Ray Ewry

Ray Ewry was an American track and field athlete who won eight gold medals at the Olympic Games and two more at the 1906 Intercalated Games in Athens, which puts him among the most successful Olympians of all time. Born in Lafayette, Indiana, he contracted polio as a boy and used a wheelchair, but he overcame the illness through his own exercises. He attended Purdue University, earned a degree in mechanical engineering and worked as a hydraulics engineer in New York, competing for the New York Athletic Club. He specialized in the standing jumps, the standing high jump, the standing long jump and the standing triple jump, winning all three at the 1900 Paris Games, defending them in 1904, and continuing to win the two remaining events in 1908.