The most famous Olympian from every state
Dmitri Lovetsky/AP
- Every state has sent homegrown talent to the Olympics at some point in history.
- Michael Phelps, the most successful Olympian ever, was born in Baltimore, Maryland.
- Simone Biles, who was born in Columbus, Ohio, has won four gold medals in gymnastics.
Nearly every state is represented at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Team USA is composed of 315 women and 279 men from a total of 46 states, according to an analysis by the US Census.
California has the most Olympic athletes this year — an incredible 20 percent of Team USA are from the Golden State — while Florida and Texas sent the second and third most.
California's dominance in the games can be attributed in part to its "strong college sporting culture," Newsweek reported, with Stanford University alone producing 38 athletes in this year's Team USA. California also has the most residents of any state.
But throughout history, every state has sent athletes to the Olympics, and of those, some have smashed world records, broken medal counts, and had memorable performances that have gone down in history.
Here are the most famous Olympians from every state.
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Track-and-field athlete Jesse Owens, who was born in Oakville, Alabama, won four gold medals — 100 meters, 200 meters, long jump, and the 4x100-meter relay — at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He became the first man to break the 8-meter mark, according to the Olympics, in the long jump with 8.13 meters, a record that held for 25 years. His incredible performances came as Europe teetered on the brink of World War II.
"When Owens finished competing, the African-American son of a sharecropper and the grandson of slaves had single-handedly crushed Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy," ESPN's Larry Schwartz reported.
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This year's Olympics saw 17-year-old Lydia Jacoby take a surprise gold in the women's 100-meter breaststroke — it was such an upset that she even shocked herself. She also won silver in the women's 4x100-meter medley relay. She is not competing at the Olympics in 2024.
As Business Insider's Scott Davis reported, Jacoby is from Seward, Alaska, where there isn't an Olympic pool nearby. In fact, there is only one in the entire state.
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Strug, who was born and raised in Tucson, was just 18 when she went to the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Famously, despite an excruciating ankle injury, Strug earned 9.721 on her final attempt at the vault, a score that ensured her team took home the gold, per History.com.
"I had a lot of talent and I worked really hard. But mentally, whenever all eyes were on me, I'd kind of falter," Strug told ABC News in 2006. "And so the vault signifies a lot more to me personally than a lot of what the public realizes, because in my final international competition at the Olympic Games, it doesn't get any bigger than that."
In 2021, in light of gymnast Simone Biles withdrawing from some events, some fans saw Strug's historic moment in a different light.
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As well as his six NBA championship titles with the Chicago Bulls, Hamburg-born Pippen is a two-time Olympic gold medalist.
He won his first while on the original 1992 Dream Team in Barcelona — a team that also included Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, and Larry Bird. His second gold was in Atlanta in 1996, per the Olympics.
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California has produced some of the most successful Olympian swimmers of all time, including Dara Torres and Natalie Coughlin — the winners of 12 medals each — and Mark Spitz and Matt Biondi, who each won 11. It has also produced medal-winning Winter Olympians, such as Chloe Kim, who became the youngest woman to win an Olympic snowboarding medal in 2018 — she was just 17 when she won the halfpipe event.
But perhaps the most famous Olympian from the Golden State is Shaun White. As reported by the Olympics, the San Diego native won his first gold for the halfpipe in 2006, when he was 19, and his most recent in 2018, when he was 31. He returned to Beijing for his fifth — and final — Olympics, but he missed out on winning a record fourth gold medal in the halfpipe, ultimately placing fourth, per the Olympics.
He's also won 10 ESPY Awards, including the award for best male Olympian in 2018, per the ESPYs.
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The swimmer, who was born in Englewood in 1973, won the four gold medals in 1996 for the 50-meter freestyle, 100-meter butterfly, 4x100-meter freestyle relay, 4x100-meter medley relay, per her Olympics bio. She won two more gold medals in Sydney in 2000 and, after retiring from the sport that year, she became a national sports talk radio host.
In 2014, she was riding an ATV in Arizona when she went over a curb and fell from a 6-foot cliff. As reported by USA Today, which cited the Associated Press, the accident severed her spine and left her paralyzed from the waist down.
