 America’s Olympian decathlon champion Jim Bausch obtained the James R. Sullivan Memorial Trophy as the highest Olympic athlete. Few had been shocked when he obtained that award.
1936 Regardless of a troubled relationship with the Germany of Adolf Hitler, Washington dispatched a nationwide contingent to Berlin, house to the XI Video games.
1936 Alabama-born Jesse Owens captured America’s consideration by incomes 4 world titles in Berlin— 100m, 200m, and 4x100m relay, in addition to the lengthy bounce. On account of this, the USA sprinter was one of many globe’s most high-profile athletes within the twentieth Century. This man is of nice historic significance for America. Why? His massive efficiency got here at a time when there have been fewer black athletes within the world sports activities enviornment, breaking down the obstacles of prejudices, and occurred with the political backdrop of Germany’s Nazi regime. Throughout Owens’ days as sprinter and lengthy jumper, he turned a logo of the battle in opposition to racism.
1936 The U.S. males’s soccer squad didn’t qualify for the second spherical after being eradicated by Italy-the world’s top-ranked workforce — however they completed tenth within the Olympic match, forward of Taiwan, Egypt, Hungary, Turkey, Finland, and Luxembourg.
1936 The US -a basketball-mad nation– positioned first within the Inaugural males’s basketball championship in Germany, a feat they repeated from 1948 and ’68. The usdelegation captured the common trophy by beating Mexico (25-10) within the semis after which Canada (19-8) within the gold-medal match. On their solution to win the occasion, the North American nation additionally defeated Estonia (52-28) within the second spherical and Philippines (56-23) within the quarter-finals.
1936 Glenn Morris, a local of Simla (Colorado), made headlines around the globe when he obtained the James R. Sullivan Memorial Trophy as the highest Olympic athlete within the States.
1940-1944 The Video games had been cancelled attributable to World Struggle II.
1948 The US obtained 23 golds within the Video games of the 14th Olympiad in London, Nice Britain, successful the unofficial workforce championship. Within the meantime, in New York Metropolis, America’s win set off a wave of explosive emotion because it was introduced on nationwide radio.
1948 In the UK, the younger American Bob Mathias, who hails from Tulare (California), started to make a reputation for himself in observe and discipline when he completed first within the decathlon with 7,139 factors.
1948 The US basketball workforce claimed first place within the London 1948 Olympic basketball match, incomes the title and permitting they to compete within the subsequent Olympics in Scandinavia.
1948 Surprisingly Porter William led a United States sweep within the males’s 110-meter hurdles.
1948 Unbeaten within the decathlon, Robert Mathias –invariably identified to his buddies as “Bob”— earned the James E. Sullivan Memorial Trophy. He gained a gold medal the XIV Olympiad and people of the XV Olympiad in 1952.
1952 On the Helsinki Video games, the USA delegation took first place in workforce standing by successful 40 world titles.
1952 With 4 trophies, America’s sportsmen completed first within the weightlifting competitors within the fifteenth Summer time Video games within the Finnish capital of Helsinki, defeating the Soviet Union within the medal depend.
1952 Pennsylvania’s runner Horace Ashenfelter was the primary American runner to achieve a gold medal within the males’s 3,000m steeplechase in Finland.
1952 The States captured a gold in basketball within the XV Olympics, giving the US squad entry to compete within the upcoming males’s Olympic Video games basketball championship in Australia within the mid-Nineteen Fifties.
1952 Upon successful an Olympic trophy within the males’s javelin throw in Scandinavia, Cy Younger was the primary particular person in America’s sporting historical past to obtain that honor.
1955 Looking forward to the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, the US Olympic Committee despatched an vital delegation (spearheaded by its prime athlete Patricia McCormick) to Pan American Video games within the Mexican metropolis—Amongst whom had been the longer term Olympic winners: Rafer Johnson (decathlon), Parry O’Brien (shot put), Mildred McDaniel (ladies’s excessive bounce), Huelet Benner (capturing), and Charles Vince (weightlifting).
1956 Norma Armitage, a fencer, was the flag-bearer for America’s fourteenth Olympian delegation on the sixteenth Olympiad at Melbourne, (Australia).
1956 The US workforce took first place within the basketball match on the Melbourne Olympics following its spectacular string of triumphs within the 1954 World Championships and 1955 Pan American Sports activities Video games.
1956 Patricia McCormick gained two world titles (her fourth Olympian gold) within the diving championship on the Australia Summer time Video games, changing into a regional hero. Beforehand to her wins in Oceania, she had collected two golds within the Helsinki Olympiad and three ladies’s Pan American titles in 1951 and 1955. Hailing from Seal Seashore (California), she was one of the respect feminine divers on this planet sports activities group within the Nineteen Fifties.
