![Iolanda Balas](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/285772/o/GettyImages-516805946.jpg)
Universiade Legends
Every edition of the Universiade gives athletes a chance to etch their names in the history books. While all those who qualify and enter the Universiade competition arena are champions in their own right, some athletes dazzle on the stage, producing moments that stand the test of time.
Some Universiade Legends announce their arrival to the world’s sporting stage while at the Universiade. Other Legends go on from their university athletic career to attain their storied status, while a few sport icons put a capstone on their careers with dominating Universiade performances.
These are the stories of the Universiade Legends. Check back here from time-to-time. With over eight decades of Universiades to draw on, we have many stories to tell so we will be regularly updating this section.
![Iolanda Balas](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/285772/o/GettyImages-516805946.jpg)
Iolanda Balas
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1959 Summer Universiade, Turin: women's high jump gold. 1961 Summer Universiade, Sofia: women's high jump gold.
By the time she competed at the first Summer Universiade, held in Turin in 1959, Romanian high jumper Iolanda Balas, then 22, was the overwhelming favourite given she had already broken the world record six times, starting at 1.75 metres in 1956.
She lived up to her position, taking gold with a clearance of 1.80m - not far short of her most recent world record of 1.83m, which had made her also the first woman to clear six feet.
On September 21, 15 days after the Turin event ended, she raised the world record to 1.84m.
She had already had experience of competing in an Olympics, having finished fifth at the 1956 Melbourne Games.
And the following year she became the first Romanian woman to win an Olympic gold medal as she earned victory in the women’s high jump at the 1960 Rome Games with an Olympic record of 1.85m.
A year later she won a second Universiade title in Sofia, clearing 1.85m and finishing more than 20cm clear of the nearest opposition.
![Iolanda Balas won two Olympic gold medals ©Getty Images Iolanda Balas won two Olympic gold medals ©Getty Images](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/285773/o/GettyImages-913033210.jpg)
At the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, despite suffering with a hamstring injury, she made a successful defence of her title with another Olympic record - this time 1.90m, with Michele Brown of Australia taking silver on 1.80m.
Balas, of Hungarian origin and coached by the man who she would later marry, Ioan Soter, used a sophisticated version of the scissors technique - to outstanding effect.
Between 1957 and 1966, she won 154 consecutive competitions, not including qualifying competitions or exhibitions.
She also improved the world record 14 times, taking it from 1.75m to 1.91m, with her last record being set in July 1961.
After retiring as an athlete she taught physical education in Bucharest and was President of the Romanian Athletics Federation between 1988 and 2005.
Balas, who died in 2016 aged 79, was also a member of the European Athletics Technical Committee and of the Women's Commission of then-known International Association of Athletics Federations.
Linda Gustavson
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1967 Summer Universiade, Tokyo: Women’s 100m freestyle bronze; women’s 400m freestyle silver; women’s 4x100m freestyle relay gold.
Linda Gustavson’s first appearance at a Summer World University Games at the age of 17 proved to be one of the most dramatic debuts of any competitor in the event’s history.
It was at the 1967 edition in Tokyo that Gustavson, a member of the elite-level Santa Clara Swim Club, made her first big splash internationally.
By the time the Games closed she was the proud owner of four gold medals.
In the women’s 100 metres freestyle she won in 1min 00.2sec from fellow American Lynne Allsup, who clocked 1:01.8.
She added a second individual gold in the 400m freestyle, clocking 4:37.8 to finish exactly six seconds clear of her nearest rival, compatriot Lee Davis.
Gustavson then teamed with Allsup, Martha Randall and Maddie Ellis to win the women’s 4x100m event, finishing more than 14sec clear of the host team.
And the girl from Santa Cruz made it four as she helped the 4x100m medley team earn victory, again finishing almost 14sec clear of joint silver medallists Japan and Britain.
The Santa Cruz club supplied eight men and eight women to the United States team for the following year’s Olympics in Mexico - and Gustavson was among them.
In the United States Olympic trials she excelled in the 200 metres, setting a world record of 2min 07.9sec - improving the mark by almost a second.
Albeit that the record belonged by the end of the day to her compatriot Debbie Meyer, who took 0.02 off it.
Earlier in the year Gustavson had been in the Santa Clara women’s 4x100m freestyle relay team that set two successive world records.
Gustavson was still only 18 when she competed at the Mexico 1968 Olympic Games, from which she emerged with a full set of medals.
She took bronze in a women’s 100m freestyle final won by fellow American Jan Henne and earned silver in the 400m freestyle, where she finished behind Meyer.
Then in the women’s 4x100m she teamed up with Meyer and individual silver medallist Susan Pedersen, plus first leg swimmer Jane Barkman, to win Olympic gold in a Games record of 4:02.5, with East Germany just over three seconds behind.
Sara Simeoni
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1973 Summer Universiade, Moscow: women's high jump bronze. 1975 Summer Universiade, Rome: women's high jump silver. 1977 Summer Universiade, Sofia: women's high jump gold. 1979 Summer Universiade, Mexico City: women's high jump bronze. 1981 Summer Universiade, Bucharest: women's high jump gold.
Women's high jump - 1973 Summer University Games, Moscow: bronze (1.81m); 1975, Rome: silver (1.88m); 1977, Sofia: gold (1.92m); 1979, Mexico City: bronze (1.92m); 1981, Bucharest: gold (1.96m Championship record).
Sara Simeoni of Italy, one of the all-time greats of women's high-jumping, was also one of the all-time greats of the Summer World University Games.
Her first appearance was at the 1973 edition held in Moscow, where as a 20-year-old she cleared 1.81 metres to earn bronze along with Russia's Galina Filatova.
Two years later at the home University Games in Rome she took silver on countback after both she and Filatova had cleared 1.88m.
In Sofia, Simeoni completed her set of University Games medals as she won gold with a clearance of 1.92m.
By now she had already translated her performances into medals at the highest level, having taken Olympic silver at the Montreal 1976 Games with a clearance of 1.91m behind Rosemarie Ackermann of East Germany's 1.93m.
The following year, Simeoni won the European title and retained her European indoor title.
Returning to the University competition at the 1979 Games in Mexico City, she had to content herself with another bronze.
A year later, her career reached its high point as she won the Olympic title in Moscow with an Olympic record clearance of 1.97m.
In 1981 she went to Bucharest and earned the fifth and last of her Universiade medals.
A Games record clearance of 1.96m earned her a second gold for her collection.
Tendon injuries slowed her rate of achievements after this, but she returned as Opening Ceremony flag bearer for Italy at the Los Angeles 1984 Olympics, aged 31, and produced a superb last hurrah as she cleared 2.00m for silver behind the 2.02m achieved by Germany's Ulrike Meyfarth.
Ralph Doubell
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1967 Summer Universiade, Tokyo: men's 800 metres gold.
The Universiade has primed generations of athletes for success at world and Olympic levels - and in the case of Australian middle distance runner Ralph Doubell there was a short, sharp and perfect progression.
Doubell was born in Melbourne and studied at the city's university, where he came under the tutelage of Austrian-born coach Franz Stampfl, who had helped Roger Bannister to achieve the first sub-four minute mile in 1954.
The 1967 Summer Universiade in Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium provided the then 22-year-old Doubell with his first international championship test.
He passed with flying green and gold colours, winning the men's 800 metres title in a Universiade record of 1min 46.7sec.
Credited with the same time in silver medal position was West Germany's European record holder Franz-Josef Kemper, who had run 1:44.9 in 1966 shortly before winning silver at the European Championships in Budapest.
Kemper's compatriot Bodo Tummler, who had finished one place behind Kemper in the 1966 European Championships 800m, adding bronze to the gold he won in the 1500m, finished third in 1:47.8, one place ahead of Britain's Dave Cropper, who clocked 1:48.5.
If the standard of competition for the fledgling international was high in Tokyo, it was higher still a year later at the Mexico Olympics.
Doubell nearly failed to make an appearance because Achilles tendon injuries prevented him from competing in the six months before the Games got underway.
But the Australian recovered just in time, and reached the final, where despite being last early in the first lap he moved up to pass the 1964 Olympic bronze medallist and favourite Wilson Kiprugut halfway down the finishing straight, although the Kenyan tracked him all the way to the line.
Doubell crossed in 1min 44.3sec (1:44.40 in electric timing) to equal the hand-timed world record set in 1963 by New Zealand's Peter Snell.
Four years later at the Munich Olympics Dave Wottle of the United States equalled the record in winning 800m gold.
Sadly Doubell was unable to defend his title in Munich, having been forced to retire because of a series of calf injuries.
Carlos Sansores
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2017 Summer Universiade, Taipei: men's taekwondo last 16.
The World University Games have provided many future world champions in a range of sports with essential experience - but that doesn't mean all future world champions win medals.
At the 2017 Summer Universiade in Taipei, Mexican taekwondo athlete Carlos Sansores was not expected to get a medal in a men's under-87 kilograms field loaded with talent and experience.
And indeed he didn't, as he lost his opening contest against South Korea's Cho Min-Kwang in the round-of-16, 8-7.
Cho did not reach the podium, but of those who did three had already won big titles or were about to.
Event favourite Radik Isayev of Azerbaijan, the 2015 world champion and reigning Olympic champion, had to settle for a bronze.
The other bronze medallist, Jonathan Healy of the United States, would win gold at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima.
Silver medallist Maicon Andrade, who had won bronze at the 2015 Universiade, had already made history by becoming the first male Brazilian taekwondo athlete to earn an Olympic medal having earned bronze in his home Rio Games the year before.
For gold medallist Rafael Ayukaev of Russia, however, this appeared to be a career high point.
For Sansores, by contrast, it was a jumping-off point.
In 2018, he won the heavyweight title at the Pan American Championships, and the young athlete from Chetumal carried his form over to 2019 to produce an impressive performance at the World Championships in Manchester.
After defeating Isaev 7-2 in the quarter-final the Mexican advanced to the final, where he lost 9-5 to Cuba's 2013 world champion Rafael Alba.
Soon afterwards he competed in the Pan American Games in Lima, where he earned bronze in the under-80kg category as Healy claimed gold.
By the time the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics came around, Sansores was a medal contender, seeded fourth.
After a scant series of events in 2020 due to the pandemic, he added a silver to the Pan American Championships gold he had won in 2018 and swiftly earned revenge for his defeat in the final by beating Healy in the Mexico Open gold medal bout in Cancun.
Having arrived in Tokyo with high hopes, however, he soon found himself back down at ground level as he lost his opening contest 6-4 to Croatia's 13th seed Ivan Sapina.
But if his first Olympics were a letdown, Sansores set about restoring his pride and prestige in 2022, which he began by regaining the Pan American Championship in Punta Cana, beating Healy in the final.
The season's highlight of the World Championships, in the Mexican city of Guadalajara, offered him the opportunity of earning a prestigious home victory - and he took it.
Once again he found himself up against Healy, this time in the quarter-final, but he earned a win to advance for a contest with Sajjad Mardani of Iran, the 2013 world silver medallist. He duly reached the final, where he earned gold with a 5-3, 4-0 win over Ivan Garcia of Spain.
Sansores followed up with a fabulous run in the Grand Prix final in Riyadh, reaching the final but losing to the London 2012 gold medallist Cheick Sallah Cisse of Ivory Coast.
Miklós Németh
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1970 Summer Universiade, Turin: men's javelin gold.
Six years before he became Olympic javelin champion at the Montreal 1976 Games, Hungary's Miklós Németh - like so many athletes before and since – gained invaluable competitive experience by winning gold at the Summer Universiade.
At the age of 23, Németh entered the 1970 edition in Turin with much to live up to, given that his father, Imre, had won the Olympic hammer title at the 1948 London Games, and taken bronze four years later at Helsinki, finishing his career with three world records to his name.
Németh junior was a javelin thrower rather than a hammer thrower, but he showed he was a chip off the old block in Turin as he earned gold with a best of 81.94 metres.
Silver went to compatriot Jozcef Csik on 80.32, with Poland’s Zygmunt Jaloszynski taking bronze with 79.84.
All that experience came to bear in Montreal, where he struck decisively - and, for his opponents, demoralisingly – by throwing a world record of 94.58m in the first round, thus eclipsing the mark of 94.08 set by West Germany’s Klaus Wolfermann in 1973.
The record would stand until 1980, when his compatriot Ferenc Paragi threw 96.72.
Hamish Kerr
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2017 Summer Universiade, Taipei and 2019 Summer Universiade, Naples: men's high jump.
Competing at the Summer Universiade has propelled many an athlete to continental and global success, and such has been the case for New Zealand high jumper Hamish Kerr - even though he did not reach the podium on either of his two appearances.
The native of Dunedin had just turned 21 when he competed in the 2017 edition in Taipei, and an effort of 2.10 metres in qualifying was only enough to earn him 13th place - with the top 12 progressing to a final in which Germany's Falk Wendrich won on countback from Italy's Marco Fassinotti after both had cleared 2.29m.
By the time Kerr returned to the flagship competition of the International University Sports Federation in Naples two years later, he was a far more experienced and accomplished performer.
A month earlier he had equalled the national record of 2.30m in winning the Oceania title at Townsville in Queensland.
But after qualifying for the final with a clearance of 2.15m, there was frustration for the Kiwi as he was unable to register a height and finished officially with a DNF.
There was further disappointment for him later in the year as he failed to qualify for the final at the Doha World Championships after a best effort of 2.22m.
On the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, Kerr re-grouped in a big way, and in February 2021 he became outright national record holder with a clearance of 2.31m in Wellington.
Later that same year he appeared at the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics and competed with honour, finishing tenth with a clearance of 2.30m.
Kerr had further global success in 2022 as he earned bronze at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade as he surpassed the 39-year-old New Zealand indoor record of 2.16m, set by Roger Te Puni, with a clearance of 2.31m, sharing third place with Italy's Olympic champion Gianmarco Tamberi.
The summer of 2022 proved even more fruitful as he won the Commonwealth title in Birmingham with a clearance of 2.25m.
And in February 2023, at Banska Bystrica in Slovakia, Kerr took another giant leap in his career as he broke the Oceania indoor record set by Australia's Tim Forsyth in 1997 as he managed an outright lifetime best - so far - of 2.34m.
Jesús Ángel García
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1991 Summer Universiade, Sheffield: men's 20km race walk, fifth place.
Nobody would have realised it at the time - except, perhaps, for the man himself - but when 25-year-old Spanish race walker Jesús Ángel García finished fifth in the 20 kilometres event at the 1991 Summer Universiade in Sheffield it marked the start of what would be a historic career.
The race was won by a 23-year-old Pole who would go on, like García, to write his name in the history of the sport. Robert Korzeniowski finished his career with four Olympic golds, three world titles and two European titles.
García has not matched that medal collection, although he has won a world title, but his lasting legacy has nevertheless occurred in the Olympic arena.
At 51-years-old, he became the first person to compete in an athletics event at eight Summer Olympics as he took part in the 50km race walk at Tokyo 2020.
After finishing 35th in Sapporo - chosen as the venue for the road events due to concerns over high temperatures in the capital - he announced his retirement, saying: "Eight Olympics is enough!"
