Olympic Athletes

How do you pick Olympic GOATs? Is it gymnast Simone Biles or swimmer Michael Phelps? Or maybe it’s the entire 1992 basketball team. With so many sports, how do you choose? It comes down to stats, history, and hunches.

New York Times best-selling author Kevin Kruse presents the remarkable findings of his study of ultraproductive people. Based on survey research and interviews with billionaires, Olympic athletes, straight-A students, and over 200 entrepreneurs - including Mark Cuban, Kevin Harrington, James Altucher, John Lee Dumas, Pat Flynn, Grant Cardone, and Lewis Howes - Kruse answers the question: What are the secrets to extreme productivity?

Tia Toomey, the world’s fittest woman, has won the CrossFit Games an incredible six years in a row and is undeniably a true warrior. She has also trained for the Winter Olympics in bobsledding, competed in the Summer Olympics in weightlifting, and was a Commonwealth Games gold medalist. She is, in short, one of the most accomplished and dominant athletes in human history. But for Tia physical fitness is only a small part of overall strength. More important is building mental toughness.

The athletes competing in the 1960 Rome Olympics included some of the most honored in Olympic history: decathlete Rafer Johnson, sprinter Wilma Rudolph, Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila, and Louisville boxer Cassius Clay, who at 18 seized the world stage for the first time, four years before he became Muhammad Ali.

It’s a small world, but the world of elite soccer is even smaller. Saskia Dekker and Brandt Justice first cross paths as teenagers on an empty soccer pitch, their shared passion for the game sparking an undeniable connection. Over the next decade, they navigate professional careers on opposite continents, Olympic dreams, and fleeting encounters that intertwine their lives and pique their interest whether they want it to or not. After years overseas, Brandt returns to Las Vegas, eager to reconnect with his roots and join Las Vegas Neon FC once again. Saskia, once the heart of Neon’s ...

Heroes aren’t just the ones who bring home medals. Hero Redefined delves into the lesser-known stories of Olympic athletes—and a couple of special Olympic venues—that challenge the conventional narrative of glory and gold. In riveting personal profiles exploring herculean feats of strength, perseverance, and sportsmanship, award-winning sports journalist Doug Levy offers a new vision of heroism.

In Brave Enough, Jessie Diggins reveals the true story of her journey from the American Midwest into sports history. With candid charm and characteristic grit, she connects the dots from her free-spirited upbringing in the woods of Minnesota to racing in the bright spotlights of the Olympics. Going far beyond stories of races and ribbons, she describes the challenges and frustrations of becoming a serious athlete.

For years the world has followed his progress, from teen sensation in Sydney to bona fide phenom in Athens, and now as a living Olympic legend in Beijing with a peerless record of gold medals, more than any Olympic athlete throughout history. In No Limits, Michael Phelps - the greatest competitor we've seen since Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, or Lance Armstrong - will share with listeners the secrets to his remarkable success, from training to execution.

Oksana Masters was born in Ukraine—in the shadow of Chernobyl—seemingly with the odds stacked against her. She came into the world with one kidney, a partial stomach, six toes on each foot, webbed fingers, no right bicep, and no thumbs. Her left leg was six inches shorter than her right, and she was missing both tibias.

She fought for gold. Now, she fights for her life. Olympic champion Judith Rosner once had the world at her feet. But after Austria’s annexation by Nazi Germany, her victories no longer matter—only the fact that she is Jewish. Friends turn away, the Gestapo is closing in, and survival becomes her only goal. Hiding with a fearless woman who risks everything to protect the persecuted, Judith meets Koloss, a German deserter with nowhere left to run. But when the SS arrests their protector, the two must make a desperate escape. Their only hope? Switzerland—just across the treacherous ...

Ancient Olympia is not just the birthplace of the Olympic Games, it is also the origin of philosophical ideas that resonate even today. Combining the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle with the art, archaeology, and history of Ancient Olympia, this short book offers ancient Greek insight on the nature of sport, athletes, and human excellence, as well as the less-expected topics of women, beauty, fairness, and peace.