1959 Santa Monica-born Parry O’Brien –who lived his dream of changing into an Olympic champ in 1952 and 1956 — earned the Sullivan award because the nation’s prime beginner athlete.
1960 Within the Video games of the XVII Olympiad in Italy’s capital, Rome, Wilma Rudolph was identified worldwide by her triumphs in athletics — 100m, 200m, and 4x100m relay.
1960 The nationwide workforce received the lads’s basketball match in Rome after shedding to Brazil within the gold-medal match on the 1959 World Championship.
1960 Louisville-born Cassius Marcellus Clay Junior gained the gold medal within the Video games of the Olympiad in Rome-This boxer was a fierce athlete (each beginner {and professional}) in each enviornment he competed, giving a rare instance for America’s sportsmen and ladies. Within the wake of his victory on Italian soil, he turned professional on the age of 18. Afterwards, by the 70s, he was considered the best boxer of all time by many worldwide sportswriters. He transformed to Islam, altering his identify to Muhammad Ali within the mid-Nineteen Sixties.
1964 On the Summer time Olympic Video games in Tokyo, Japan, the US contingent captured 90 medals – 36 gold, 26 silver, 28 bronze– successful the primary place within the unofficial workforce championships.
1964 The non-favorite runner Bob Schul got here in first within the males’s 5,000m (observe and discipline) in Japan, being the primary American to take action because it was included as one of many official sports activities within the First Olympic Video games in 1896.
1964 On the Tokyo Video games, Billy Mills was the primary particular person in America’s sporting historical past to take a gold medal within the 10,000meters since 1908 when males’s 10,000m turned a medal sport.
1964 The boys’s basketball workforce defeated the united states/Soviet Union for his or her sixth straight Olympic Cup (1936-1964) after did not make the highest three within the males’s basketball World Championship in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).
1968 America’s sports activities system produced a number of Olympic champions and future new stars within the XIX Mexico Metropolis Video games, defeating the united states within the medal depend. The States received 45 golds.
1968 New York’s Bob Beamon set an extended bounce world of 29 ft 2 ½ inches, incomes the Olympic title within the Mexican metropolis—which stood till 1991.
1968 Regardless of being thought of a robust contender to earn golds in males’s swimming, Mark Spitz solely received two Olympic titles within the United Mexican States, however that was a prelude to his “massive win” within the subsequent Olympiad in West Germany.
1968 The usmen’s basketball facet, among the many globe’s most high-profile sports activities groups, obtained the gold for the seventh time in a row throughout the Mexican Video games.
1968 America’s discus thrower Al Oerter made Olympic historical past to win his fourth consecutive gold (from Melbourne 56 to Mexico 68).
1972 World-class swimmer Mark Spitz made worldwide headlines within the Munich Olympics after successful seven golds: 100m frestyle, defeating 47 rivals from 29 nations and territories; 200m freestyle, with a victory over his fellow athlete Steve Genter; 100m butterfly, first amongst 39 swimmers from 29 nations; 200m butterfly, completed first over his countryman Gary Corridor; 4x100m freestyle, alongside David Edgar, John Murphy & Jerry Heidenreich; 4x200m freestyle, along with his fellow Individuals John Kinsella, Frederick Tyler, and Steve Genter; 4×100 medley, with Mike Stam, Bruce Tom, and Heidenreich. Alternatively, America’s coach James Counsilman was the “hand behind” the victory of his compatriot Spitz.
1972 Whereas America’s elite swimmer Mark Spitz made Olympic historical past within the Summer time Olympics at West Germany’s metropolis of Munich, the basketball nationwide workforce did not earn the Olympian championship for the primary time, after shedding to the Soviet Union, led by its star and future famer Sergei Belov. Since 1936, the US squad went undefeated to win the Olympian championship.
1972 Olga Connolly –a gold medalist Olympic athlete for Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic since 1993) in 1956- was named because the flag bearer of the US Olympic delegation on the Opening Ceremony of the Summer time Olympics at Munich, West Germany.
1972 Ending forward of the world’s prime 4 runners — amongst these had been Ethiopia’s Mamo Wolde and Japan’s Kenji Kimihara– Frank Shorter, a gold medal-winning marathoner on the VI Pan American Video games in 1971, shocked West Germany by changing into the primary American to achieve the marathon since John H. Hayes in 1908.
1976 The ladies’s basketball squad of America earned the Pre-Olympic Cup within the Canadian metropolis of Hamilton, qualifying for the Video games of the Olympiad in Montreal. In Canada, that successful workforce defeated such groups as Cuba (89-73), Mexico (80-57), France (79-59), Poland (84-66), and Bulgaria (76-75).