It was a fitting moment for the declaration, as he had just taken part in the last Olympic 50km race walk. The format has now changed to 35km.
Garcia got his Olympic 50km race walk career underway a year after his international debut in Sheffield as he finished 10th at the Barcelona Games.
He would go on to compete in every Games up to and including the postponed edition of Tokyo in 2021.
His best performance came at the Beijing 2008 Games when he finished fourth.
But while his Olympic career was, ultimately, about appearances rather than medals, that was not so in the World Championships.
He won gold at the 1993 Stuttgart edition and added three silvers - in 1997, 2001 and 2009.
David Hemery
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1970 Summer Universiade, Turin: men's 110m hurdles, gold.
For David Hemery, the 1970 Summer Universiade in Turin was an important staging post between earning Olympic gold and bronze medals in the 400 metres hurdles.
And it involved him returning to the event in which he had first established himself internationally - the sprint hurdles.
Hemery, born at Cirencester in Gloucestershire, was partly brought up in Britain but moved to the United States when his father took up accounting jobs there and later attended Boston University, where he studied engineering.
His first international flourish came at the 1966 Commonwealth Games in Kingston, Jamaica, where he won the 120 yards hurdles.
Two years later he produced, in the thin air of Mexico, one of the greatest Olympic performances of all time.
Despite being only sixth-fastest on paper going into the men’s 400m hurdles final, he won by more than eight metres, lowering the world record to 48.12sec.
In 1970, with his longer-term sights set on defending his title at the Munich 1972 Olympics, Hemery sharpened up by returning to the shorter distance - and with ideal effect.
In July, he retained his Commonwealth title in Edinburgh, the event having changed to the 110m hurdles, clocking 13.66sec to finish comfortably clear of Australia’s Mal Baird, who recorded 13.86.
In November of that year, Hemery lined up at the Stadio Comunale in Turin and earned himself another version of gold as he clocked 13.8sec to win the 110m hurdles title, with the respective silver and bronze medallists, Gunther Nickel of West Germany and Sergio Liani of Italy, being timed at 13.9.
Despite having to miss 1971 with injury, Hemery duly defended his Olympic title in Munich, but had to settle for third as Uganda’s John Akii-Bua lowered his world record to 47.82.
He went on to complete his Olympic medal set as part of the British 4x400m silver-medallist team.
Witold Bańka
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2007 Summer Universiade, Bangkok: men's 4x400m relay gold; 2009 Summer Universiade, Belgade: men's 4x400m relay silver.
Like many leaders of international sporting organisations, Witold Bańka, currently the President of the World Anti-Doping Agency, had his own international sporting career.
Bańka was a 400 metres runner who represented Poland from 2005 to 2012, retiring in the latter year after failing to qualify for the London 2012 Olympics.
He was a relay specialist, and two of the highlights of his career came in Summer Universiade competition.
In 2007, at the Games in Bangkok, Thailand, Bańka was a member of the victorious Polish squad in the men's 4x400m relay.
Two years later he played a part in the final at the Games in Belgrade as Poland took silver in 3min 05.69sec behind Australia, who clocked 3:03.67.
Bańka’s international career had got off to a golden start when he was in the team that won the relay at the 2005 European Athletics Junior Championships in Erfurt, Germany.
Two years later he earned a bronze medal at the 2007 World Athletics Championships in Osaka, Japan, after running in the heats.
Shizuka Arakawa
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2003 Winter Universiade, Tarvisio: ladies figure skating gold.
By the time Shizuka Arakawa arrived in the Italian commune of Tarvisio to contest the ladies' singles figure skating at the 2003 Winter Universiade, she had something to prove.
As a child prodigy on the ice, she had competed at her home 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano at the age of 16, finishing 13th under the gaze of the Emperor and Empress of Japan.
In 1999, she won the Asian Winter Games title and the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics of 2002 began to look as if they might offer medal possibilities. However, she could only finish second in the Japanese National Championships and that meant she was not chosen for Utah.
In March 2000, Arakawa enrolled at Waseda University to undertake a bachelor's degree in social sciences. This allowed her the opportunity of competing in the International University Sports Federation's flagship winter event in 2003, knowing that she needed a positive performance to get her career back on track.
The performance duly arrived as she won both the short and free skating programmes to emerge as a clear winner ahead of Angela Lien of the United States and Canada's Lesley Hawker.
That year she also regained her Asian Winter Games title. It was a pivotal time for her, as, in 2004, just a few days after completing her graduation exams, she won the world title in Dortmund after landing seven clean triple jumps.
She was the third Japanese woman to win this title after the triumphs of Midori Ito in 1989 and Yuka Sato in 1994.
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Arakawa had planned to retire after the 2004 World Championships, but her victory there convinced her to change her plans.
Her defence of her title in 2005 was a failure as she finished ninth, but the result acted as a spur to her and she pushed on to the Turin Winter Olympics in 2006 after changing her coach.
In Turin she finished third in the short programme behind pre-event favourites Sasha Cohen of the US and Russia's Irina Slutskaya, although the three were separated by less than a point.
In the long programme, Cohen was the first of the three leaders to skate and fell twice.
Arakawa held her nerve to finish almost eight points ahead of her US rival, although Cohen remained in silver position after Slutskaya also made several errors.
At 24, Arakawa became the oldest women's Olympic skating champion since Madge Cave Syers of Britain had earned the title at the 1908 London Games aged 27. She retired and went on to skate professionally.
Andriy Protsenko
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2011 Summer Universiade, Shenzen: 11th in men's high jump. 2013 Summer Universiade, Kazan: men's high jump silver medal.
It was very noticeable during the men's high jump at the 2022 European Athletics Championships in Munich just how much care and regard the winner - Italy's joint Olympic champion Gianmarco Tamberi - had for the bronze medallist, Ukraine's Andriy Protsenko.
A month earlier at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, the bond between the two men had also been patently strong as Protsenko beat his Italian rival to the bronze on countback after both had cleared a season's best of 2.33 metres.
In an interview in Oregon, Protsenko acknowledged how much support he had received from the Italian in the wake of the traumatic circumstances in which he had to prepare for the global event.
Protsenko lives with his wife and daughter in Kherson, which received some of the most severe punishment in the Russian invasion that began in February 2022.
Protsenko revealed that he had spent nearly 40 days in his occupied hometown before he was able to safely leave it, and he created improvised facilities in a nearby village in order to continue with his training.
After he managed to leave Ukraine to prepare for the Worlds, he first trained in Portugal and then in Spain before arriving in Germany.
So huge credit is due to an athlete who, at the age of 34, managed to reach two major podiums in a year when his life, and that of his family, had been turned upside down.
Protsenko had been clearing the bar in elite competition for 15 years by then. His first big success came in 2007 at the European Junior Championships, where, aged 19, he took silver with a clearance of 2.21m.
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Four years later, having competed at the World and European Championships, where he failed to reach the final, he took part in his first Summer Universiade, finishing 11th in the competition in Shenzen in China.
By the time he took part in the 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan in Russia, he had the extra experience of an Olympic Games behind him, having finished ninth in the final at London 2012 Games.
In Kazan he and home jumper Sergey Mudrov both cleared a personal best of 2.31m, with Protsenko having to settle for silver on countback.
The experience clearly bolstered his development as, the following year, he enjoyed some of his greatest successes, winning silver at the World Indoor Championships, where he cleared 2.36m, and the European Championships, where he went over at 2.33m.
At the Lausanne Diamond League meeting he achieved his personal best of 2.40m, a height that only five men have bettered outdoors. Five years later he earned another big success in the Diamond League as he won the final in Zurich with a season's best of 2.32m.
When the pandemic took its grip it might have marked the end of a successful career - but once that situation altered Protsenko moved swiftly to dispel such an idea.
Barbora Špotáková
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2005 Summer Universiade, Izmir: women's javelin gold.
Barbora Špotáková has amassed a unique collection of women's javelin medals, including golds at Olympic, world and European level, as well as holding the world record.
But winning European bronze in Munich's Olympic Stadium in August 2022, 20 years after she had competed there in the 2002 edition of the Championships and five years after earning her last major medal, a gold, at the London 2017 World Championships, was something she described as "a small miracle".
The Czech athlete was competing against a field half her age. The gold medallist with a personal best of 65.81 metres, Elena Tzenglo of Greece, was, at 19, the youngest winner of this title. Serbia's Adriana Vilagoš, aged 18, took silver.
Špotáková, at 41, thus made a podium where her age was more than that of her two companions combined.
Looking at her career, the first big medal - and a golden one at that - came 17 years before her bronze in Munich, at the 2005 Summer Universiade in the Turkish city of Izmir.
A throw of 60.73m in the Ataturk Stadium earned her victory in front of China's Ma Ning, who recorded a best of 59.18m, and Justine Robbeson of South Africa, who took bronze with 58.70m.
Then 24, Špotáková had experienced her first Olympics the previous summer when she attended the first of her five Games in Athens, finishing 23rd.
Izmir allowed her to adopt the position in an international podium with which she would become serially familiar over the next 15 years.
After finishing second at the 2006 European Championships, Špotáková won the first of three world titles in Osaka the following year, with her final world gold coming at the London edition a decade later.
By then she had earned gold at the Bejing 2008 and London 2012 Olympics, and she added a bronze at the Rio 2016 Games. In 2008 she had also set the world record of 72.28m.
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There was a long wait until her next major medal in Munich. But the manner of her competition showed that, while she may now be a mother-of-two in her 40s, she still has the champion's fire within her.
Tzenglo, of Albanian parentage, took a first-round lead with 60.82m and never lost it, but the competition for silver and bronze was volatile.
Špotáková moved into third place with her second-round effort of 60.31m, behind the 60.57m of Hungary's Réka Szilágyi, but was displaced, excruciatingly, by a centimetre when Vilagoš threw a fifth-round 60.32.
So here was the latest test in a long and storied career.
Špotáková was ready to step up once again, throwing the spear out to 60.68m with her last attempt to move into second place.
Vilagoš moved into silver medal position with her final effort of 62.01m but the veteran remained on the European podium - eight years after she had won her last medal in the event, taking the title at the Zurich 2014 edition.
"I am fighting always until the end," she said in the wake of her performance. "Nothing is lost until the finish of the competition. I knew that I would fight and I knew that I would throw more, that's what I knew."
Her success was witnessed by her mother, partner Lukas, her sons Janek - named in honour of her former coach, the men's world record holder Jan Železný - and Darek, who was born in July 2018. There was also a party of around 60 travelling friends and supporters.
"This is my first medal after the second baby, so it is actually a long time, and it's what I told myself before the sixth throw - that I have to show my boys how to fight," Špotáková said.
"That's what I told myself. And then they ran to me and it was the most beautiful moment in my career, I guess."
Janis Lusis
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1963 Summer Universiade, Porto Alegre: men's javelin gold.
By the time Janis Lusis turned up in Porto Alegre, Brazil to compete in the 1963 Summer Universiade, he was already 24 and European javelin champion having won the previous year in Belgrade.
But the standard of opposition in the Estadio Olimpico Monumental was seriously high. Three of his rivals had competed at the 1960 Rome Olympics, and two others would, like him, make their Games debut in Tokyo the following year.
Lusis - Latvian-born and representing the Soviet Union - had won what would be the first of his four European titles with a Championship record of 82.04 metres.
He didn't quite need that to secure gold in Brazil, winning with a best effort of 79.77m from West Germany's Hermann Salomon. The German was one of the Rome Olympians who went on to compete at the Tokyo 1964 and Mexico City 1968 Olympics - and threw 77.78m.
Bronze went to Hungary's Gergely Kulcsar, who had won bronze in Rome and would compete in three more Olympics, adding a silver and bronze. He threw 77.62m to take third place in Porto Alegre.
Salomon's compatriot Rolf Herings, who would compete at the 1964 and 1968 Olympics, was fourth with 74.05m and Japan’s Takashi Miki, who would compete in the following year's home Games, came seventh on 68.70m.
Lusis made what would be the first of four Olympic appearances in Tokyo, where he earned bronze, and then in Mexico he won gold.
Four years later in Munich, on September 3, Lusis, the world record holder and defending his javelin title, managed a huge throw with his sixth and final attempt in the Olympic final.
It looked long - but would it overhaul the fifth-round mark of 90.48m with which home thrower Klaus Wolferman had just seized the lead?
Lusis had established himself in the lead with an opening effort of 88.88m and extended it with a third-round effort of 89.54m. But on this occasion it was to be silver rather than gold for him as the figure of 90.46m came up.
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Wolfermann had earned the title by just two centimetres - which was, and remains, the narrowest margin in an Olympic javelin final.
So Lusis, finally, completed his Olympic medal set.
The final Olympic effort for Lusis would come at the 1976 Montreal Games where, aged 37, he finished eighth with 80.22m as Hungary's Miklos Nemeth won with a first round world record of 94.58m.
A year before his Munich Olympic appearance, Lusis had concluded what was then a uniquely successful record in the European Championships, earning his fourth title almost a decade after his first in 1962.
Lusis also set two world records. Four years before his pre-Munich effort in Stockholm he established a new mark of 91.98m at a competition in Finland, bettering Norwegian Terje Pedersen's mark by 26cm.
In his career he broke the 90m barrier in 15 competitions and threw over 80m in 147 competitions. He even competed in the decathlon in his early years, being ranked fifth in the world in 1962.
In 1987, on his 75th birthday, Lusis - who died aged 80 in 2020 – was described by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), now World Athletics, as the world's all-time best javelin athlete and he was inducted into the IAAF Hall of Fame.
Lusis married fellow Olympic javelin champion Elivira Ozolina, who was also a European champion and record holder. Their son Voldemars Lusis also competed in the Olympic javelin competition at Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004, carrying the Latvian flag during the Opening Ceremony in 2000.
Sam Kendricks
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2013 Summer Universiade, Kazan: men's pole vault gold.
As has so often been the case, excelling at a Summer Universiade has been a precursor to excelling at senior global level.
That certainly held true for United States pole vaulter Sam Kendricks.
By the time he competed aged 20 at the 2013 Summer Universiade in the Russian city of Kazan, Kendricks - who attended the University of Mississippi - was already the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) champion.
He carried the confidence of that victory at Hayward Field in Eugene over to the Games in Kazan, where he took gold on countback from Japan's Seito Yamamoto. Both had cleared 5.60 metres, with Nikita Filippov of Kazakhstan winning bronze on 5.50m.
A year later, Kendricks retained his NCAA title and then turned professional. Within a year he was the US outdoor champion with 5.75m, finishing ninth at the Beijing 2015 World Championships.
A year later, by which time he was a first lieutenant in the United States Army Reserve, Kendricks emerged into the international limelight by winning bronze at the Rio 2016 Olympics with 5.85m behind home winner Thiago Braz, who won in an area record of 6.00m, and France's defending champion Renaud Lavillenie, who cleared 5.98m.
![Sam Kendricks excelled at university level before exploding onto the world stage ©Getty Images Sam Kendricks excelled at university level before exploding onto the world stage ©Getty Images](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/252493/o/GettyImages-1178382490.jpg)
Kendricks had won silver at that year's World Indoor Championships, and added another two years later, but it was the outdoor World Championships where he earned his global golds.
