Seven Golds, Seven World Records

Mark Spitz arrived in Munich already an Olympic medallist from 1968, but with a reputation for having underperformed against his own hype at those Games. In 1972 he entered seven events, four individual and three relays, and won every single one, setting a new world record in each race.

The sweep unfolded over eight days: golds in the 100m and 200m freestyle, the 100m and 200m butterfly, and the 4x100m freestyle, 4x200m freestyle, and 4x100m medley relays. No athlete had ever won seven gold medals at a single Olympics before, and the achievement was capped off just as the Munich Games were about to be overshadowed by the terrorist attack on Israeli athletes that followed days later.

Spitz's seven golds stood as the record for the most gold medals at a single Olympics for 36 years, until Michael Phelps won eight in Beijing in 2008. Spitz's Munich performance remains one of the benchmark individual achievements in Olympic history and made him one of the first American swimmers to become a genuine global celebrity.