1976 With Darrell Tempo and Luann Ryon, the States completed first within the archery competitors within the XXI Summer time Olympics at Montreal, Canada.
1976 Surprisingly, with a world file of 49,99 seconds, Jim Montgomery captured the lads’s 1oom within the Olympic Swimming Event. He achieved his biggest success at Montreal after gaining a bronze medal within the 100m on the II FINA World Championships in Cali, Colombia (South America), in July 1975.
1976 America’s charismatic athlete Bruce Jenner defeated West Germany’s Guido Kratschmer and Nikolai Avilov from the Soviet Union -winner at Munich’72– to earn the decathlon with 8.618 factors. Throughout his transient stayed in Montreal, he was considered one of many “hottest athletes” by sportswriters and Canadian followers. Upon his win, he turned the face of the Summer time Olympics throughout the Nineteen Seventies.
1976 Ladies’s basketball debuted within the Olympiad with the US squad gaining a silver medal.
1979 As a warm-up to the 1980 Moscow Olympics, America’s sportsmen and ladies competed on the VII Soviet Spartakiad,between July 21 and August 5, 1979, within the Russian capital of Moscow–the world’s largest multi-sport occasion within the 70s.
1980 The world of sport was mourning the dying of Jesse Owens-who had lots of of followers exterior the USA.
1980 After capturing the FIBA Seoul World Championship and the William Jones Cup on Taiwan, the ladies’s basketball facet obtained a spot on the Moscow Olympics following a historic win over the host nation 76-75 within the World Olympic Qualification at Varna, Bulgaria.
1980 The boys’s soccer squad made an sudden returned to the Olympic scene after they certified for the Moscow, however the American couldn’t go the united states.
1980 On the request of President Jimmy Carter,the U.S. Olympic Committee determined to boycott the Moscow Video games after a votation, changing into a venture in opposition to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan after which adopted by 60 different governments and anti-Soviet rulers –as Albania’s Maoist chairman Enver Hoxha– across the globe. It was a significant blow to America’s Olympian sport.
1980 Forward of the Moscow Video games, the American workforce had been planning to spend many days coaching in West Germany.
1983 With the management of the longer term Corridor of Fame participant Michael Jordan, the American basketball workforce claimed first within the IX Pan American Sports activities Video games at Venezuela, a very powerful pre-Olympic occasion within the Western Hemisphere.
1983 In making ready for its upcoming occasion -Los Angeles ’84, the U.S. Olympic Committee despatched 5 future Olympian champs to the Venezuelan capital of Caracas to compete within the Pan American Boxing Event. They had been Henry Tillman (heavyweight), Jerry Web page (lt.welterweight), Pernell Whitaker (light-weight), Steve McCrory (flyweight), and Paul Gonzalez (tremendous heavyweight).
1984 The Kremlin and its satellites within the growing world – the likes of Laos and the backed-Soviet Angola– and Jap Europe determined to not take part within the Los Angeles Video games. Equally, 4 anti-American states, Albania, Burkina Faso, Libya and the Islamic republic of Iran, declined to ship athletes to those Olympics. In contrast, Guinea, Guyana, Madagascar, Nicaragua, Romania, Seychelles, and Yugoslavia –states with troublesome ties to Washington-competed at Los Angeles’84.
1984 Los Angeles (CA) was reworked into an “Olympic paradise” with the well-known Olympic Stadium as backdrop. The biggest metropolis of America’s western coast, hosted the Summer time Video games for the second time, considered one of many biggest multi-sport occasions in Olympian historical past regardless of a global boycott.
1984 Guyanese-born Innis Jennifer turned the primary naturalized American to compete within the ladies’s lengthy bounce within the Olympics. As a United States athlete, she was runner-up within the Pan American Video games at Indianapolis in late 1987. Whereas competing for Guyana -an Anglophone republic on the South American continent– she positioned thirteenth within the 1980 Olympiad. Jennifer’s athletic profession dates from the time when she went overseas to compete within the 1979 Pan American Video games.
1984 Edwin Moses got here in first within the males’s 400m hurdles, capturing its second Olympian title. Curiously, he received all his races between 1977 and 1987.
1984 In California, the American track-and-field athlete Valerie Brisco-Hooks defeated the up-and-coming Florence Griffith Joyner to win the 200 meters. Brisco-Hooks additionally was the winner of the ladies’s 400m-she was the primary sportswoman to earn each these competitions on the similar Olympic Video games.