At the London 2017 edition he took gold with 5.95m, in front of Poland's Piotr Lisek, who cleared 5.89m, beating Lavillenie on countback.
Two years later in Doha the amiable Kendricks was faced with the inexorably rising talent of Sweden's 19-year-old European champion Mondo Duplantis, beating him on countback after both had cleared 5.97m, with Lisek taking bronze on 5.87m.
Kendricks' hopes of earning another medal at the Tokyo 2020 Games were shattered, however, when he tested positive for COVID-19 in the Olympic Village and was obliged to quarantine for a mandatory period of 14 days at a Government hotel.
That experience left mental scars that took a long while to heal.
Aleksandr Averbukh
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2001 Summer Universiade, Beijing: men's pole vault gold.
Thirty years after the terrorist incursion at the Munich 1972 Olympic Games that resulted in the death of 11 Israelis, an Israeli athlete stood on top of the podium in the Olympic Stadium.
Aleksandr Averbukh, born in Russia two years after the traumatic attack, had earned pole vault gold in the European Athletics Championships for his adopted country with an effort of 5.85 metres, finishing clear of two German athletes on 5.80m - Lars Borgeling and Tim Lobinger.
Four years later, in Gothenburg, Averbukh retained his title with a vault of 5.70m.
Before becoming an Israeli citizen in 1999, Averbukh had operated as a decathlete for Russia, competing at the European Junior Championships in 1993 and finishing sixth at the European Indoor Championships in 1998.
He made an immediate impact in his new event, and for his new country, as he earned bronze at the 1999 World Championships in Seville with a vault of 5.80m.
The following year he won the European indoor title in Ghent before finishing 10th at the Sydney Olympics.
![Aleksandr Averbukh won gold at the Summer Universiade in Beijing in 2001 ©Getty Images Aleksandr Averbukh won gold at the Summer Universiade in Beijing in 2001 ©Getty Images](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/244636/o/GettyImages-57056898.jpg)
The year of 2001 also proved highly successful as, after missing a medal by one place at the World Indoor Championships, he earned a silver medal at the World Championships in Edmonton, clearing 5.80m behind the 6.05m Championship record set by Australia's Russian-born Dmitri Markov.
This was followed by a trip to Beijing, where he took part in the Summer Universiade.
A vault of 5.80m proved significant for him once more as he claimed gold ahead of Stepan Janacek of the Czech Republic, who cleared 5.70m, and Laurens Looije of The Netherlands who vaulted 5.60m.
After competing at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and earning silver at the 2009 Maccabiah Games, Averbukh retired.
In 2013 he briefly returned to competition, this time winning gold at the Maccabiah Games.
Danielle Williams
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2013 Summer Universiade, Kazan: women's 100m hurdles bronze. 2015 Summer Universiade, Gwangju: women's 100m hurdles gold.
Jamaica's Danielle Williams arrived at the 2013 Summer Universiade in the Russian city of Kazan as a 20-year-old with a formidable junior record.
At the 2010 Central American and Caribbean Junior Championships in the Dominican Republic, she had earned gold in her specialist event, the 100 metres hurdles, and also in the women's 4x100m relay.
Later that year at the World Junior Championships in Moncton, Canada, she missed the podium by one place in both the 100m hurdles, where she set a personal best of 13.46sec, and the 4x100m.
But she was back on the podium in 2011 as she took 100m hurdles silver at the Pan American Junior Championships in Miramar in the United States.
Her performance in Kazan two years later was outstanding as she lowered her personal best to 12.84, to take bronze behind gold medallist Vashti Thomas of the US, who set a University record of 12.61, and Alina Talay of Belarus, who took silver in 12.78.
That proved to be the high point of Thomas' career to date. Both of the other medallists would go on to establish themselves at the highest level - indeed Talay had already won world indoor bronze and European gold in 2012.
The next Summer Universiade was held in 2015 at Gwangju in South Korea, and on this occasion Williams got the feel of standing on the highest point of the podium as she won in 12.78 from Russia’s Nina Morozova, who clocked 12.83, and Michelle Jenneke of Australia, the bronze medallist in 12.94.
The following month Williams once again found herself standing in gold medal position - after producing her peak performance at the Beijing World Championships.
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A superlative run earned her gold in a personal best of 12.57, with silver going to Germany's Cindy Roleder in 12.59. Talay - who had begun 2015 by winning the European indoor 60m hurdles title - was third in a national record of 12.66.
Williams crashed out of the following year's World Indoor Championships in Portland, Oregon, and finished a disappointing 18th at the 2017 World Championships in London.
But in 2018 she returned to form as she won silver at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in 12.78.
At the 2019 Doha World Championships, she earned another significant medal, taking bronze in 12.47, having lowered her personal best in London earlier that year to 12.32.
In 2022, she encountered the other side of her event once again as she hit her third hurdle in her preliminary round at the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Belgrade.
She then lost control, smashing her fourth barrier clean in two before struggling home out of the qualification places.
Ahmad Abughaush
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2017 Summer Universiade, Taipei: Men's under-68kg taekwondo bronze.
When Ahmad Abughaush stood with his arms outstretched in celebration at the conclusion of the men's under-68 kilograms competition at Rio 2016, he did so not only as the first Jordanian to win an Olympic taekwondo gold, but as the first to win an Olympic medal of any kind.
"It's an indescribable feeling to win the first medal in the history of Jordan in all the sports," Abughaush said after his landmark victory. "It's also a great feeling to listen to the national anthem of Jordan being played in Rio in front of the whole world."
The reaction in Jordan was as one might expect.
King Abdullah II and Crown Prince Hussein called the 20-year-old personally to congratulate him, as did Prince Ali, who had personally sponsored the young man's path to Rio.
There was a large public celebration as Abughaush returned to Queen Alia International Airport and shortly afterwards the Jordanian Olympic Committee awarded him 100,000 Jordanian dinars. His coach, Faris Al-Assaf, received 50,000 dinars.
The following year, Abughaush added a new medal to his collection when he took part in the 2017 Summer Universiade in Taipei.
The Jordanian - who was a student at Al-Ahliyya Amman University, founded in 1990 as the first private university in the country - moved through to the last four with three impressive wins.
A 28-0 result over Mongolia's Temuujin Purev was followed by a tough bout against Canada’s Hunter James Carroll, who he beat 30-26, and a 19-2 win over South Korea's Dong-Yun Shin.
But the Olympic champion's opponent in the semi-final, Russia's towering talent Boris Krasnov - standing at 6ft 5in tall - proved to be a hurdle too far.
Krasnov, a world junior gold medallist in the under-63kg class in 2012, earned the victory of his career, 17-15, and went on to earn gold against Azerbaijan's Aykhan Taghizade.
![Ahmad Abughaush is the first Olympic champion from Jordan in any sport ©Getty Images Ahmad Abughaush is the first Olympic champion from Jordan in any sport ©Getty Images](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/238645/o/GettyImages-591910984.jpg)
Abughaush was born in the Jordanian capital of Amman. His father is of Palestinian descent, and his grandparents were re-located from the town of Abu Ghosh to Jordan decades earlier.
After taking up the sport at a local training centre, Abughaush progressed to the point where, aged 16, he became the only Arab athlete to win gold at the 2012 World Junior Championships held in Sharm El-Sheikh.
Two years later, he won the Jordan Olympic Committee award as the country's most promising athlete.
After missing competition in 2013 because of a ruptured cruciate ligament, Abughaush resumed his upward progress and the Rio Games were preceded by successive victories at the Fujairah Open, the Egypt Open and the Asian Olympic Games Qualifier in Manila.
Tenth-seeded, Abughaush beat Egypt's seventh seed Ghofran Zaki 9-1 in the opening round in Rio to face one of the legends of the sport in Dae-hoon Lee.
The South Korean had already won world titles in 2011 and 2013, and would go on to win another in 2017.
At the London 2012 Olympics he had taken silver after being beaten in the final by Spain's top seed Joel Gonzalez.
In Rio, he was determined to go one better, but his ambitions were overthrown by the man from Jordan who progressed to the semi-finals with an 11-8 win over the second seed.
In the last four, Abughaush came up against Spain's defending champion and beat him 12-7.
The final pitted him against Russia's fourth-seed, Alexey Denisenko, and he found the way to unleash Jordanian celebration with a 10-6 victory.
While that was the high point of his career, Abughaush continued to enjoy success.
He earned bronze at the 2017 World Championships and, two years later, having moved up to the under-74kg class, he took silver at the World Championships in Manchester.
On that occasion, he lost 18-11 in the final to Italy's Simone Alessio.
Irina Slutskaya
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1999 Winter Universiade, Poprad-Vysoké Tatry: Figure skating: ladies silver.
The 1999 Winter Universiade at Poprad-Vysoké Tatry in northern Slovakia saw the gold medal in women's figure skating go to Russia's Elena Sokolova, who went on to win world silver in 2002 and also added two European silvers and a bronze to her collection before retiring in 2007.
But if that Universiade performance prefigured future success, Sokolova's compatriot Irina Slutskaya did so in even more emphatic terms after winning silver.
While she may only have been 19 in Slovakia, Slutskaya was already, effectively, a skating veteran, having started aged four and been professionally coached since she was six.
Indeed, by the time she took to the ice at the Universiade she had already collected a world bronze and silver as well as two European golds and a silver.
Her showing at the student event would soon be followed by a dip in which she briefly considered giving up the sport, as she failed to qualify for the European and World Championships.
But she decided to remain in skating and was soon enjoying the most successful period of her career, with a turning point coming at the 2000 Grand Prix Final, where she defeated her compatriot and world champion Maria Butyrskaya and Michelle Kwan of the United States, then midway through a career that would bring her five world titles.
This 5ft 3in Moscow-born skater had a reputation for remarkable physical ability and this helped her earn further glories as she earned silver in controversial circumstances at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, behind Sara Hughes of the US.
Hughes and Slutskaya finished with tied scores, but Hughes took the gold medal on a tiebreaker for having won the free skating. A Russian protest was turned down by the International Skating Union.
![Irina Slutskaya won two world titles and two Olympic medals ©Getty Images Irina Slutskaya won two world titles and two Olympic medals ©Getty Images](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/236858/o/GettyImages-1181513.jpg)
The following month, Slutskaya responded in the best possible manner by winning her first world title in Nagano. She would regain the title in 2005, on her home ice of Moscow, where she produced what she described as the "skate of her life".
At the following year's Winter Olympics in Turin she added another medal to her collection - this time a bronze.
On April 10, 2007, Slutskaya announced she was returning to Russia from the US and would not participate in the 2007 Champions on Ice tour as she and her husband, Sergei, were expecting a child.
She later said that she enjoyed motherhood and had no plans to return to competitive skating. "I don't see the target," she said. "I don't know why I have to go there. I have almost all the titles."
Slutskaya, known for her athletic ability, was the first female skater to land a triple Lutz-triple loop combination.
She is also known for her trademark double Biellmann spin with a foot change, which she invented.
With her women's record seven European titles she is generally considered to be one of the most successful ladies' singles skaters in Russian and European history.
Willy Bogner Jr
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1962 Winter Universiade, Villars: Alpine skiing men's combined: gold. Men's slalom: gold. Men's downhill: bronze
West Germany's Willy Bogner Jr and Barbi Henneberger were the stars of the Winter Universiade that took place in the Swiss resort of Villars in 1962, winning five Alpine skiing titles between them.
But two years later, shortly before they were due to become engaged, the pair were engulfed in tragedy.
Bogner had competed two years earlier, aged 18, at the Squaw Valley Winter Olympics, and led after the first run of the slalom before falling in the second.
At the Winter Universiade in Villars he secured his place on an international podium as he won the men's combined title after taking gold in the slalom and bronze in the downhill.
Henneberger had also competed at Squaw Valley, aged 19, winning bronze in the women's slalom and finishing 11th in the downhill and 15th in the giant slalom. This overall performance earned her an additional bronze in the combined event, which counted as a World Championship medal.
In Villars she won the women's combined title after taking gold in the giant slalom and downhill, and silver in the slalom.
Two years later Henneberger returned to the Olympic arena at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, where she finished fifth in the downhill, seventh in the giant slalom and tenth in the slalom.
Shortly after the 1964 Winter Olympics Henneberger was among a group of world class skiers who joined Bogner - who was starting a career as a film-maker and fashion designer - in making a ski fashion movie, entitled Ski Fascination, in the Engadine Val Selin in Switzerland, near St Moritz.
While they were on the slopes the group was caught by an avalanche. Two of the party - Henneger and US skier Buddy Werner - died as a result.
Bogner, then 22, was tried by a Swiss court for homicide by negligence. Initially acquitted, he was later prosecuted on appeal of manslaughter by negligence and received a two-month suspended sentence.
Bogner continued with his skiing career, with his best result being a fourth place in the slalom and fifth in the combined at the 1966 World Championships in Portillo, Chile.
The following year he decided to concentrate on film-making.
He worked as a cameraman in several films requiring complex ski footage, most notably a series of James Bond films from 1969 to 1985. This included On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only and A View To A Kill, for which he won the Bambi Award in 1985 and the Bavarian Film Award Special Prize a year later.
Bogner returned to sport as the chief executive of Munich's bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Willie Davenport
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1965 Summer Universiade, Budapest: men's 110 metres hurdles bronze.
Willie Davenport was 22 when he earned bronze in the 110 metres hurdles at the 1965 Summer Universiade in Budapest, clocking 14.00sec behind the winner, Eddy Ottoz of Italy, who took gold in 13.6.
That might have come as something of a disappointment to the young man from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as he had competed at the previous year's Tokyo Olympics, being eliminated in the semi-finals after injuring his thigh.
Three years later, in the thin air of Mexico City, that result got stood on its head at the Olympics as Davenport earned gold - supplying what would be the eighth of nine consecutive victories in this event for the United States - as he equalled the Olympic record of 13.3, in hand-timing, and clocked 13.33 in terms of electronic timing.
Ottoz ran a national record of 13.4 to earn bronze and become Italy's first Olympic medallist in the event.
"From the first step, the gun, I knew I had won the race," said Davenport, who swiftly departed to join his college football team. A hugely talented American football player, he was three times on the brink of being drafted to the NFL/AFL but technicalities halted him on each occasion.
Mexico City was the second of four Olympic appearances in athletics for Davenport.
He finished fourth in 13.50 at the 1972 Munich Games - where gold went to his compatriot Rod Milburn, who equalled the world record of 13.24.
Four years later in Montreal Davenport, then 33, added to his Olympic medal collection as he earned bronze in 13.38 behind gold medallist Guy Drut of France, who clocked 13.30, and Alejandro Casanas of Cuba, who took silver in 13.33.
In 1980, Davenport earned a unique honour as he became the only US track and field athlete to compete at the Olympics - although not at the summer version in Moscow, which his country boycotted, but at the Winter Olympics at the home venue of Lake Placid.
Davenport was a brakeman in a US four-man bobsleigh team that finished 12th.
By the time he first competed at the Olympics, Davenport was a US Army private. By the time he died - of a heart attack at Chicago's O’Hare International Airport on June 17, 2002 - he had risen to the rank of colonel.
