Taking it to the Limit Trivia Quiz

Answer: Daley Thompson

Daley Thompson originally wanted to play football/soccer but switched to track and field events. Besides winning two Olympic decathlons, he broke four Olympic decathlon records, won three Commonwealth decathlon titles and won the World and European championships.

Daniel Awde is a British decathlete who competed in the 2008 Summer Olympics and began to compete in the 2012 games but withdrew early due to a knee injury.

Answer: Florence Griffith Joyner

Olympic athletes know that their gold medal performance often means that they were the best in the world on that particular day and someone could be faster tomorrow. In the XXIV Olympiad in Seoul, Korea, however, Florence Griffith Joyner set records in the women's 100 and 200 meter dashes that held up into the next century. In one of the ironies that sometimes attends elite athletes, Griffith Joyner died in her sleep in 1998, at age 38, of an epileptic seizure.

Answer: Mohamed Farah

Born in Somalia in 1983, Mohamed Farah moved to Britain at age 8. Besides taking the gold in the 5,000 meter and 10,000 meter races in the 2012 Olympics in London, Farah won several British, European and World titles. Not content with those, he expressed a desire to someday be a marathon runner.

Answer: Carl Lewis

Carl Lewis is the man with the impressive medal count. From 1984 to 1996 he won medals in Los Angeles, Seoul, Barcelona and Atlanta in the 100 meter, 200 meter, 4x100 relay races and long jump. The International Olympic Committee named him "Sportsman of the Century".

Answer: Paavo Nurmi

Dubbed "The Flying Finn", Paavo Nurmi was a Finnish middle and long distance runner. From Antwerp in the 1920 Olympics to Amsterdam in 1928 he took home 9 gold and 3 silver medals. Despite winning 5 gold medals at the 1924 Paris Olympics we was upset because Finnish officials would not let him enter the 10,000 meter race!

Answer: Jessica Ennis-Hill

The women's pentathlon (5 events) was replaced by the heptathlon in the 1984 Olympics by adding the javelin throw and shot put. The 2012 gold medalist was Jessica Ennis-Hill of Great Britain. Born in 1986, she had won medals at Commonwealth, European and World games and championships since 2004.

Answer: Jackie Joyner-Kersee

With a brother who was an Olympic gold medalist, American Jackie Joyner-Kersee has her own impressive winning record. Besides those mentioned in the question she also placed second in the heptathlon at the 1984 Olympics and won bronze medals in the long jump in 1992 and 1996.

Answer: Jesse Owens

Jesse Owens was an American sprinter and long jumper. He won 4 gold medals at the Berlin Olympics in the 100 meter and 200 meter dashes, the long jump and as a member of the 4x100 relay team. It was a very politically-charged Olympics with the Nazis wanting to show their "racial superiority". Not only did Owens win the gold medal in the 100 but Ralph Metcalfe, another African-American, won the silver medal. Asked once about his formula for running Owens said: "I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible".

Answer: Usain Bolt

Usain "Lightning" Bolt is a Jamaican sprinter and holder of several world titles. At the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China, he set a world record in winning the 100 meter dash, with a time of 9.69 seconds. He might have been faster but he slowed down near the finish to celebrate; and his shoe was untied. At the 2012 London Olympics he bettered his record with a time of 9.63 seconds in the 100 meter race and also won the 200 meter and the 4x100 meter relay, as he had done in Beijing.

Answer: Jim Thorpe

Jim Thorpe attended the Carlisle, Pennsylvania Indian School. His athletic career started when he walked onto the playing field during a high jump practice one day and beat the regular team members, while still in his street clothes. Besides the decathlon, he won the pentathlon at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden. Because of strict amateur rules in effect at the time, Thorpe's medals were rescinded because he had played baseball semi-professionally for two summers prior to the Olympics.

After his Olympic career, he played professional baseball, football, and basketball. In 1983, his amateur status before the Stockholm Olympics was restored, as were his medals - 30 years after his death.