When “Renaissance runner” (New York Times) Alexi Pappas - Olympic athlete, actress, filmmaker, and writer - was four years old, her mother died by suicide, drastically altering the course of Pappas’s life and setting her on a search for female role models. When her father signed his bereaved daughter up for sports teams as a way to keep her busy, female athletes became the first women Pappas looked up to, and her Olympic dream was born. At the same time, Pappas had big creative dreams, too: She wanted to make movies, write, and act.

In the high-stakes world of elite Olympic training, Adrian Knight is focused, disciplined, and determined to win gold. Nothing will distract him—not even Luca Bugatti, his devastatingly handsome Italian rival whose every move ignites a fire Adrian struggles to deny. When a training camp roommate assignment places Adrian face-to-face with Luca, their fierce rivalry transforms into an undeniable attraction neither can resist. Luca is everything Adrian shouldn't want: cocky, arrogant, and dangerously seductive. Yet every heated glance, every provocative touch, threatens to unravel Adrian's ...

In 1975, a group of amazing women rowed their way to international success and glory, battling sexual prejudice, bureaucracy, and male domination. Among the members of the first international women's crew team - and one of the first women's teams anywhere - were Gail Pearson, the soft-spoken MIT professor who fought to win the political battles necessary for her team to succeed; lead rower Carie Graves, a statuesque bohemian from rural Wisconsin who dropped out of college and later became the most intense rower of the crew; and Lynn Stillman, a tiny 16-year-old, Californian coxswain.

On September 5, 1972, eight Palestinian terrorists belonging to the Black September faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) entered the Olympic Village in Munich, West Germany, and took 11 Israeli athletes and team members hostage. After a lengthy standoff and a bungled rescue operation, all 11 were killed. While today, Israel is one of the most divisive political subjects across the world, the Munich Massacre and the Israeli operations in response all came about entirely because of the emotional power inherent in the Israeli-Arab conflict.

CeCé Telfer is a warrior. The first openly transgender woman to win an NCAA championship, she has contended with transphobia on and off the track since childhood. Now, she stands at the crossroads of a national and international conversation about equity in sports, forced to advocate for her personhood and rights at every turn. After spending years training for the 2024 Olympics, Telfer has been sidelined and silenced more times than she can count. But she's never been good at taking no for an answer. Make It Count is Telfer's raw and inspiring story.

The story of an Olympic wrestler allegedly murdered by the wealthy heir to the Du Pont fortune, Blood Money takes listeners inside the bizarre world of a multi-millionaire, and lays bare the brutal shooting and tense police siege that riveted the nation.

He did knight in shining trisuit like he did everything else—like a champ. But could she trust him? Matilda O’Loughlin has three goals in life: win a medal at the Olympics, scare off the guys her dad tries to set her up with, and keep her crush on her family’s nemesis, Randall “Randy” Escott a secret. With just four months to the Olympics, she’s on track to miss all three. But she isn’t a quitter, and hating Randy Escott should be easy. Randall Escott has one goal in life: to win gold, especially at this year’s Olympic Games. But acting like the villain—The Bad Boy of ...

“ Our son Todd was once asked which coach he admired most in Jr High, High School and as a College Athlete; without hesitation he immediately said Coach Sepulveda. (Notice not his dad.) However I totally agree with Todd.” -Gary Hveem Athletic Director Rio Rancho. “Coach Sepulveda is definitely on the top five of most admired men in my life.” -Scott Hutt Tiger Track 1972. “Everything I do in track and field as a coach; from organization to training of athletes, I learned from my years with Coach Bob Sepulveda.” -Dale Lindley, Coach Chaparral Junior High “I can think of no ...

Tia Toomey, the world's fittest woman, has won the CrossFit Games an incredible six years in a row and is undeniably a true warrior. She has also trained for the Winter Olympics in bobsledding, competed in the Summer Olympics in weightlifting and was a Commonwealth Games gold medalist. She is, in short, one of the most accomplished and dominant athletes in human history. But for Tia physical fitness is only a small part of overall strength. More important is building mental toughness. In The Heart Is the Strongest Muscle, Tia shows how she reached elite levels by focusing on her "why."