Panipak Wongpattanakit
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2017 Summer Universiade, Taipei: women's flyweight taekwondo gold; 2019 Summer Universiade, Naples: women's flyweight taekwondo gold.
Winning Thailand's only gold at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics - and the country's first in taekwondo - has sealed the status of Panipak Wongpattanakit as a national treasure.
Five months after claiming the Olympic title in dramatic fashion, Wongpattanakit was named as the best female amateur athlete of 2021 by the Sports Authority of Thailand.
She received a trophy from Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha during a ceremony in Bangkok on December 16 - less than a fortnight after being appointed as a Women in Sports ambassador by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
After her Tokyo triumph in the women's under-49 kilograms flyweight category, Wongpattanakit returned home to a hero's welcome from adoring fans and the promise of almost THB20 million (£435,700/$608,000/���512,700).
The 23-year-old arrived in Phuket from the Japanese capital along with national coach Choi Young-seok and the rest of the Thai taekwondo team.
The new Olympic champion was met at the airport by her father, Phuket Governor Narong Wunsiew, and Taekwondo Association of Thailand President Pimol Srivikorn.
Wongpattanakit, overwhelmed by the support, claimed it was the best day of her life.
She and the team also received flowers and a message of support from Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana Rajakanya.
"It is meaningful that Wongpattanakit and I were able to give joy and encouragement with the gold medal to the people in Thailand suffering from the new coronavirus pandemic, as well as write a page in the country's sports history," South Korean-born Choi told the Yonhap news agency.
"I want to do the best in every competition," Wongpattanakit told the Bangkok Post.
"I want to be in the next Olympics in Paris, if I'm physically fit."
Wongpattanakit's stellar career has encompassed a strong commitment to the World University Games which has in turn sharpened her competitive powers.
At the 2017 Summer Universiade in Taipei, Wongpattanakit earned gold with victory over Turkey's Ipek Cidem in the flyweight competition.
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Gold in the next weight category up that year, the under-53kg bantamweight class, went to Serbia's Rio 2016 under-49kg silver medallist - and later-to-be Tokyo 2020 bronze medallist - Tijana Bogdanovic.
Two years later, at the Palazetto Sport Casoria in Naples, the Thai athlete retained her Universiade title as she defeated Jhuang Tien-yu of Chinese Taipei in the final.
One of the bronze medals went to Ukraine's Iryna Romoldanova, who had won world under-46kg silver in 2015 and university gold at that weight two years earlier.
By the time Wongpattanakit arrived in Tokyo, two years after that Naples victory, her formidable competitive record had established her as a strong favourite for gold.
She won the first of her two world titles as a 17-year-old in 2015, and the following year reached the medal podium at the Rio 2016 Olympics, earning bronze after losing her quarter-final 6-5 to eventual champion Kim So-hui of South Korea.
At Tokyo 2020, Wongpattanakit claimed an 11-10 victory with a kick in the last seconds after her 17-year-old opponent, Adriana Cerezo of Spain, appeared poised for a shock gold.
Wongpattanakit - who already had world, Youth Olympic, Asian, Asian Games and Universiade titles - celebrated with her coaching staff after upgrading from bronze at Rio, while a dejected Cerezo fell to the floor at the end of the contest.
In February 2020, three months after being voted as World Taekwondo's female athlete of 2019, after regaining her world title, she told the Bangkok Post: "My aim [at Tokyo 2020] is definitely the gold medal.
"I was disappointed at the previous Olympics and that's a lesson.
"If I am 100 per cent fit and do not have an injury, I am confident that I will return to Thailand with a gold medal.
"I am almost 100 per cent ready now.
"I think my physical condition will peak when the Games come."
Duncan Goodhew
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1977 Summer Universiade, Sofia: men's 100 metres breaststroke silver, men's 4x100m medley bronze.
Three years before he claimed the Olympic men's 100 metres breaststroke title at Moscow 1980, British swimmer Duncan Goodhew won his first individual international medal at the Summer Universiade in Sofia.
By the time he got to Bulgaria, Goodhew - who permanently lost his hair aged 15 after a fall from a tree brought on alopecia - had swum competitively for North Carolina State University on a college scholarship.
He had also represented Britain at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, where he finished seventh in the 100m breaststroke.
A few days before he took to the pool at the Universiade, he had collected a bronze medal at the European Championships in Sweden as part of the British 4x100m medley team.
He took silver in the 100m breaststroke in 1min 06.04sec, behind Canada's Graham Smith who took gold in 1:05.17.
The following year he added a world bronze medal in the 4x100m medley, before having a successful time at the Edmonton Commonwealth Games, where he won silver medals in the 100m and 200m breaststroke and 4x100m medley.
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When he got to the pool in the Olimpiysky Sports Complex in Moscow everything came together for him and, four years after David Wilkie had won the men's 100m breaststroke title for Britain, he retained it for his country as he took gold in 1min 03.34sec, ahead of Arsens Miskarovs of the Soviet Union and Australia's Peter Evans.
He added Olympic bronze as part of the British 4x100m medley team.
A year later, Goodhew was selected by the British Bobsleigh Association to take part in the 1981 European Championships.
He has subsequently become an author and motivational speaker, and became a Member of the British Empire in 1983.
Mélina Robert-Michon
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2001 Summer Universiade, Beijing: women's discus bronze.
For discus thrower Mélina Robert-Michon, everything in her long career came together at the right time as she earned Rio 2016 Olympic silver with a fifth-round throw of 66.73 metres, bettering her own French record. She was 37-years-old.
In December 2016, Robert-Michon was chosen for the second time in her career as the French female athlete of the year.
At the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the then 42-year-old mother-of-two missed making the final by three places with a best of 60.88m.
Looking ahead to the rest of the season, she said: "I wish to be better than I was in Tokyo, and 62 or 63 metres may be possible tomorrow." She added that a lack of training opportunities before the Olympics meant "something important was missing" when it came to the Games.
But if anyone has the experience to re-set their career, it is Robert-Michon.
She came to wider notice in 1998 when she won silver at the World Junior Championships in Annecy, and a year later took part in the Summer Universiade in Palma de Mallorca.
Two years later she took part in the next Summer Universiade in Beijing, where she won a bronze medal with a best of 58.04m. This was behind two Chinese athletes, winner Li Quimei, who threw 61.66m, and Li Yanfeng, who took silver with 60.50m. Yanfeng went on to win China’s first world discus title at the 2011 Championships in Daegu, South Korea.
Speaking to insidethegames in Paris about her memories of the university competitions, Robert-Michon described winning her medal at Beijing in 2001 as "a big motivation" for her career.
![Mélina Robert-Michon competed at her sixth Olympic Games at Tokyo 2020 ©Getty Images Mélina Robert-Michon competed at her sixth Olympic Games at Tokyo 2020 ©Getty Images](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/221481/o/GettyImages-1331545842.jpg)
But she gave her first Universiade the greatest credit for her development.
"I first competed two years before, in 1999, at Palma de Mallorca," she said.
"That was a very important competition for me as it was the first at world level and was like a bridge between youth and senior events.
"It was like a mini-Olympics. It was a good motivation and a good step forward to the next level."
Tokyo was Robert-Michon's sixth Olympics - and she is looking forward to a seventh - the Paris 2024 Games on home soil.
"A home Olympics will be an unparalleled occasion, and it is really a motivation for me," she said.
"I want to be there, to be a part of a home Olympics.
"To be able to compete in front of family and friends. It was something missing in Tokyo. I want to show that age is just a number and if you work hard enough you can do it."
Nijel Amos
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2013 Summer Universiade, Kazan: men’s 800 metres gold.
For some athletes, the experience of competing in a Summer Universiade is vital preparation for future success.
For Nijel Amos, who won the men's 800 metres title in Kazan in 2013, the Games proved more of a vital link between two seasons of outstanding success at senior level.
By the time the 19-year-old from Botswana arrived in Russia he had already, astoundingly, established himself as the equal third fastest 800m runner of all time.
That was thanks to the time of 1min 41.73sec he recorded at the previous year's Olympics in London, where he had taken silver behind David Rudisha of Kenya, who won in a world record of 1:40.91.
In so doing, he equalled the world record set at Florence in 1981 by Sebastian Coe, with the next world record breaker, Wilson Kipketer of Norway, second on the all-time list with his 1997 mark of 1:41.11.
Amos had indicated his extraordinary potential earlier in 2012 by winning the world junior title in a championship record of 1:43.79.
In Kazan he took gold in 1:46.53 from Slovakia's Jozef Repcik, who clocked 1:47.30.
![Nijel Amos won gold at the 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan ©Getty Images Nijel Amos won gold at the 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan ©Getty Images](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/218776/o/GettyImages-452979450.jpg)
The victory in Kazan proved to be the highlight of 2013 for Amos, who suffered a series of injury problems during the year.
But in 2014, aged just 20, he was once again in golden form as he won the 800m at the African Championships in Marrakech, the Continental Cup in the same city and the Commonwealth Games title in Glasgow, where he overtook Rudisha in the final 50 metres.
Since those heady days of youthful success, Amos has won two further African Championship titles while dropping slightly down on the awesome levels of attainment he reached in the early part of his career.
He failed to qualify from his 800m heat at the Rio 2016 Olympics, and finished fifth in the World Championship final in London the following year.
But successive 800m victories at the Monaco Diamond League meeting in 2018 and 2019 offered evidence of his enduring status as one of the world's best two-lap runners.
In 2018, he clocked 1:42.14, and in 2019 he produced the fastest time of the year, 1:41.89.
Amos was back in the Olympic arena in 2021, reaching the final at the Tokyo Games and finishing fifth.
John Mayock
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1991 Summer Universiade, Sheffield: men’s 5,000 metres gold.
One of the brightest moments for the English hosts of the 1991 Summer Universiade in the Yorkshire city of Sheffield was the zestful victory in the men's 5,000 metres by a runner from the nearby town of Barnsley - John Mayock.
With his red hair, sharp tongue and sharp elbows, Mayock made a big impact on the middle distance running scene in the 1990s and early 2000s, particularly indoors where his battling qualities were often called upon in dramatic circumstances.
His home win in Sheffield marked his first big success, although there had been a precursor in 1989 when he earned European junior 5,000m silver at Varazdin in Yugoslavia.
Running in the newly constructed Don Valley Stadium - which has since been demolished - the 20-year-old Mayock won in a personal best of 13min 39.25sec, with two athletes earning silver after clocking 13:39.31, David Evans of Australia and Peter Sherry of the United States.
The following year, Mayock earned his first senior international medal, taking 3,000m silver at the European Indoor Championships in Genoa. He followed up by finishing seventh in the 5,000m at the World Cup held in Havana after the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
In 1993, he finished fifth in the 3,000m at the World Indoor Championships in Toronto, and in 1994 he won his first senior outdoor international medal by taking 1500m bronze at the Commonwealth Games in Victoria.
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His most successful year was 1998, when those sharp elbows fended off a ferocious final lap challenge from two home athletes at the European Indoor Championships in Valencia, enabling him to take the 3,000m gold in front of two highly disgruntled home athletes in Manuel Pancorbo and Alberto Garcia.
He followed that up by taking 1500m silver at the Kuala Lumpur 1998 Commonwealth Games, behind Laban Rotich of Kenya.
The European Indoors continued to be Mayock's most productive hunting ground. In 2000 he completed his medal set by winning 3,000m bronze in Ghent, and followed up by finishing ninth in the Olympic 1500m final in Sydney.
In 2005, aged 34, he produced a last hurrah for his career as he added another European Indoor 3,000m medal to his collection.
This time it was a silver as he finished runner-up to Alistair Cragg of Ireland.
Marnie McBean
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1993 Summer Universiade, Buffalo: coxless four gold, singles sculls silver.
Rower Marnie McBean, who with Kathleen Heddle became the first Canadian to win three Summer Olympic golds, maintained a winning momentum in her career on the water by earning two medals at the 1993 Summer Universiade in Buffalo, New York.
By the time McBean got to that event she was already the proud, if somewhat shocked, owner of two Olympic gold medals from the Barcelona 1992 Olympics.
She had partnered Heddle - who died in January 2021 of cancer - in the coxless pair and both had been in the victorious Canadian eight.
In Buffalo, McBean competed in the single sculls and the coxless four.
In the sculls, she took silver in 8min 14.188sec behind Romania's Veronica Cochela, who won in 8:10.811, with bronze going to Poland's Winiewska in 8:31.457.
At that point, Cochela had already won two Olympic silvers in the double scull, and silver and bronze in the quadruple sculls, and she went on to be a part of the eight that earned gold at the Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 Olympics.
![Marnie McBean won three Olympic gold medals with Kathleen Heddle ©Getty Images Marnie McBean won three Olympic gold medals with Kathleen Heddle ©Getty Images](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/208680/o/GettyImages-52033947.jpg)
McBean got to the top of the podium in the coxless four, where Canada won in 6:40.680 from a Romanian crew containing Cochela, which clocked 6:42.670, and France, who finished in 6:56.423.
Three years later at the Atlanta 1996 Olympics, McBean and Heddle showed their versatility by winning the double sculls gold and both were in the quadruple sculls crew that earned bronze.
During her career, McBean also earned a total of eight world medals before her retirement three weeks before the Sydney Olympics in 2000, where she was due to compete in the single sculls, due to two ruptured discs in her back.
At the World Championships, Heddle and McBean had won gold in both the pair and the eight in 1991, as well as double sculls silver in 1993 and gold in 1995. Both were part of the silver medal-winning quadruple sculls crew in the latter year.
"In Sydney [2000], when the chance to medal disappeared with a blown disc in my back, I learned more about myself, kindness and the Olympics, than I could otherwise have imagined," she said.
McBean was appointed as Canada's Chef de Mission for Tokyo 2020 in July 2019.
László Cseh
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2011 Summer Universiade, Shenzhen: 200 metres butterfly gold, 200m individual medley gold, 400m individual medley gold.
By the time Hungary's László Cseh competed at his first and only Summer Universiade, in Shenzhen in 2011, he was, at 25, one of the older athletes involved.
He was already the owner of three Olympic silvers and a bronze, one world gold, three world silvers and four world bronze medals, not to mention eight European gold medals.
But for Cseh, who was studying industrial engineering at Budapest University of Technology and Economics, competing at the 26th edition of the International University Sports Federation's flagship event in China was a pressing need.
The swimming events, from August 13 to 19, came shortly after the World Swimming Championships that had been held from July 24 to 31 in Shanghai, where Cseh had experienced the most unexpected failure of his career.
Cseh left Shanghai with no more than a single medal - bronze in the 200 metres medley - having finished an ignominious 22nd on the final day in his favourite event, the 400m medley, in which he had won world gold in 2005.
There were suggestions that he had suffered with asthma in Shanghai, or that he had reacted badly to the humidity, or that he had other physical or even mental problems during that competition.
For Cseh it proved to be a crisis point, and after arriving in Shenzhen he announced: "It will be important for my soul. A real sportsman can stand up after a failure like this, and I really have come to show that I can."
