Lewis, Jackie stand tall amid Olympians

NEW YORK, DECEMBER 14: Carl Lewis equaled Paavo Nurmi's Olympic record of nine gold medals in track and field. He matched Jesse Owens' fou...

NEW YORK, DECEMBER 14: Carl Lewis equaled Paavo Nurmi’s Olympic record of nine gold medals in track and field. He matched Jesse Owens’ four golds at one Olympics, and he tied Al Oerter’s mark of four golds in the same event.

No one in history has made as significant an impact in such a high-profile Olympic sport. For that reason, Lewis was voted the greatest male summer Olympian of the century by a six-member panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press.

“It is a great honor,” Lewis said. “I’ve always felt very much more like an Olympic athlete than just a track athlete, and the successes I have had at the Olympics were much more important.”

Top 10 Olympians of century

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Men: 1 Carl Lewis (3) 55, 2 Paavo Nurmi (3) 53, 3 Emil Zatopek 42, 4 Jesse Owens 41, 5 Mark Spitz 26, 6 Al Oerter 21, 7 Abebe Bikila 12, 8 Jim Thorpe 10, 9 Paul Elvstrom 6, 10 Michael Johnson 5, 10 Naim Suleymanoglu 5, 10 Greg Louganis5.

Women: 1 Jackie Joyner-Kersee 47, 2 Fanny Blankers-Koen 45, 3 Larysa Latynina 38,4 Nadia Comaneci 32, 5 Vera Caslavska, 6 Irena Szewinska, 7 Dawn Fraser, 8 Wilma Rudolph, 9Abe Didrikson, 10 Florence Griffith Joyner (athletics).