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Tom Bryant: Kerri Strug, the unheralded member of the United States gymnastics team, produces a vault of pure grit to end Russia's domination
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Rob Bagchi: Hard work in an unheated garage turned Allan Wells into a champion when he defied the Olympic boycott request
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Simon Burnton: Briton won gold in 1960 by acclimatising for Rome's heat in his parents' tiny, steam-filled bathroom
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Simon Burnton: Chastened by past failure and buoyed by a huge ego, Mark Spitz won seven gold medals in Munich
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Rob Bagchi: The Great Britain team captain Linford Christie went one better than his silver in 1988
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Rob Bagchi: Wilma Rudolph overcame polio to show 'the potential for greatness lives within us all'
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Rob Bagchi: Injury and illness had knocked Kelly Holmes off course, but it all finally came together in six glorious days
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Simon Burnton: Six of the eight 100m finalists at Seoul 1988 have been implicated in doping at some point in their careers
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Ian McCourt: Against a backdrop of violence, Mary Peters defeated age and the home favourite to unite Northern Ireland
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Simon Burnton: In feat after astonishing feat at the 1924 Olympics, Paavo Nurmi won without any apparent exertion
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Simon Burnton: The barefoot Zola Budd was given the chance to compete but a dream turned to disaster
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Barney Ronay: Michael Johnson made history and became the only man to win both the Olympic 400m and 200m
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Simon Burnton: Dick Fosbury gave his name to a technique that changed the discipline for ever. In 1968 he struck gold
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Sachin Nakrani: Ann Packer is in an elite group of British women who have won Olympic gold in track and field
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Simon Burnton: Munich 72 was supposed to wipe out memories of Berlin in 1936. Instead they turned to horror
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Rob Bagchi: As David Coleman put it, Hemery 'killed' his rivals to win the 400m hurdles in record time at Mexico in 1968
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Simon Martin: 24 years after his country's capital was conquered by Italy, Ethiopia's Abebe Bikila ran barefoot into history
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Simon Burnton: Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett, middle-distance rivals, had raced only once on the track before
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Simon Burnton: The American went from bank clerk, hair stylist and average sprinter to world-record breaker
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Rob Bagchi: The Briton had won gold – and ruffled feathers – at Moscow in 1980 but that was nothing compared to LA
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Simon Burnton: How Greg Louganis, the scared boy with a phobia, overcame his fears and became a world beater
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Sachin Nakrani: The world record holder arrived in Greece as favourite but heat and cramp ended her dream
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Simon Burnton: An infamous case of Olympic sporting skulduggery came in the modern pentathlon event at the Montreal Games in 1976
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Evan Fanning: The light-heavyweight from Louisville who would. become Muhammad Ali demolished Ziggy Pietrzykowski to start on the road to fame
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Simon Burnton: Dorando Pietri lost the race but won the hearts after he was disqualified from the marathon in 1908
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Rob Bagchi: Amid a storm of adversity Britain's relay team caused the biggest upset in history by winning gold in Athens
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John Ashdown: At Seoul 1988 the US light middleweight suffered one of the worst injustices when judges awarded gold to South Korea
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Simon Burnton: Tommie Smith and John Carlos donned black gloves and gave the Black Power salute on the podium in Mexico in 1968
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Marcus Christenson: The 42-year-old German Birgit Fischer returned three years after retiring in an attempt to win gold, 24 years after her first
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Barry Glendenning: The Equatorial Guinea swimmer had never dipped a toe in an Olympic pool but left a hero
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Rob Bagchi: The Dutchwoman demolished prejudices about gender, age and motherhood and inspired millions in 1948
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John Ashdown: As her country's foremost Aboriginal athlete and sole track and field medal hope, the sprinter carried a unique burden in 2000
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Simon Burnton: A true amateur, he never intended to fill more than a few years as an athlete before he was ready to become a missionary
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Simon Burnton: There was much more than a place in an Olympic final at stake when Hungary took on the country that just invaded their own
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John Ashdown: The inspirational athlete blazed a trail at the Berlin Olympics, the like of which had never been seen before
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Simon Burnton: The 14-year-old Romanian became a global star at Montreal in 1976, achieving perfection and crowning a golden era
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Rob Bagchi: It took four men to win it but, naturally, the focus was all on the man who won his fifth gold in successive Games by a whisker
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Simon Burnton: This moment at the 1992 Games brought into focus an athlete's desperation and a more universal theme: parenthood
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Rob Bagchi: As great sporting 'Blimey!' moments go, the shattering of the long jump world record in 1968 is at the pinnacle
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Sean Ingle: The cold war. An unbeaten US team against a battle-hardened USSR squad. A bitter denouement. And an anger that still lingers