![László Cseh won three Summer Universiade gold medals at his sole appearance ©Getty Images László Cseh won three Summer Universiade gold medals at his sole appearance ©Getty Images](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/206470/o/GettyImages-1157508254.jpg)
On paper the events he entered were his to win - with his nemesis Michael Phelps of the United States, who had won every Olympic race in which he had earned a medal, absent.
But making it happen in water, given the jolt he had suffered to his confidence in Shanghai, was not a simple matter.
History records that Cseh rose supremely to the challenge in Shenzhen, winning the 200m butterfly in 1min 55.87sec, the 200m medley in 1:57.86 and the 400m medley in 4:12.67.
His times in Shenzhen were all at, or better, than his times in Shanghai, and Cseh was back in full operation.
The following year he earned an Olympic bronze in the 200m medley. At this point, every Olympic medal he had earned had still come in a race won by Phelps.
That changed at the Rio 2016 Olympics, where for once Phelps didn't finish ahead of him. In fact he finished dead level, along with London 2012 gold medallist Chad le Clos of South Africa. All took 100m butterfly silver behind Singapore's Joseph Schooling.
After Shenzhen, Cseh picked up another four world medals, including a second gold in 2015 in the 200m butterfly, and he increased his collection of European golds to 14.
Mirhashem Hosseini
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2017 Summer Universiade, Taipei: men's taewkondo under-63 kilograms gold. 2019 Summer Universiade, Naples: men's taekwondo under-68kg gold, team event gold.
Mirhashem Hosseini has a world silver, an Asian Games gold and three titles from the pinnacle of student sport.
And like so many of the world's leading sports performers, his career springboarded from appearances at the World University Games.
Hosseini was 18 when he competed at the 2017 Summer Universiade in Taipei, where he won under-63 kilograms gold after defeating Argentina's Lucas Guzman - who two years later would win world bronze and Pan American Games gold.
At the 2019 Summer Universiade in Naples this product of the taekwondo-mad city of Mianeh moved up a category to the under-68kg class, and the result was golden once again as he defeated Belgium's Si Mohamed Ketbi in the final.
Hosseini left Italy with two golds after helping Iran defeat Egypt in the men's team final.
Victory in the under-58kg flyweight class at the 2016 Asian Championships had announced Hosseini's arrival at the top level of senior competition.
He did so four months before Iran's taekwondo team failed to win a single medal at the Rio Olympics.
The following year the 6ft 3in athlete took another big step up as he moved to the under-63kg bantamweight class.
After defeating Britain's current world under-68kg champion Bradly Sinden - his contemporary - 33-32 in an epic World Taekwondo President's Cup Europe final, Hosseini went all the way to the world final, taking silver after an 11-5 defeat by China's Rio 2016 champion Zhao Shuai.
The following year, as well as earning his first Universiade gold, he earned golden revenge for his world final defeat as he beat Zhao 17-11 to take the Asian Games under-63kg title in Jakarta.
![Mirhashem Hosseini boasts three Summer Universiade gold medals ©Getty Images Mirhashem Hosseini boasts three Summer Universiade gold medals ©Getty Images](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/203892/o/GettyImages-1021248132.jpg)
The year of 2018 also saw Hosseini establish himself at his current fighting weight - the under-68kg featherweight class. At the Manchester Grand Prix he was narrowly beaten in the final, 11-7, by South Korea's Olympic bronze medallist and world champion Lee Dae-hoon.
In 2019, the year of his double gold in Naples, Hosseini continued his momentum with Grand Prix wins in Rome and Chiba, where he showed his courage after being knocked out by a stray punch from Britain's Christian McNeish in the third round of the final, finishing strongly to take the gold with a 36-20 scoreline.
Hosseini's favourite technique is the arcing head kick, fired from up close.
"In camp, we train the clinch a lot," Hosseini said. "I try to find an opening - up or down, left or right. I have a lot of techniques in the clinch: I can kick both ways.
"But for me, the first thing is the mind. In the camp, I am always thinking about the next competition, the next strategy, the next opponent - always thinking about attacking and defending."
Hosseini took up the sport when he was nine.
He told World Taekwondo: "I saw a Jackie Chan movie and was so interested in doing martial arts. Near my home was a taekwondo club so I went there and started.
"My city is a very small town, but the only medal we don't have is an Olympic medal.
"They have every other medal: juniors, cadets, worlds, Grand Prix - everything! The dream is to get Olympic gold for the city."
Jessica Ennis-Hill
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2005 Summer Universiade, Izmir: heptathlon bronze medal (5,910 points).
When Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, Britain's three-times world champion and Olympic gold and silver medallist in the heptathlon, was just 19, she made her mark in her first senior international competition - the 2005 Summer Universiade in Izmir, Turkey.
Ennis, as she was before her marriage, arrived as a hugely promising heptathlete who had significant experience at junior level.
In 2003 she finished fifth at the World Youth Championships in Sherbrooke, Canada, and the following year she was eighth in the World Junior Athletics Championships in Grossetto, Italy.
Later that year she won two silver medals, in the 100 metres hurdles and high jump, at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Bendigo, Australia.
In 2005 she became European junior heptathlon champion in Kaunas, Lithuania, with a British junior record score of 5,891 points.
In Izmir she raised her personal best to 5,910 points to take bronze behind Ukraine's Lyudmila Blonska - who was stripped of Olympic silver at the 2008 Beijing Games and banned for life for what was a second doping offence - and Switzerland's Simone Oberer.
While Blonska was heading for ignominy in Beijing, Ennis didn't even make it to China, having suffered a stress fracture in her foot while competing in her main preparation meeting for the Games, the annual competition in Gotzis.
By that point Ennis had advanced to the point of being a clear Olympic medal contender.
At the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne she took bronze in a competition won by Britain's Olympic bronze medallist Kelly Sotherton and, in 2007, she made a global breakthrough by earning bronze at the World Championships in Osaka.
She had taken European indoor silver earlier that year, behind the Olympic and world champion Carolina Kluft of Sweden.
After a 12-month injury lay-off, she returned to claim her first world title in 2009 in Berlin, and she added world indoor and European gold the following year.
At the 2011 World Championships in Daegu a calamitous javelin throw - always her weakness - saw her beaten by Russia's Tatyana Chernova.
The home 2012 Olympics in London saw Ennis respond to the enormous weight of public expectation by securing the gold medal, part of an extraordinary sequence of three home athletics victories on what became to be known as "Super Saturday". The other golds were earned by Mo Farah in the 10,000 metres and Greg Rutherford in the long jump.
Ennis, along with other British 2012 Olympic gold medal winners, was featured on a special Royal Mail commemorative postage stamp and had a post box on the corner of Division Street and Holly Street in her native Sheffield painted gold in her honour.
Injuries and then pregnancy put her career on pause, but she returned to earn the world title in Beijing in 2015.
Ennis-Hill, as she now was, pushed on to defend her Olympic title at Rio 2016, and was rewarded for a characteristically disciplined performance by taking silver behind Belgium's rising star Nafissitou Thiam.
Having retired after the Rio Olympics, Ennis-Hill became the owner of a third World Championship gold medal - equalling Kluft's record in the event - when Chernova was retrospectively disqualified from Daegu for a doping offence discovered by reexamination of a sample.
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Kylie Masse
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2015 Summer Universiade, Gwangju: Swimming, 100 metres backstroke, gold (59.97sec).
In August 2017, the Montreal borough of LaSalle held a special event to honour one of its famous daughters - Kylie Masse.
Aged 21, Masse had just become the first-ever Canadian swimmer to earn a world title, and what’s more she had done so in a world record, clocking 58.10sec to take gold in the women's 100 metres backstroke in Budapest.
The year before she had swum at the Rio 2016 Olympics, breaking the Canadian 100m backstroke record three times, latterly in the final, where her effort of 58.76 was enough to tie her for the bronze medal with China’s Fu Yuanhui.
The Olympic medal-winning swimmer met with fans at the LaSalle outdoor pool following a parade along Front Road.
"It's incredible, honestly, to be here with all these kids," said Masse as she signed autographs for a long line of fans. "That's something I really treasured as a young athlete growing up, is looking up to older Olympians, so I want to be that person."
Masse had begun swimming as a 10-year-old, coached locally at the Windsor Essex team by Andrei Semenov.
With huge parental support she worked and improved, and by the time Masse had arrived at the University of Toronto she was on the cusp of international success.
![Universiade success has been a springboard for Kylie Masse to win back-to-back world titles and an Olympic bronze medal ©Getty Images Universiade success has been a springboard for Kylie Masse to win back-to-back world titles and an Olympic bronze medal ©Getty Images](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/198691/o/GettyImages-1156770981.jpg)
Masse narrowly missed qualifying for the Canadian team at the trials for the home 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto and World Championships - a bitter blow.
But Masse she was named for the 2015 Universiade being held in Gwangju.
In early July, Masse competed in the 100m backstroke in South Korea, breaking the one-minute barrier for the first time as she clocked an eye-catching 59.97, becoming the first female Canadian swimmer to win an individual gold medal at the World University Games.
According to Swimming Canada, just days after winning that gold, Masse went to watch the Pan American Games, and began to think about just how great it would be to compete internationally for her home country.
The University Games had enabled her to make a significant breakthrough, and the following year Masse was competing in the Olympics - and reaching the podium.
A year on from her 2017 World Championship triumph, Masse returned to the top of the podium as she won the 100m and 200m backstroke events at the Commonwealth Games on Australia’s Gold Coast, setting three successive Commonwealth records in the former event.
She added silver in the 50m backstroke and 4x100m relay for good measure.
The following year Masse returned to the city where she had won her universities title and successfully defended her world 100m backstroke title, clocking 58.60.
Last year, despite the coronavirus pandemic, Masse managed to have a successful season as captain of the Toronto Titans in the International Swimming League.
Charles Barkley
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1983 Summer Universiade, Edmonton: basketball bronze.
By the time he retired from playing in 2000, Charles Barkley had earned the reputation of being one of the National Basketball Association’s greatest forwards.
The 6ft 4in product of Leeds, Alabama was 11 times an NBA All-Star, 11 times a member of the All-NBA team and 1993 NBA Most Valuable Player, representing Philadelphia 76ers, Phoenix Suns and then Houston Rockets.
He also won two Olympic gold medals for the United States as part of the "Dream Team" at the 1992 Barcelona Games and at the home Games of Atlanta in 1996.
As an amateur player he had got to the brink of qualifying for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, missing out on the final cut because of poor defence.
A year before that he had also suffered a frustrating experience in representing the United States at the Summer Universiade in Edmonton, Canada.
The United States were seeking a fifth consecutive Universiade title, and with talents available such as Barkley, Karl Malone and Ed Pinckney – the latter both 6ft 9in – that ambition looked very realistic.
But in their match against the Canadian hosts for the right to reach the gold medal contest, the United States, despite Pinckney’s contribution of 19 points, were stunned by an 85-77 defeat.
Barkley and co regrouped for the bronze medal match, beating Cuba 119-91, while the hosts went on to beat Yugoslavia 83-68 in the final.
![Charles Barkley enjoyed a stellar career where he was an 11-time NBA All-Star and a double Olympic gold medallist ©Getty Images Charles Barkley enjoyed a stellar career where he was an 11-time NBA All-Star and a double Olympic gold medallist ©Getty Images](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/196142/o/Barkley+pic+two.jpg)
Shuyin Zheng
![Shuyin Zheng ©Getty Images](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/194017/o/GettyImages-592610708+cropped.jpg)
2015 Summer Universiade, Gwangju: taekwondo women's middleweight under-73kg gold medallist.
The 2015 Summer Universiade in Gwangju, South Korea, was where China's Shuyin Zheng won her first senior international taekwondo gold - a year before she became Olympic heavyweight champion in Rio de Janeiro.
Zheng - who had won world and Olympic gold at youth level in 2010 - earned her landmark title with a 4-0 win in the women's under-73 kilograms final against Croatia's Iva Radoš, who she had beaten earlier that year 8-1 in the semi-finals of the Chelyabinsk World Championships before losing 5-4 to South Korea's Oh Hye-ri in the final.
Before the 2015 season was over Zheng earned a 4-1 win in the Manchester Open over local athlete Bianca Walkden, who had won the heavyweight title in Chelyabinsk.
In 2016, the two met in the Olympic semi-final of the over-67kg category, with Zheng going through 4-1 on superiority before beating Mexico's Maria Espinoza 5-1 in the final.
At the following year's World Championships, Zheng took bronze in the over-73kg class, and in 2018 she won the Grand Prix final at Fujairah.
Earlier in the 2018 season she had beaten Walkden 6-4 in the Manchester Grand Prix final - but in 2019, when the northern British city hosted the World Championships, the venue would provide her with her least pleasant memory in the sport.
Despite being 20-10 up against home fighter and defending champion Walkden in the women's heavyweight final, the Chinese Olympic champion was disqualified for incurring ten fouls after her opponent had repeatedly pushed her off the mat.
The tactic employed by Walkden, who thus earned her third consecutive world title, was considered unsportsmanlike but was nevertheless within the rules, and the British athlete was quite satisfied with the outcome, declaring: "I wouldn't have it any other way".
Walkden's change of tactic had occurred after Zheng, who had already accrued seven penalty points, had become inactive after taking a ten-point lead. When the result was announced there was booing in the arena, and Zheng's coach gave the officials a thumbs-down sign.
But after the Chinese athlete had dropped to her knees on the podium, Britain's performance director Gary Hall took issue with her "disrespectful manner".
Walkden defended her tactics, saying: "I went out there needing to find a different way to win and a win is a win if you disqualify someone - it's not my fault."
Zheng, meanwhile, told Chinese media: "From the first day I picked up this sport, I understood that there was no such thing as absolute fairness in competition. I have been doing this sport for 16 years but this is the first time I have realised that a taekwondo match could be played like this.
"I wish the referee could have been fair in this competition."
A Chinese appeal, and demand that the Moroccan referee, Tarik Benradi, be banned for life, were unsuccessful.
Zheng, however, recovered from her trauma to beat Walkden in the final of the next two Grand Prix events in Chiba and Sofia - by 12-10 and 3-2 - before winning the Grand Prix final in Moscow 7-4 against Serbia's Milica Mandić.
Her final action of the year, however, saw her beaten 2-0 by Walkden in the semi-final of the Wuxi Grand Slam event.
It is one of taekwondo’s enduring rivalries…
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Wayde van Niekerk
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2013 Universiade, Kazan: 400 metres semi-finalist; 4x400 metres gold medallist.
The Summer Universiade of 2013, in Kazan, was where Wayde van Niekerk won the first significant international medal of his stellar athletics career.
Within three years of taking gold in the men's 4x400 metres at the Central Stadium, he was the Olympic champion and world record holder.
The South African made his international debut in 2010, when he finished fourth in the 200m at the World Junior Athletics Championships.
Van Niekerk's performance caught the attention of a remarkable veteran South African coach - Anna Botha, popularly known as Tannie "Auntie" Ans - and they started working together in 2012.
The following year he began to experiment with one-lap running, but it was not until 2013 that he took up the 400m seriously at Botha's suggestion, in order to improve his endurance and help him recover from persistent hamstring injuries.
