Arthur Porritt, G-G of New Zealand, 1966-72, was an Olympic sprinter and was third in the 100m in 1924, the race memorialised by the film “Chariots of Fire”
How does Skeet feel about all of this?
Esther Williams didn’t get to go to the Olympics because the ones she qualified for are the 1940 ones. Does almost having her own movie genre compensate?
Prince Felipe of Spain took place in the 1992 Olympics (Soling-class sailboats) and carried the team’s flag; the previous flag-carrier was his sister Cristina (also sailing). Elena is president of the Spanish Paralympic Committee but doesn’t participate (any joke you can think of, we’ve already done). And Cristina’s sudden interest for handball several years ago was indeed linked to an interest in her husband, handball player Iñaki Urdangarín.
But only up to 1997.
I wonder why they bother at all with sex tests in equestrian as this is the only Olympic event where men and women compete on equal terms.
I think you have to distinguish between Olympians who independently achieved fame and Olympians who became famous due to their Olympic achievements.
Cathy Rigby, Sonia Henie, Johnny Weissmuller all became famous due to the Olympics, and parlayed that fame into a career. It helped that they competed in popular sports, Gymnastics, Skating, and Swimming.
Nobody is bridging the fame of competing in Judo or Rowing into a career, unless that career involves Judo or Rowing. You become famous after that, it’s a totally separate endeavor.
I wasn’t aware that men or women competed in the equestian events. It always looked to me like the horses were doing all the work.
Well Michael Jordan, who you all might remember as a minor league baseball player in the Chicago White Sox franchise, managed to win not one, but two gold medals in the 1984 and 1992 Olympics. In basketball of all things!
What year? I see he was a very skilled, perhaps National Champion, at the sport, but what year did he win the gold medal? I see no record of it, but I am no goofle-fu master.
The archery finals for the team were in my home-town, actually. Just missed the team.
He’s not exactly a celebrity, but Lord Philip Noel-Baker is a mighty interesting case:
As a young track star, he won a silver medal in the 1500 meter race at the 1912 Olympics.
Later, he served in Parliament, and became a leading spokesman for nuclear disarmament. That earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1959.
Also not exactly a celebrity, but Harald Bohr, brother of Nobel Prize winning physicist Niels Bohr, won a silver medal with the Danish football team in 1908 and became a prolific mathematician later on.
He never won Olympic gold, but he was quite prolific at the sport:
ETA: Skeet shooting wasn’t added to the Olympic program until 1968.
For the record, this is the database to check claims of being an Olympian.
“Bullet Bob” Hayes is the only Olympic Gold Medalist to win a Super Bowl ring.
Hayes and Jim Thorpe are the only gold medalists to be enshrined in the NFL Hall of Fame.
A.C. Gilbert, inventor of the erector set, won a gold medal in pole vault in 1908.
I was too busy playing with my erector set to shoot skeet.
You are surely going to hell because of that comment. I did laugh 
It’s interesting that the medals go to the rider in the Olympics, but in horse racing it’s the horse, not the jockey, who wins the Triple Crown (or doesn’t).
Scottish field hockey player Alastair Dennison is hardly a household name, but he was a major figure in cryptoanalysis for the British in both world wars. He got a bronze medal in 1908.
He was also in a few episodes of CHiPs one season when Erik Estrada (Ponch) was out due to a contract dispute.
Pierre Jalbert, the actor who played Caje on “Combat!”, was once Canada’s Junior and Senior National Ski Champion. In 1948, he was the captain of Canada’s Olympic Ski Team at St. Moritz, but unfortunately broke his leg in a fall during a practice run and never skied in the Games.
Actor Bruce Dern, a dedicated long-distance runner, tried out for the US Olympic Team in 1956 and 1964, but apparently didn’t make the cut. 