Amy Van Dyken
In 1996, Amy Van Dyken wrote history by becoming the first female athlete to capture four gold medals during a single Olympic Games. Her incredible feat made her ESPN’s Female Athlete of the Year, as well as becoming the youngest inductee in several Sports and Swimming Halls of Fame. She’d return to the Olympic stage in 2000, taking home an additional two gold medals.
Following a controversial meeting between Amy and a Dutch rival, she retired from competitive swimming. Amy would later become a co-host in a morning radio show in Phoenix but resigned to return to her home in Denver. In 2014, she sustained a pretty nasty injury that severed her spinal cord, leaving her permanently paralyzed from the waist down.