Olympic Champion Carl Lewis

There are a great many outstanding, memorable, and famous Olympic athletes, but right there in the top echelon is Carl Lewis. Carl Lewis is definitely, memorable and definitely a champion by anybody's standards!

Carl Lewis won 10 Olympic medals, and nine of them were gold medals. He also won 10 World Championship medals and eight of those were gold, too.Lewis won a lot of contests and set a lot of records in the long jump and the 100 meters, and he was very well known — some might say famous — in the rest of the world. But in the United States, track and field isn't big. It wasn't big then and it isn't big now, so most Americans had no idea who Lewis was. It didn't take long for them to find out.

As luck would have it, America was in for a real treat. The Olympic Games were held in Los Angeles, California, in 1984 and there was a champion waiting in the wings to make America proud — that champion was Carl Lewis.

Lewis, when asked what his goal in life was, said, "To become rich and famous." That's easier said than done, of course.

Lewis's main competitor and sometimes nemesis was the Canadian Ben Johnson. There was a lot of "talk" and many accusations exchanged. The competition between the two men could not be called "friendly."

At the 1988 Olympic Games, Ben Johnson narrowly beat Carl Lewis in the 100-meter final. After the race, Johnson said, "They can break my record, but they can't take my gold medal away." Johnson was wrong. They in fact did take his medal away three days later, when he tested positive for steroids, and Lewis was awarded the gold medal.