1984 The 1984 U.S. Olympic workforce got here near successful the water polo gold after shedding to Yugoslavia -an ex champion in 1968– within the finals.
1984 After being runner-up within the 1976 Montreal match, the US ladies’s workforce gained the III basketball championship within the Los Angeles Olympiad, securing a berth within the 1988 Olympiad in South Korea. The North American squad was one of many world’s most high-profile groups, attending each Olympic occasion from 1984 onwards.
1984 At Los Angeles, Mary Lou Retton received a gold medal in ladies’s gymnastics, changing into the primary US ladies to take action. Apart from that, she received 5 1984 Olympic medals.
1984 Surprisingly, Joan Benoit was the primary particular person to achieve the inaugural ladies’s marathon at Los Angeles by defeating Grete Waitz of Norway and Rosa Mota of Portugal (each world-class runners).
1984 America’s handball gamers participated in ladies’s tournament– It was the primary look for the US facet on the Olympic stage.
1988 At the USA Olympic Monitor and Area Trials at Indianapolis, California’s sprinter Florence Griffith Joyner, beneath Bobby Kersee’s watchful eye, lowered the earlier world file of 10,76 seconds (established by her fellow team-mate Evelyn Ashford) within the 100m 4 occasions -a 10.60, 10.49, 10.71, and 10.61.
1988 Surprisingly, the lads’s basketball workforce of America –often the favorites to acquire the competition-earned a bronze medal. Within the final world match in Spain, by 1986, the nationwide workforce positioned first by defeating the Soviet Union.
1988 Astonishingly, America’s prime swimmer Matt Biondi misplaced to Suriname’s Anthony Conrad Nesty within the males’s 100m butterfly.
1988 After ending second within the ladies’s 200m within the Video games of the twenty third Olympiad on US soil in 1984, Griffith Joyner turned the globe’s quickest girl when she obtained three golds within the Seoul Video games:100m, 200m and 400-meter relay. She added a silver medal within the 1,600-meter relay. However that wasn’t all. On September 29, 1988, she broke the world file twice within the ladies’s 200m — 21.56s (semi-finals) and 21.34s (finals). On the medalist’s press convention following his victory in South Korea, she stated: “If you’ve been second-best for thus lengthy, you’ll be able to both settle for it, or attempt to turn into one of the best. I made the choice to attempt to be one of the best in 1988”. In addition to being named because the “sportswoman of the 12 months” by sportswriters, sports activities comentators, and different specialists in Western Europe and the States, she was praised within the Communist-controlled newspapers within the Soviet Union. By the tip of the 12 months, she obtained the 1988 Sullivan Award.
1992 John Smith, Kevin Jackson, and Bruce Baumgartner had been the primary American wrestlers to seize golds in non boycotted Olympic occasions since 1972.
1992 The so-called “Dream Workforce” made its long-awaited worldwide debut within the Video games of the twenty fifth Olympiad within the Spaniard metropolis of Barcelona, after beating Angola (African champion) 116-48. In a while, the workforce turned Olympic champion. The US delegation included the NBA stars Patrick Ewing, Magic Johnson, Karl Malone, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, John Stockton, Chris Mullin, Clyde Drexler, Scottie Pippen, David Robinson, Larry Chook, and the young-up-and-coming participant Christian Laettner. From the start, the American facet was the “massive favourite” by the media in Spain. 4 years earlier, the 1988 U.S. Olympic squad-made up of American collegians– claimed third within the Olympiad -its worst end result since 1972-previously that they had a nasty 12 months within the pre-Olympic 12 months of 1987 when the North American workforce shedding to Brazil within the gold-medal match throughout the X Pan American Video games in Indianapolis (IN). On the time, beneath Soviet/East German stress (throughout Chilly Struggle, precisely), the Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) refused to simply accept professionals within the multi-sport occasions. Nonetheless, by 1989, the IOC dominated that skilled athletes had been eligible to take part within the Summer time Olympics (1992-).
1992 The 19-year-old boxer Oscar de la Hoya, nicknamed “Golden Boy”, gained the Olympian light-weight boxing title, upon a win over Marco Rudolph (Germany) within the finals–America’s solely boxing gold within the twenty fifth Olympiad,
1992 Evelyn Ashford certified for the Olympics for the fifth time (from Montreal’76 to Barcelona’92).
1992 After not even qualifying for the 1988 South Korea Video games, New Mexico-born Trent Dimas was the primary American gymnast to turn into an Olympian champ throughout the Submit-Chilly Struggle period.
1996 Kentucky-born Muhammad Ali-the Best– lit the cauldron for the Centennial Video games in Atlanta, giving one of many extra memorable moments within the Summer time Video games.