By the time he entered the Universiade in Russia he had lowered his personal best to 45.09sec in chasing home the 2012 Olympic champion Kirani James of Grenada in the Ostrava Golden Spike meeting.
But clocking 46.39 in the semi-finals saw him miss out by one place on the final eventually won by home athlete Vladimir Krasnov in 45.49.
In 2014, Van Niekerk chased home James to take silver in the Glasgow Commonwealth Games 400m final, and the following year he made his global breakthrough, winning the world title in Beijing in an African record of 43.48, beating the 2008 Olympic champion, LaShawn Merritt, into second place.
The following year at the Rio 2016 Games he produced one of the great Olympic athletics performances of all time as he won 400m gold from the outside lane in a world record of 43.08, beating the mark of 43.18 set by Michael Johnson of the United States in winning the 1999 world title.
At the 2017 World Championships in London, Van Niekerk successfully defended his 400m title, clocking 43.98, and he narrowly missed a double two days later after taking 200m silver in 20.11.
But on October 31, 2017, the all-conquering South African suffered a serious cruciate ligament injury while playing rugby and it was not until September 15 of 2020 that he made his return to racing outside his homeland, having won a university 100m race on grass in Bloemfontein in February.
A planned comeback in Italy in August was called off when he tested positive for coronavirus, but in September he made an emotional return as he won the 400m at the Gala dei Castelli meeting in Switzerland in 45.58.
How fast will he be if and when he gets to defend his Olympic title in Tokyo? No-one knows, but Botha, who is due to turn 80 in 2021, is back guiding his fortunes.
"She's an amazing woman," said Van Niekerk after his Rio 2016 win. "She's played a huge role in what I am today."
And tomorrow…
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Yao Ming
![Yao Ming ©Getty Images](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/189010/o/GettyImages-51180400+cropped.jpg)
2001 Summer Universiade, Beijing: Silver in men's basketball.
At 7ft 6in, Yao Ming had a head start over many other mortals in seeking a high level basketball career – and he certainly capitalised on it as he became one of the leading performers in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for Houston Rockets, as well as winning numerous honours for China.
The only child of two professional basketball players – 6ft 7in father Yao Zhiyuan and 6ft 3in mother Fang Fendgi – Yao began playing the sport at the age of nine and by the time he was 17 he was playing for the senior Shanghai Sharks team.
After five seasons of increasingly impressive performances, Yao was persuaded to enter the 2002 NBA draft, joining the Rockets, with whom he would remain until his enforced retirement through injury in 2011.
While his stock in the game was growing, the center had already earned honours for his country, earning gold medals at the Asian Championships in 1999 and 2001. He would go on to add two further golds in this arena in 2003 and 2005, as well as helping China to silver at the 2002 Asian Games.
In 2001 he made his mark for his country at the Summer Universiade in Beijing, where China took the silver medal behind Yugoslavia.
A year before he had made his Olympic debut for China at the Sydney Games, and three years later he was the Chinese flagbearer at the Opening Ceremony for the Athens Games, where he was in the team that qualified for the quarter-finals, losing 95-75 to Lithuania.
Four years later he played again for his country at his home Olympics in Beijing, where once again they were defeated by Lithuania in the quarter-finals.
In 2003, Yao became the first rookie to start an NBA All-Star Game since 1995, and he finished the season as runner-up in the Rookie of the Year competition. He would take part in the next two All-Star Games as well, breaking Michael Jordan's record for the most All-Star votes in 2005 with a total of 2,558,278.
In 2005 the Rockets made the NBA play-offs for the second consecutive year.
For the next six years Yao's level of performance would be undermined by persistent injuries, culminating in a third fracture to his left foot which prompted him to retire in 2011.
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Viktor Ahn
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2005 Winter Universiade, Innsbruck: Short track speed skating: 1500 metres gold; 3000m gold; 5,000m relay gold; 1000m bronze.
Spectators at the Eissschnellaufbahn in Innsbruck could hardly have been surprised by the short track speed skating performance of Ahn Hyun-soo at the 2005 Winter Universiade – but it was spectacular nevertheless.
Aged just 19, the South Korean was already an Olympian and ten times a world gold medallist.
His racing at the Universiade only confirmed the astonishing trajectory upon which he was launched, as he took gold medals in the 1500 metres, 3000m and 5,000m relay, as well as adding a bronze in the 1000m.
Four months later he had improved his world gold total to 12 having won the 1500m and overall title in Beijing, where he also won silver in the 1000m, 3000m and 5,000m relay.
At the following year's Winter Olympics in Turin, Ahn produced his finest performance in South Korea's colours as he won 1000m, 1500m and 5,000m relay gold, as well as bronze in the 500m.
Shortly after these Games he competed at the World Championships in Minneapolis, where once again he won overall gold and individual titles in the 1000m and 1500m.
Upon returning to South Korea, however, he became involved in a row with the national skating federation, with his father claiming the men's coach did not associate with him and that attempts had been made to try and prevent his son claiming the overall title.
The row was patched up in time for Ahn to contest the following year's World Championships in Milan, where he won his sixth overall title and golds in the 1000m and 5,000m relay.
The following year he fractured his knee during training, and he failed to make the 2009 World Championships.
Having missed out on two World Cup seasons, Ahn needed to finish in the top three at the trials for the 2010 Winter Games, and failed to qualify after finishing seventh.
The following year he became a Russian citizen and began competing for his new country. There was a predictable uproar in his native country, but the ire was directed at the skating federation rather than at him.
At the 2014 Sochi Winter Games Ahn – who had now taken on the name of Viktor Ahn – delivered in gold on the Russian investment, winning the 500m and the 1000m and contributing to victory in the 5000m relay, as well as earning bronze in the 1500m.
He thus became the first short track skater to win gold in all four Olympic events, and also became the skater with most Olympic golds – six in all. He drew level with Apolo Ohno of the United States as holder of the most Olympic short track medals – eight in total.
After winning his golds in Sochi, Ahn explained his reasons for joining the Russian team, saying: "I wanted to train in the best possible environment and I proved my decision was not wrong."
He went on to add two more gold medals to the Russian account at that year's World Championships in Montreal, winning the 1000m and his seventh overall title.
Despite a part-move into coaching, Ahn continued to win medals at the world and European championships for Russia, but was denied what would have been a final Olympic appearance in his homeland when he was ruled out of the Pyeongchang 2018 Games as part of the international sanctions against his adopted country for doping offences.
Having retired, he temporarily reversed his decision. Last November, aged 33, he won silver in the 500m at the International Skating Union Short Track Speed Skating World Cup in Salt Lake City before anchoring his team to gold in the mixed gender 2000m relay.
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Tatiana Volosozhar
![Tatiana Volosozhar ©ITG](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/184234/o/GettyImages-469178733+cropped.jpg)
2005 Winter Universiade, Innsbruck: Figure skating pairs silver (with Stanislav Morozov); 2007 Winter Universiade, Turin: Figure skating pairs silver (with Stanislav Morozov).
The Winter Universiades of 2005 and 2007 played their part in Tatiana Volosozhar's soaring career as a pairs figure skater, which has spanned three partners, two countries – Ukraine and Russia – and world and Olympic gold.
Born in Ukraine to Russian parents, Volsozhar began skating at the age of four, and after switching to pairs aged 14 she formed a partnership with Petr Kharchenko which saw them become national champions in 2004, after which they parted company.
The following season Volsozhar linked up with another Ukraine skater, Stanislav Morozov, and in their first season together they finished second at Innsbruck in the Winter Universiade, finishing behind the Chinese pairing of Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao.
In third place was the Russian pair of Maria Muhortova and Maxim Trankov – the latter of whom would become Volosozhar's partner on and off the ice five years later, enjoying Olympic and world success.
The Ukraine pairing followed their Innsbruck success by finishing fifth in the European Championships.
After placing 12th at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Volosozhar and Morozov got their next season off to another promising start as they returned to Turin to earn a second Universiade silver.
Once again they finished runners-up to the defending Chinese pair, with Russia's new pairing of Arina Ushakova and Sergei Karev earning bronze.
The Ukrainian pair followed up by finishing fifth again at the European Championships and then took a tantalising fourth place at the World Championships.
That was to prove their high point, as they finished eighth in the 2010 Winter Olympics and Morozov retired before the World Championships.
In May 2010 Volosozhar was allowed to apply for expedited Russian citizenship, and began her partnership with Trankov. They made a striking pair – she is 5ft 3in and he is 6ft 2in – and they were soon successful.
After Volosozhar had completed a statutory year out of international competition following her nationality switch, they soon began to make an impact at the top level, taking silver at the World Championships in 2011 and 2012, and winning the first of four European titles in 2012.
In 2013 they won world gold, and at Sochi 2014 they became the first skaters to earn two golds in a single Olympics as they won the pairs and were among the victors in the inaugural team competition.
After Trankov was forced to miss the 2015 season following a shoulder operation, during which time they got married, the pair returned to the ice to take their fourth European title in 2016 before skipping the next season after announcing they were expecting a baby.
On February 16, 2017, Tatiana gave birth to their daughter, Angelica Maximovna Volosozhar-Trankova.
![Tatiana Volosozhar won Olympic pairs gold with Maxim Trankov ©Getty Images Tatiana Volosozhar won Olympic pairs gold with Maxim Trankov ©Getty Images](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/184235/o/GettyImages-469204241.jpg)
Gerd Kanter
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2005 Summer Universiade, Izmir: discus gold (65.29m).
Estonia's Gerd Kanter reached the top of the tree as a discus thrower by earning world and Olympic titles – and the Universiade played a key part in the take-off of his long and illustrious career.
When this hugely popular figure arrived in Izmir, Turkey to take part in the 23rd version of the International University Sports Federation's flagship event, he was a highly promising 26-year-old who had appeared at the 2003 World Championships in Paris and the 2004 Athens Olympics, albeit without managing to reach the finals.
But 2005 proved to be his breakthrough year. On August 7, at the World Championships in Helsinki, Kanter took silver with an effort of 68.57 metres as Lithuania's Virgilijus Alekna made a successful defence of his title with a Championship record of 70.17m.
Just 10 days later in Turkey, the 6ft 5in athlete from Tallinn achieved his first global gold as he dominated the Universiade competition in the Izmir Ataturk Stadium.
Having nudged over the qualifying mark of 59.00m with a conservative effort of 59.52m, Kanter cut loose in the final, recording a best of 65.29m. His three other recorded marks were superior to the silver medal performance of 62.68m by Egypt's Amar Ahmed El Ghazaly.
Kanter finished the season on another big podium as he took silver in September's World Athletics Final in Monaco, recording 66.01m.
The following year, Kanter earned another silver at the World Athletics Final, his second of the year following a second place at the European Championships in Gothenburg, where he threw 68.03m to finish just 64 centimetres adrift of Alekna.
But when Kanter returned to Sweden the following month, to compete in Helsingborg, he produced the high mark of his career with an effort of 73.38m. It stood then, and as of July 2020 still stands, as the third best throw of all time behind Alekna's 2000 effort of 73.88m and the longstanding record of 74.08m set in 1986 by East Germany's Jurgen Schult.
The next two years marked the peak of his career as he won the World Athletics Finals with 68.47m and 66.54m respectively, and secured the twin peaks of world and Olympic titles.
At the 2007 World Championships in Osaka he finally got the better of Alekna, the 2003 and 2005 world champion, who finished fourth on this occasion. Kanter claimed gold with a best of 68.94m.
The following year Kanter took Olympic gold in Beijing, throwing 68.82m, with silver going to Poland's Piotr Malachowski on 67.82m and Alekna, the Olympic champion of 2000 and 2004, earning bronze with 67.79m.
At 29, Kanter had reached his peak – but his top-level career continued for another decade, during which time he earned Olympic bronze at the London 2012 Games, a world silver and two bronzes, as well as two European silvers and a bronze.
He placed fifth in the Rio 2016 Olympics aged 37, and signed off with another fifth place, this time at the 2018 Berlin European Championships, before announcing his retirement.
More than 3,000 people packed into the Kadriorg Stadium in Tallinn for his farewell competition. The 39-year-old signed off with a final 60m-plus effort, earning sixth place in a world class field.
Kanter, a model of consistency, holds the unofficial world record for the most consecutive competitions over 60 metres, an astonishing total of 319 between August 20, 2002 and September 10, 2017.
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Cate Campbell
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2011 Summer Universiade, Shenzhen: 4x100 metres freestyle relay gold (3min 40.03sec GR); 50m freestyle bronze (25.17sec).
By the time 19-year-old Australian Cate Campbell won swimming medals at the 2011 Summer Universiade in Shenzhen, China, she already had Olympic and world honours to her name.
At the Beijing Olympic Games of 2008 she won bronze medals in the 50 metres freestyle and the 4x100m freestyle relay, and at the following year's World Championships in Rome she added another 50m freestyle bronze.
Campbell, who moved to Australia with her South African parents from Malawi in 2001, picked up her first international gold medal at the 2011 Universiade as a member of the victorious 4x100m relay team in a Games record of 3min 40.03sec.
She also earned bronze in the 50m freestyle, clocking 25.17sec behind gold medallist Aleksandra Gerasimenya of Belarus, who clocked 24.66, and Ukraine's Darya Stepanyuk, who timed in at 25.12.
At the London 2012 Olympics, Campbell earned a gold medal in the 4x100m freestyle relay, helping set an Olympic record of 3:33.15. She also reached the 50m freestyle semi-finals, as did her younger sister Bronte. They were the first Australian siblings on the same Olympic swimming team since the 1972 Munich Games, and the first Australian sisters to compete in the same swimming event at the Games.
At the following year's World Championships in Barcelona, Campbell won the 100m freestyle title, finishing ahead of Sweden's Sarah Sjöström and the Olympic champion, Ranomi Kromowidjojo of The Netherlands, by clocking 52.34.
She also teamed-up with Bronte in a 4x100m freestyle relay team that took silver.
The 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow saw her take another 100m freestyle gold, along with two relay golds in the 4x100m freestyle and 4x100m medley.
Another world 4x100m freestyle relay gold was added to her collection at the 2015 championships in Kazan, but she had to settle for bronze in the 100m freestyle event as gold went to her younger sister and silver to Sjöström.
The two sisters joined up again at the Rio 2016 Olympics, helping Australia win gold in the 4x100m freestyle in a world record of 3:30.65, and Campbell added a silver in the 4x100m medley relay.
But, despite being favourite for the Olympic 100m title, she suffered disappointment, fading to sixth, and she took the early part of 2017 off before returning to set a 100m freestyle world record of 50.25 at the Australian Championships.
In company with Bronte, she helped create another world record at her home 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast as the hosts earned the 4x100m freestyle title in 3:30.05.
While Bronte took the 100m freestyle title ahead of Cate, in a Games record of 52.27, the elder sister earned gold in the 50m freestyle in a Commonwealth and Games record of 23,78, with her younger sibling tying for silver.
Cate also won the 50m butterfly title – a stroke at which she had no competitive history – having decided to "try something new and different".
The 2019 World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, saw five more medals added to her collection.
