Hello friends in this post i am going to tell you about the stars of Olympics 2008 at Beijing.This list of stars begins with the world class swimmer of America Michael Phelps.
Michael Phelps
1.Michael Phelps: Michael Phelps domination in the pool brought comparisons to former swimming great Mark Spitz, who won seven gold medals in the 1972 Summer Olympics, a world record.Phelps tied Mark Spitz’s record of four gold medals won in single person events. Phelps had the chance to break Spitz’s record of 7 total gold medals in the 2004 Athens Olympics by competing in eight swimming events (5 of which were individual events): the 200 m freestyle, the 100 m butterfly, the 200 m butterfly, the 200 m individual medley, the 400 m individual medley, the 4×100 m freestyle relay, 4×200 m freestyle relay, and the 4×100 m medley relay.However, his 4×100 m freestyle relay team only won the bronze medal, and he personally placed for bronze in the 200 m freestyle.Thus, he fell short of that record. However, he did win eight medals in one Olympics, a feat only achieved by Alexander Dityatin, a gymnast, in the 1980.
Cathy Freeman
2.Cathy Freeman: Cathy Freeman had the honour to light the Olympic flame at the opening ceremony of the Games. She symbolised the desire to reconcile the white and Aboriginal populations of Australia.Ten days later, she won the 400m final which was a clear victory before an ecstatic crowd. Freeman’s family was poor and, like many Australian Aboriginals, suffered discrimination from white Australians. Once, after winning many races at a primary school competition, Cathy, who wasn’t given a trophy, had to watch as the white girls she had beaten received trophies.Her family worked hard to raise the money Cathy needed to take her to competitions in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne.
Naim Suleymanoglu
3.Naim Suleymanoglu: Naim Suleymanoglu was born to Turkish parents living in Bulgaria. He was nicknamed Pocket Hercules as he was only 1.47m tall and he was the second of only seven lifters to clean and jerk three times their bodyweight. He missed the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 as Bulgaria joined the Soviet Union’s boycott of the Games.He was almost a victim of politics when the Communist regime in Bulgaria forced its Turkish minority to adopt Bulgarian names. He was known as Naum Shalamanov. He defected in 1986 to Turkey. There was also a battle over which country he would represent in the 1988 Seoul Olympics.The Bulgarian government demanded and received $1,000,000 from Turkey to allow him to compete for Turkey. He won the featherweight gold in Seoul and repeated his triumph in 1992. In between he also retired briefly. When he went to Atlanta for the 1996 Games, it is safe to say that there was considerable pressure on him. After all, no weightlifter in history had won three successive gold medals. He engaged in a tremendous duel with Valerios Leonidis of Greece to clinch his third gold medal. And he did in style. By breaking his own world record.
Hassiba Boulmerka
4.Hassiba Boulmerka: The path to Hassiba’s victory in 1992 Olympics in Barcelona was charted in 1991 in Tokyo. In the Japanese capital, Hassiba had scored a stunning victory in the 1500m run at the World Athletics Championships.She returned to Algiers and was hailed as a national heroine and a role model for all Arab women who wanted to break away from their conservative and restrictive roles. However, she was also condemned by Islamic fundamentalists. That mean she was forced to move to Europe to train. No one in the wide world expected Hassiba to win in Barcelona.Especially after the manner in which Russia’s Lyudmila Rogacheva set a torrid pace and burned away the rest of the field. But two hundred metres from the finish, Hassiba drove past Rogacheva and cruised to victory. Hassiba’s success was regarded across the globe as the perfect answer to Muslim fundamentalists who had sought to restrict women from taking part in sport.