1996 After capturing the gold within the males’s lengthy bounce by defeating James Beckford of Jamaica, Carl Lewis, whose profession spanned three many years, earned his ninth Olympic gold medal. Because of these trophies, he was thought of one of many twentieth Century’s biggest athletes. He started to symbolize the States within the worldwide meets in July 1979 as he attend the VIII Pan American Video games on Puerto Rico in July 1979-at the time Carl Lewis was an pre-Olympic hopeful.
1996 The boys’s soccer workforce competed within the Video games after being absent for 2 editions -Seoul’88 & Barcelona’92.Nonetheless, they positioned ninth — the nation’s finest end result!
1996 The uswomen’s soccer workforce, one of the well-liked squads on the North American continent, received the Olympic Cup on the Atlanta Video games, the primary time ladies’s soccer was included within the Summer time Olympics. As host nation and medalist within the final world championship in Scandinavia, the U.S. workforce was the heavy favourite to achieve the Olympic contest, effectively forward of Norway’s facet (the present world champ). In the meantime, the spine of America’s undefeated 1996 championship squad, Mia Hamm was probably the most excellent participant.
2000 Rulon Gardner defeated three-time Olympic champ Aleksadr Karelin of Russia -known throughout Chilly Struggle’s time because the Soviet Union/USSR — to win the Greco-Roman tremendous heavy-weight ultimate; Karelin had by no means misplaced a global championship. Gardner is broadly considered probably the most outstanding wrestler in historical past of the US Olympic wrestling workforce.
2000 Baseball historical past was made within the Summer time Video games when the US facet obtained the gold by defeating Cuba.
2000 The US ladies’s workforce completed first within the Sydney Olympic softball match, incomes the gold. Within the finals, they defeated Japan in further innings, 2-1.
2004 The US took first place on the 2004 Athens, capturing 103 medals (35 gold, 39 silver, 27 bronze).
2004 Astonishingly, America’s basketball gamers received the bronze medal within the males’s Olympic championship, behind Argentina (gold) and Italy (silver). In Athens, the nationwide squad was thought of a robust contender to earn the occasion.
2004 Steven Lopez, whose mother and father are from Nicaragua (Central America), received a gold medal in taekwondo for the second time in a row. With two golds between 2000 (light-weight) and 2004 (middleweight class), he’s the best American taekwondo fighter of all time.
2008 America’s soccer gamers obtained their Olympic ticket for males’s match in Beijing 2008.
2008 President George W. Bush made a particular journey to the Individuals’s Republic of China to attend the Summer time Video games.
2008 With particular pleasure, Lopez Lomong –a former refugee throughout Sudan’s civil warfare 1983-2005– accepted to hold the American flag within the four-and-a-half-hour-long opening ceremonies of the Summer time Video games in Beijing’s Nationwide Stadium.
2008 After many disappointing years by which the States repeatedly misplaced the massive occasions – 2004 Olympiad, 2006 FIBA World Cup (third ), 2007 Pan American Video games (fifth place), the nationwide workforce received the basketball match.
2008 Maryland-born swimmer Michael Phelps shocked the world by successful eight Olympics golds in Beijing, China’s capital. This sports activities star — whose supporters quantity amongst them President George W. Bush– received the 200m particular person medley, the 400m particular person m, the 100m butterfly, 200m butterfly, 200m freestyle, the 4x100m freestyle relay, the 4x200m freestyle relay, and the 4x100m medley relay–breaking the 36 -year-old file of Mark Spitz. His victory within the Asian nation was the topic of appreciable media consideration and was probably the most acknowledge face on the planet in 2008. The US athlete is probably the most embellished sportsman in Olympian historical past.
2012 America’s trendy democracy and political-economic system has produced a number of top-class athletes since 1896 (not as a political propaganda as occurred within the former Soviet Bloc): Alvin Kraenzlein (1900), Mark Spitz (1972), Mary Lou Retton (1984), and Greg Louganis (1984-1988), amongst different high-profile sports activities figures. In contrast to many nations around the globe, its sportsmen and ladies are lionized by their compatriots. In truth, they’re Goodwill Ambassadors. At London 2012, the States would possibly ship 580 athletes, having robust possibilities in a number of sports activities as athletics, basketball, seaside volleyball, boxing, gymnastics, swimming, tennis, ladies’s soccer, ladies’s volleyball, and wrestling. Within the final FINA World Aquatics Championships at Shangai, China, for instance, the US delegation captured 17 golds with sports activities stars like Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Rebecca Soni, Jessica Hardy and Missy Franklin. In the meantime, within the 2011 Athletics International match, there have been 12 winners from America.