She won golds in the 4x100m freestyle and 4x100m mixed medley, silvers in the 100m freestyle and 4x100m medley and bronze in the 50m freestyle.
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Pawel Fajdek
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2011 Summer Universiade, Shenzen: hammer throw gold (78.14m); 2013 Summer Universiade, Kazan: hammer throw gold (79.99m); 2015 Summer Universiade, Gwangju: hammer throw gold (80.05m); 2017 Summer Universaide, Taipei: hammer throw gold (79.16m).
Speaking to insidethegames in 2017, Oleg Matytsin, President of the International University Sports Federation, said: "We know that many of our Universiade participants will go on to the Olympic Games and to World Championships in Olympic sports.
"South Africa's Wayde van Niekerk is a Universiade legend and now we have been watching him compete at the Athletics World Championships in London.
"Another athlete, the Polish hammer thrower Pawel Fajdek, came to London looking to add his third World Championship gold medal to the three Universiade titles he's won."
In the same month that he won that third world title, Fajdek added a fourth Universiade title in Taipei. And after taking European silver in Berlin in 2018, he brought his world title total level with his Universiade tally at Doha 2019.
Fajdek is one of the greatest examples of an athlete who has developed into a global champion having won at the summer Universiade. But, by a quirk of fate, this affable Pole has never managed to win an Olympic medal of any colour.
A throw of 78.14 metres was enough to earn Fajdek his first Universiade gold at the 2011 edition in Shenzhen, China, finishing more than four metres clear of Slovakia's Marcel Lomnicky, who reached 73.90m.
Fajdek beat Lomnicky to the title again two years later in the Russian venue of Kazan, although this time it was closer, 79.99m to 78.73m.
In between these wins, however, the 6ft 1in Pole suffered disappointment as he only finished 11th at the 2011 World Championships and then failed to register a mark at the London 2012 Olympics.
Having successfully defended his Universiade title, Fajdek went on to claim his first world title in Moscow in 2013, where he won with 81.97m, adding the Jeux de la Francophonie gold later in the year.
A throw of 82.05m at the Zurich 2014 European Athletics Championships only earned him a silver, but the following year he successfully. He then retained his world title in Beijing with an effort of 80.88m.
The latter triumph took place despite the fact that his then 80-year-old coach, Czeslaw Cybulski, was recovering in hospital after surgery to his leg after being accidentally hit by his hammer in training.
In 2016, Fajdek swapped silver for gold at the European Championships in Amsterdam, throwing 80.93m, but his form faltered again at the Rio 2016 Olympics, where he failed to qualify for the final having managed a best of 72.00m.
The following year witnessed business as usual, however, with his wins in Taipei, where he reached 79.16m, and London, where he won with 79.86m.
And after his European silver in Berlin, Doha offered him the opportunity to win a record fourth men's hammer world title with an effort of 80.50m.
"It was a very difficult season with a very good end," Fajdek said. "I had to go from zero to 100 per cent in just one year, coming back from injury. I basically had only seven months for the preparation.
"I had some back problems, knee problems, but that is our job to deal with it. It is normal.
"Now, taking the fourth World Championship title – it is very emotional for me and I feel very proud tonight."
Describing his mindset after the London 2012 Games, he said: "After the London Olympics that was a disaster for me, I told myself I want to win 10 medals during the next seven years. Medals of any colours."
Doha 2019 brought his post-London 2012 collection to nine golds and two silvers.
![Pawel Fajdek has excelled at the Universiade and World Championships ©Getty Images Pawel Fajdek has excelled at the Universiade and World Championships ©Getty Images](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/178144/o/GettyImages-1178620833+%281%29.jpg)
Nelson Évora
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2009 Summer Universiade, Belgrade: triple jump gold (17.22m); 2011 Summer Universiade, Shenzhen: triple jump gold (17.31m).
For many athletes, competing at a Summer World University Games is a precursor to world or Olympic success.
Nelson Évora did things the other way round – by the time he earned the first of his two Universiade triple jump titles he was already the world and Olympic champion.
Évora, who was born in the Ivory Coast, moved to Portugal when he was five and represented his adopted country aged 20 at the Athens 2004 Olympics, although he failed to qualify for the final.
However, he had already proven himself as an athlete who knew how to win, having taken the long jump gold with 7.49 metres at the 2001 European Youth Olympic Festival and the European junior long jump title two years afterwards.
In 2006, maintaining his competitive challenge in both long and triple jump, he finished sixth in the former and fourth in the latter at the European Athletics Championships.
The following year, he recorded his long jump personal best of 8.10m in winning the European Cup First League event, adding the triple jump title for good measure.
That was an ideal warm-up for his big breakthrough at the World Athletics Championships in Osaka, where he won gold with a national record of 17.74m.
After he had won triple jump bronze at the 2008 World Indoor Championships, his career reached its peak as he took the Olympic title in Beijing with an effort of 17.67m, ahead of Britain's Phillips Idowu on 17.62m.
That competitive edge proved as cutting as one might have expected when the 25-year-old earned his first Universiade gold in the Serbian capital of Belgrade with a best of 17.22m.
Two years later at Shenzhen in China, Évora retained his title with an effort of 17.31m, well clear of his nearest challenger, Ukraine's Viktor Kuznyetsov who reached 16.89m.
Further triple jump golds lay ahead of the then 27-year-old as he won the European indoor title in Prague in 2015 and retained it in Belgrade two years later.
The following year, at a packed Olympic Stadium in Berlin, the 34-year-old phenomenon earned an extraordinary gold with a best of 17.10m.
Last year he added another European indoor medal, this time silver, in Glasgow before competing in his seventh World Championships in Doha.
His Olympic ambitions remain alive...
![Nelson Évora has won two Universiade gold medals ©Getty Images Nelson Évora has won two Universiade gold medals ©Getty Images](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/176226/o/GettyImages-1015717960.jpg)
Hugues Fabrice Zango
![Hugues Fabrice Zango ©Getty Images](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/174333/o/GettyImages-1172242959+cropped.jpg)
2013 Universiade, Kazan: triple jump, sixth place. 2015 Universiade, Gwangju: triple jump silver medal (16.76m). 2017 Universiade, Chinese Taipei: triple jump silver medal (16.97m PB).
Like the hop, step and jump which characterise his athletics event, the Summer Universiades of 2013, 2015 and 2017 have crucially advanced the career of Hugues Fabrice Zango – Burkina Faso's historic high-achiever.
In September 2019 in Doha this ebullient 26-year-old triple jumper became the first track and field athlete from his country to earn a medal at the World Championships as he claimed a surprise bronze in an African record of 17.66 metres.
Zango – who spends winters in France and is studying for a PhD in electrical engineering at university in Lille – produced an effort of 17.77m in Paris in February 2020, putting himself equal fourth on the world indoor all-time list and just 15 centimetres shy of the world indoor record held by his French coach, Teddy Tamgho.
Later in the month, at the World Athletics Indoor Tour meeting in Liévin, Zango tried everything he knew to provide what he regarded as his home crowd with a world indoor mark, but had to settle for four escalating jumps of 17m-plus, culminating in a fourth round of 17.51m. He then fouled out on his two final efforts – one of which looked close to or on 18m.
"Every winter I work here," he had said beforehand. "I know the stadium like my pocket. So the stadium is my home and I come here like twice a week, so here is really good."
Zango's performance in Doha – where gold went to defending and Olympic champion Christian Taylor with 17.92m and silver to his US rival Will Claye on 17.74m - was also a model of consistency. Apart from his best, he had four other leaps beyond 17m – 17.18m, 17.46m, 17.29m, and 17.56m.
"First of all, I wanted to get a medal," Zango told World Athletics. "I felt really strong. I was able to fight against the big guys. Next time it will be even better.
"I was in really good shape to do something special and I achieved my goal.
"We are all working on going further and further and working on some technical improvements.
"It means a lot to finish third behind Christian Taylor and Will Claye and beat Pedro Pablo Pichardo to win the bronze medal.
"They all jumped over 18 metres in their careers. For Burkina Faso it is really a big thing. Finally we entered into world athletics, because we have never had a medal on the world level.
"I am the first and I hope more medals will follow. My next goal is to win a medal at the Olympic Games in Tokyo and make athletics more popular in my country."
Zango began his sports career as a football player before his PE teacher spotted his athletics potential.
"I went to the athletics track and he told me that I was more skilled in jumping events than in running events," Zango said. "This is how I started with triple jump. I then came to France to study electrical engineering at university."
Zango's debut at an international athletics competition was at the 2013 Summer Universaide in the Russian city of Kazan, where he finished sixth with an effort of 15.96m.
By the time of the 2015 Summer Universiade at Gwangju in South Korea, Zango was a far more accomplished performer. He competed in both the long and triple jump, failing to qualify for the final in the former event but earning silver in the latter with 16.76m. Gold went to Russia's Dmitry Sorokin with 17.29m.
Before competing in his third Universiade, Zango went to the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, where he failed to qualify, the 2016 African Championships, where he took silver with 16.81m, and the Rio Olympic Games, where he reached 15.99m but failed to go on to the final.
The following year he competed at the Universiade in Chinese Taipei and earned another silver with a personal best of 16.97m, just four centimetres shy of gold medallist Nazim Babayev of Azerbaijan.
With the Tokyo 2020 Olympics looming, this is an athlete who looks on the brink of great things.
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Justyna Kowalczyk
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2005 Winter Universiade, Innsbruck and Seefeld: Gold in the classical mass start 15km, silver in the 5km freestyle and bronze in the individual sprint. 2007 Winter Universiade, Turin: Gold in individual sprint, 5km freestyle and 10km double pursuit.
Competing in the Winter Universiades of 2005 and 2007 earned Polish cross-country skier Justyna Kowalczyk a healthy collection of medals and laid the foundation for an illustrious career in terms of Olympic and World Championship success.
Born in Limanowa, southern Poland, on January 19, 1983, Kowalczyk was 22 when she travelled to her first Winter Universiade, where she collected a complete set of medals in her various competitions at the Seefeld Arena in Austria.
By the time she returned home, Kowalczyk was 23 and the owner of a bronze medal for the individual sprint, a silver for the 5km freestyle and a gold for the classical mass start 15km event.
Two years later, she returned to the FISU arena and earned three individual Universiade golds in the individual sprint, the 5km freestyle and the 10km double pursuit event.
The competition was held in Turin, where a year earlier she had marked her Olympic debut by taking bronze in the 30km freestyle event.
Kowalczyk graduated from the Jerzy Kukuczka University of Physical Education in Katowice with an MA in physical education, and in 2014 completed a Ph.D at the Bronisław Czech University of Physical Education in Krakow.
Two years after her triumphs in Turin, she became world champion in the 15km pursuit and 30km freestyle in Liberec, where she also claimed bronze in the 10km classical competition.
A year later, in Vancouver, she earned a complete set of Olympic medals as she won gold in the 30km classical event, silver in the individual sprint and bronze in the 15km pursuit.
She added another Olympic title four years later in Sochi, where she won the 10km classical event.
Following her initial success in the World Championships, she went on to amass another three silver and two bronze medals between 2011 and 2015.
She made her fourth Olympic appearance in Pyeongchang in 2018, finishing seventh in the team sprint and 14th in the 30km mass start.
Ion Tiriac
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1961 Universiade, Sofia: Tennis bronze in the men’s singles and mixed doubles. 1965 Universiade, Budapest: Gold in the men’s singles and mixed doubles, bronze in the men’s doubles
Ion Tiriac first came to public notice as a child table tennis champion, and thereafter as a member of the Romanian ice hockey team that finished 12th in the 1964 Winter Olympics at Innsbruck.
But his name would be made in tennis, first as a player, then as a coach and a promoter of tournaments, as he progressed in life to the point where, in 2010, he was declared by TOP 300 Capital to be the richest man in Romania.
In 2018, Tiriac ranked #1867 on the Forbes World's Billionaires list, with wealth listed at $1.2 billion.
After his Olympic appearance, Tiriac decided to concentrate his energies on tennis, and the following year he got onto the gold standard at the Summer Universiade in Budapest, where he won the singles and mixed doubles titles and took bronze in the men’s doubles.
That brought his collection of FISU medals to five, as he had earned bronze in the singles and mixed doubles four years earlier at the Universiade in Sofia.
As a tennis professional Tiriac won one Grand Prix event, at Munich in 1970, but was mainly known for his successful doubles pairing with fellow countryman Ilie Nastase, who won French and US Open singles titles, and was twice runner-up at Wimbledon.
Tiriac and Nastase were runners-up in the 1966 US Open final, and won the French Open title in 1970, defeating Arthur Ashe and Charlie Pasarell of the United States 6-4, 6-2, 6-3.
After retiring, Tiriac coached players including Nastase, Guilermo Vilas, Goran Ivanišević and Marat Safin, and also managed Boris Becker’s career between 1984 and 1993.
On July 13, 2013 he joined the International Tennis Hall of Fame as a successful promoter and tournament director for numerous events including the two of the largest Masters 1000 events, the Italian Open and the Madrid Masters.
Livio Berruti
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1959 Universiade, Turin: Athletics gold in the 100m, 200m, 4x100m. 1963 Universiade, Porto Alegre: Bronze in the 100m and 200m. 1967 Universiade, Tokyo: Gold in the 4 x100m
The Vialle delle Olimpiad – the Walk of Fame of Italian sport – in Rome’s Olympic Park honours 100 athletes in the nation’s sporting history, each of whom has their name on a tile along with the sport in which they have distinguished themselves.
On May 7, 2015, in the presence of the President of the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI), a tile bearing the name of Livio Berruti was formally added to the illustrious collection.
Berruti’s performance at the neighbouring Olympic Stadium at the 1960 Games was one of the home highlights as he surprised the watching world by winning the men’s 200 metres gold and twice equalling the world record of 20.5 seconds on the same day.
A year before his breakthrough home performance at the Games, Berruti – a chemistry undergraduate in Turin – had earned three golds at the first FISU-organised Summer Universiade, which was hosted by his native city.
He took the 100m title in 10.5, the 200m title in 20.9 and was part of the team that won the 4x100m gold in 41.0.
The following year, wearing his trademark dark glasses and white socks, Berruti announced his talent with a world record in the semi-finals, reproducing the time in the final later that day to take the Olympic title.
Berruti ran at two more Universiades, adding 100 and 200m bronze medals at the 1963 edition in Porto Alegre before collecting another 4x100m relay gold at the 1967 edition in Tokyo.
He had finished fifth in the Olympic 200m final in Tokyo three years earlier, and he made a third Olympic appearance a year later in Mexico City, reaching the 200m quarter-finals and being part of the 4x100m relay team that finished seventh.
Jack Lovelock
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International University Games: 1933,Turin - Athletics silver in the 1500m; 1935, Budapest – gold in the 1500m. 1934 British Empire Games – gold in the 1500m. 1936 Berlin Olympics – gold in the 1500m.
A year before winning the 1936 Olympic 1500 metres title in the Berlin Stadium with an audacious and effective race plan, New Zealander Jack Lovelock had secured the gold medal at what was then known as the International University Games.
