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Inspiring Athletes

Ruth Riley won’t be a member of the U.S. Women’s Basketball Team at the Olympics in London this year, but watching some of her close friends and former teammates (i.e. Tamika Catchings, Sue Bird, Swin Cash and Diane Taurasi) from the 2004 Olympics in Athens brings back fond memories of her brush with Olympic glory.…

She was the de facto leader of the “Magnificent Seven,” the 1996 U.S. Olympic women’s gymnastics team that won the first gold medal in the Team Competition. And with a combined 21 medals from the Olympics, World Championships and Pan American Games, Shannon Miller is still the most decorated American gymnast of all time. In…

Heading into the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Dave Johnson had a plan. After finishing ninth at the 1988 Games in Seoul, the decathlete continued to move up the ranks and was considered the odds on favorite to win gold. But then Dan O’Brien showed up and shook things up. Things only went crazier from…

Until 2008, only five American men had won the Olympic gold medal in the iconic decathlon event: Jim Thorpe (1912), Bob Mathias (1948 and 1952), Rafer Johnson (1960), Bruce Jenner (1976) and Dan O’Brien (1996). That all changed four years ago in Beijing when Bryan Clay added his name to that impressive list. Clay had…

David Boudia (pronounced boh-DIE-uh) qualified for his first international diving competition at the age of 15 and hasn’t looked back since. But at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Boudia failed to win a medal in both the individual and synchro events leaving the platform specialist feeling unfulfilled and empty. Two years later, as a sophomore…

Growing up in a rough East Saint Louis neighborhood, Dawn Harper knows something about overcoming the odds. But her natural leaping ability and speed put her on the proverbial fast track to follow in the footsteps of another hometown hero—Jackie Joyner-Kersee. While not many expected much from her in Beijing four years ago, Harper again…

For the past 10 years, Jonathan Horton has been a steady force within the international gymnastics community. Horton has collected seven gold medals at the U.S. National Championships, three gold medals at the World Cup and he brought home a silver and bronze medal from Beijing after his first appearance in the Summer Olympics. In…

Lauren Cheney has experienced the indescribable high of 2008 Olympic gold, the devastating low of falling short at the 2011 World Cup and everything in between. That wide range of emotion has both tested and strengthened her relationship with God. In this Inspiring Athletes interview, the USA Women’s Soccer star talks about how she fell…

Before there was the X-Games, there was Christian Hosoi. If you don’t understand the cultural relevance of that statement, just ask some of his skateboarding contemporaries like Tony Hawk, who once stated that Hosoi skated “in a way you wished you could, but knew you would never achieve,” and more recent stars like Danny Way…

At the University of Oklahoma, Courtney Paris was one of the most dominant women’s basketball players this side of the 21st Century. She was the first freshman to be named to the AP All-American team (2006) and ultimately became the first four-time First Team All-American in women’s basketball history. But her WNBA career has been…
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