There was no need for ingenuity on this occasion as – at a Games held in Budapest – he beat home runner Mihaly Ignatz by almost four seconds as he came home for the 1500m gold in four minutes exactly.
At the 1933 University Games in Turin, Lovelock – who studied medicine at the University of Otago before earning a Rhodes Scholarship at Exeter College, Oxford – had a far harder task. He had taken on the home runner, Luigi Beccali, who had earned the Olympic 1500 title the previous year in a race where Lovelock had finished seventh.
The Italian took gold in 3min 49.2sec, with Lovelock – who earlier in the year had set a world mile record of 4min 07.6sec - earning silver in 3:49.8.
It later emerged that Lovelock had not been in the best of health during his preparation.
But his 1933 defeat would prove a marker for three years of outstanding success.
In 1934, Lovelock won gold in the mile at the British Empire Games, recording 4min 13.0sec. And a year after exchanging silver for gold at the University Games he engineered the victory for which he will best be remembered.
Facing an Olympic 1500m field that included the US runner who had surpassed his own mile world record in 1934, Glenn Cunningham, Lovelock – renowned as a sprinter in the home straight, made a cleverly disguised break from 300 metres out that caught out his opponents and finished a full second inside the world record - 3min 47.8sec. Cunningham took silver in a time that was also inside the previous world mark.
Heide Rosendahl
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1970 Universiade, Turin: Athletics gold in the long jump (6.84m, world record)
Heide Rosendahl’s haul of two golds and a silver at her home 1972 Olympics in Munich were the culmination of an athletics career that had promised such achievement for more than five years. The West German’s first international flourish came at the 1966 European Championships, where she won silver in the pentathlon, and she upgraded to gold at the 1971 Europeans in Helsinki.
By the time of that victory, she was already long jump world record holder after an astonishing performance at the 1970 Universiade in Turin, where she reached 6.84m, adding two centimetres to the mark set by Romania’s Viorica Viscopoleanu in winning the 1968 Olympic title in the thin air of Mexico City. Rosendahl’s world record stood until 1976.
Rosendahl won the Munich Olympic long jump with 6.78m, beating Bulgaria’s Diana Yorgova by one centimetre, and she anchored the West German team to victory in the 4x100m, holding off East Germany’s individual champion Renate Stecher. She also took silver behind Great Britain’s Mary Peters in a dramatic pentathlon competition.
Rosendahl, German sports person of the year in 1970 and 1972, is the mother of pole vaulter Danny Ecker, 2007 world bronze medallist and European indoor champion.
Alberto Juantorena
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1973 Universiade, Moscow: Athletics gold in the 400m. 1977 Universiade, Sofia: Gold in the 800m (1:43.44, world record)
This huge and hugely talented Cuban athlete, who was originally steered towards a basketball career, announced his international potential in track and field as he won the 400m title at the 1973 Universiade in Moscow.
Four years later, he secured another Universiade gold in Sofia - this time over 800m.
In between these two victories, the 6ft 2in athlete from Santiago de Cuba produced one of the all-time great Olympic performances at the 1976 Montreal Games as he became the first since Paul Pilgrim at the 1906 Intercalated Olympics to complete the men’s 400m and 800m double.
Juantorena had only taken up two-lap running the previous year, but he led the field in the 800m final for most of the race before clocking a world record time of 1:43.47. Three days later, he added the Olympic title over the single lap in a low-altitude world record of 44.26.
His Universiade career ended with a flourish in Sofia as he improved his own world 800m record to 1:43.44.
![Alberto Juantorena claimed 800m gold at the 1977 Universiade ©Getty Images Alberto Juantorena claimed 800m gold at the 1977 Universiade ©Getty Images](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/64680/o/Alberto%20Juantorena.jpg)
Olga Korbut
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1973 Universiade, Moscow: Gymnastics all-around gold
Olga Korbut’s Olympic debut at the 1972 Munich Games earned her gymnastic gold medals for the beam, floor exercise and team competition. But it was the technical daring and emotional impact of this tiny 17-year-old Soviet athlete - known as the Sparrow from Minsk - which was to create a lasting legacy in the history of the sport.
In her first event in Munich, Korbut created uproar as she successfully performed something that no one had tried at an international competition: a backward flip on the 4.5in thick beam. When she slipped and made several errors in the uneven bars, effectively ending her winning chances in the all-around competition where gold went to team-mate Lyudmila Tourischeva, she publicy wept. At the next day’s final of the bars, however, she unleashed the "Korbut flip" - a unique standing back somersault move that had never been seen before. To huge crowd disapproval, her score only earned her silver.
In 1973, she earned home victory at the Universiade in Moscow with a performance that was described as "even more spectacular than Munich".
Hampered by injury at the 1976 Olympics, she nevertheless added another gold in the team event, and took silver in the beam. Korbut graduated from the Grodno Pedagogical Institute in 1977 and retired from gymnastics to become a teacher.
Pietro Mennea
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1973 Universiade, Moscow: Athletics gold in the 200m, bronze in the 100m, 4x100m. 1975 Universiade, Rome: Gold in the 100m and 200m. 1979 Universiade, Mexico City: 100m and 200m gold (200m, world record 19.72A)
Italian sprinter Pietro Mennea, who won the Olympic 200m title in 1980, competed in three Universaides, producing one of the competition’s outstanding performances in 1979 as he recorded a 200m world record that lasted for 17 years before Michael Johnson broke it at the 1996 US Olympic trials.
In the rarified atmosphere of Mexico City, Mennea clocked an astonishing 19.72, beating the time of 19.83 Tommie Smith of the US had set on the same track in winning the 1968 Olympic title. The time still stands as the European record.
Mennea’s Universiade career had begun in Moscow six years earlier, a year after he had taken Olympic 200m bronze in Munich. He won the 200m gold in Russia, plus bronze medals in the 100m and 4x100m. In 1975, a year after taking the first of three European titles, the Italian won two more Universiade golds in Rome over 100m and 200m.
His crowning moment arrived in the city where his Universiade career had begun, Moscow, as he lived up to his billing as favourite for the 200m title as he defeated a field including Jamaica’s reigning champion Don Quarrie, 100m silver medallist Silvio Leonard of Cuba and 100m champion Allan Wells of Britain, whom he beat to gold by just 0.02.
Thomas Bach
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1973 Universiade, Moscow: Competed in foil fencing; 1979 Universiade, Mexico City: Competed in foil fencing
While Thomas Bach, now President of the International Olympic Committee, did not earn any medals at the two Summer Universiades in which he took part, his fencing career nevertheless hit the heights during the 1970s.
In 1973, at the World Fencing Championships in Gothenburg, Bach - who earned a Doctor of Law degree from the University of Wurzburg, his native city, in 1983 - won his first big international medal, a silver, as part of the West German men’s foil team.
Three years later, in Montreal, Bach and his West German team-mates Harald Hein, Klaus Reichert, Matthias Behr and Erk Sens-Gorius earned the Olympic gold medal in the men’s team foil, defeating Italy 9-6 in the final.
The following year came another gold medal for the team in the 1977 World Championships at Buenos Aires, and two years later Bach and Co completed their set with a bronze at the World Championships in Melbourne.
FISU President Oleg Matytsin told insidethegames: "You would have to ask him for his memories, but as he said, each Universiade is an unforgettable experience, a moment of excitement which is shared by all athletes.
"I also would say with some pride that Dr Bach is the perfect example of how sport can positively shape leaders. Clearly, he reached the pinnacle of his sport and was able to use success to positively shape his career.
"A world where the leaders of society are positively influenced by their university sport experience is the guiding vision of FISU. What Thomas Bach has achieved, both inside and outside the sports arena, is an embodiment of the FISU vision."
![FISU President Oleg Matytsin, left has called Thomas Bach, right, who competed in two Universiade Games, as the FISU President Oleg Matytsin, left has called Thomas Bach, right, who competed in two Universiade Games, as the](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/94602/o/Thomas%20Bach%20with%20FISU%20President%20Oleg%20Matytsin.png)
Bruce Baumgartne
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1981 Universiade, Bucharest: Freestyle wrestling (100kg-plus) gold
Baumgartner, one of the most accomplished US wrestlers of all time, ranked as one of the top super-heavyweight freestyle competitors for more than a decade - and his international career got underway with victory in the 100 kilograms-plus freestyle competition at the 1981 Universiade in Bucharest.
The 20-year-old from New Jersey defeated Bulgaria’s Sergey Stoytchev in the final to earn the first of a long sequence of gold medals. His first world championship medal, a bronze, came three years later. He ended with three world titles to his name.
Home Olympic gold in the 130kg freestyle category was delivered in Los Angeles in 1984. Baumgartner had to settle for silver in Seoul four years later after defeat by Davit Gobejishvili, but he earned his revenge over the Georgian in the 1992 Barcelona final to claim a second Games gold.
After his world titles in 1993 and 1995, Baumgartner was favourite to end his Olympic career with another home gold in Atlanta, but a loss to Russian Andrey Shumilin left him with a bronze medal.
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Nadia Comaneci
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1981 Universiade, Bucharest: Gymnastics gold in vault, floor exercise
Romania’s Nadia Comaneci made Olympic history at the 1976 Montreal Games when she became the first gymnast to earn a perfect 10 score, which she did during the team compulsory competition on the uneven bars. By the time those Games finished, the slight, dark-haired 14-year-old had added another six scores of 10 as she won gold in the beam and became the first gymnast from her country to win the individual all-around competition.
At the 1980 Moscow Olympics, Comaneci won gold on the beam and floor exercise. Her international career ended a year later as, taller and heavier than she had been in Montreal, she earned two 10 scores at the Universiade in Bucharest to huge home acclaim in what turned out to be her last championship appearance.
Comaneci graduated from the Politehnica University in Bucharest with a degree in Sports Education that qualified her to coach athletics. She defected to the United States in 1989. In 1996, she married US gymnast Bart Conner, a double gold medallist at the 1984 Olympics. The ceremony took place in Bucharest and was televised live throughout Romania.
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Alex Baumann
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1983 Universiade, Edmonton: Swimming, 200m individual medley, gold (2min 02.09sec, Championship record); 400m individual medley, gold (4:19.80, Championship and Commonwealth record); 200m freestyle, bronze (1:51.97)
Alex Baumann, in his prime, was described by a national broadcaster as "the greatest swimmer in Canadian history."
Had political disruption not affected his life, he might have become the greatest swimmer in Czech history, but the Soviet crackdown on liberal reforms in his native country in 1968 meant Baumann's family became part of a wave of emigrants - and a new life in Sudbury, Ontario soon provided new sporting opportunities.
Baumann began training at Laurentian University and by the time he was 17, in 1981, he had 38 Canadian swimming records and the world record in the 200 metres individual medley.
After earning a scholarship to Indiana University, the 6' 2" prodigy made a big splash at the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane, winning the 200m and 400m individual medley events, lowering his world record in the first event to 2min 02.25sec.
The following year offered him the ideal showcase for his stellar talents - a home Universiade, in Edmonton.
Baumann took his opportunity with a flourish, winning the 200m and 400m individual medley titles with ease.
In the shorter event he set a championship record of 2:02.29 ahead of silver medallist Oleksandr Sydorenko of the Soviet Union, who clocked 2:04.41. In the 400m individual medley he won in 4:19.80, a championship and Commonwealth record.
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Baumann’s nearest rival in the longer event, 200m freestyle gold medallist Bruce Hayes of the United States, clocked 4:26.05. Baumann had taken bronze behind him in the 200m freestyle.
His Edmonton exploits maintained Baumann’s momentum towards his crowning achievements at the following year’s Los Angeles Olympics, although there was personal tragedy for him to overcome as, in the run-up to the Games, his father died and his brother, Roman, committed suicide.
Baumann was selected as Canada's flagbearer for the Los Angeles 1984 Opening Ceremony.
He won gold in the 400m individual medley, setting a world-record time of 4:17.41, and the 200m individual medley, lowering the world mark to 2:01.42.
The 400m individual medley gold was Canada's first in Olympic swimming since 1912.
Baumann continued his swimming career with three gold medals at the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh.
Greg Louganis
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1983 Universiade, Edmonton: Diving gold at 3m springboard and 10m platform
Louganis is the only male and only the second diver in Olympic history to have swept the golds in consecutive Games, which he did in 1984 and 1988.
For many sports followers, however, he will be remembered more clearly for the horrendous accident during the preliminary competition at the 1988 Seoul Olympics when he was left with cuts and concussion after hitting his head on the end of the springboard. Louganis came through, however, responding with the highest single score of the qualifying round with his next effort.
His Universiade success came the year before the Los Angeles Olympics, in Edmonton, and he warmed up well by winning the 3m springboard and 10m platform golds. By then, Louganis, a longtime gay rights activist, was highly experienced, having won 10m platform silver at the 1976 Montreal Olympics at the age of 16 and 10m platform gold at the 1978 World Championships.
Favourite to win Olympic gold four years later, his chances were ended by the US boycott of the Moscow Games. Two years later he won the first of two world championship golden doubles at Guayaquil and Madrid, becoming the first diver in a major international meeting to get a perfect 10 score from all seven judges.
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Shelley Rudman
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2005 Winter Universiade, Innsbruck: Women’s skeleton gold
Victory in the women’s skeleton event at the 2005 Winter Universiade at Innsbruck in Austria prepared Britain’s Shelley Rudman for an unexpected Olympic flourish at the following year’s Winter Games in Turin.
But in order to take part in those Games, Rudman needed £4,000 ($5,100/€4,800) for a new sled, and her home town of Pewsey helped raise the money with a sponsored canoe event. Once in Turin - Rudman, who took up teaching after doing a BSc at St Mary’s College, Twickenham - was aiming for a top-10 finish, but after being fastest in practice, she took fourth place in her first run and claimed silver with second place in the final run.
Despite recording the fastest second run at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games, she only finished sixth. But her competitive standing took another huge upward jump in 2013 when she secured the world title before making a final Olympic appearance in Sochi the following year.
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Lee Sang-hwa
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2007 Winter Universiade, Turin: Speed skating gold at 500m. 2009 Winter Universaide, Harbin: Gold at 500m, bronze at 100m.
South Korean speed skater Lee established a winning pattern ahead of her consecutive 500m victories at the Vancouver 2010 and Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. At the 2007 and 2009 Winter Universiades, this hugely competitive athlete earned gold over the same distance.
Her exploits in Vancouver and Sochi meant her becoming the first woman since Canada's Catriona Le May Doan at the 2002 Games to defend her gold at the event. She also became the third woman to win back-to-back Olympic golds at the 500m, and was the first Korean to do so.
Lee established herself on the international scene with a bronze medal in the all-around competition at the 2005 World Junior Championships and another bronze, over 500m, at the World Championships. The world title over 500m was hers in 2012, 2013 and 2016.
She is also the 500m women’s world record holder thanks to her time of 36.36 set in Salt Lake City in 2013.
![South Korean speed skater Lee Sang-hwa is the two-time reigning Olympic champion in the women's 500m event ©Getty Images South Korean speed skater Lee Sang-hwa is the two-time reigning Olympic champion in the women's 500m event ©Getty Images](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/64683/o/Lee%20Sang-hwa.jpg)