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The US Olympic Hall of Fame calls Lilly, who is from Wilton, "one of the most legendary and accomplished athletes in women's soccer history."
Nicknamed "Queen of Caps," she played 354 international games for the US, a record for any male or female player, as reported by The Guardian. She played at three Olympics, winning gold in 1996 and 2004 and silver in 2000, per her Olympics bio.
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Delle Donne, a two-time WNBA MVP, won gold in 2016, when the US women's team captured their sixth consecutive gold medal. After scoring more than 100 points in six of their eight games in 2016, the team also became the most prolific scoring team ever, according to Team USA.
"Is this real life?" Delle Donne said after they won, The News Journal reported. "Just taking it all in, like 'Oh my goodness. Somebody pinch me. Did this really happen?'"
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Dressel, who was born in Green Cove Springs, won gold in the men's 100-meter butterfly, the 100-meter freestyle, the 50-meter freestyle, the 4x100-meter medley relay, and the 4x100-meter freestyle relay, per the Olympics. He won two team gold medals at the 2016 Olympics.
In Tokyo, he beat his own world record in the 100-meter butterfly, with a time of 49.45 seconds, to win his first individual gold at the Olympics. NBC commentator Rowdy Gaines — another Florida-born swimmer who won three gold medals at the 1984 Olympics — could not contain his joy.
"HE DID IT!" Gaines said. "YES, SIR!"
With his three teammates, Dressel also set a new world record of 3:26.78 in the men's 4x100-meter medley relay.
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Elana Meyers Taylor was born in California but grew up in Douglasville, Georgia. She initially had her heart set on joining the USA's softball team, but after what she called "the worst tryout ever in the history of tryouts," she turned her attention to bobsledding instead. She won bronze in 2010 and took home silver medals in 2014 and 2018, according to her Olympics bio.
She also competed in Beijing, after initially having to isolate due to testing positive for COVID-19. She ultimately won silver in a new event, the women's monobob, and bronze in the two-woman bobsled event.
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Duke Kahanamoku is considered the father of modern surfing. He won a total of five Olympic medals in swimming from 1912 to 1924, then transitioned into Hollywood stardom as an actor, per IMDb. He is immortalized as a bronze statue at Waikiki Beach in his birthplace of Honolulu, according to Hawaii's tourism agency.
In 2021, Hawaii saw another medal-winning surfer: Carissa Moore, who was also born in Honolulu, won the first ever women's gold medal in surfing at the Tokyo Olympics, according to her bio. She's back in Paris for the 2024 Games.
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Picabo Street was born in Triumph, Idaho, according to Britannica. She won a silver medal in downhill skiing at the 1994 Olympics. After recovering from a knee injury, she took home the gold medal in the Super-G slalom event at the 1998 Games, per her Olympics bio, becoming one of the most well-known downhill skiers in the US and the world.
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Nicknamed "America's Sweetheart," Dorothy Hamill invented figure skating moves such as the "Hamill Camel," according to Team USA. She won the 1976 figure skating World Championships in addition to her Olympic gold that same year, according to her Olympics bio.
Hamill was born in Chicago, Illinois.
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Jaycie Phelps helped bring Team USA to victory in 1996 at the Olympics in Atlanta with her uneven bar skills. She also had a vault named after her called the "Phelps vault," according to her speaker page.
Phelps was born in Indianapolis, Indiana.
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Lolo Jones was born in Des Moines, Iowa. She competed in the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics in track and field and the 2014 Winter Olympics in bobsledding.
In a 2012 interview with HBO's "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel," Jones said, "Harder than training for the Olympics, harder than graduating college has been trying to stay a virgin for marriage." The revelation sparked public interest in her career and personal life.
She later told Kevin Hart on his "Cold as Balls" series that being so candid about remaining abstinent until marriage "was a mistake."
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Sprinter Maurice Greene is a four-time medalist, two of which are gold, according to his Olympics bio. According to USATF, he set the world record in the 100-meter dash in 1999 at 9.79 seconds, and he held the record until Jamaican sprinter Asafa Powell broke it in 2005 with 9.77 seconds. The record is now held by Usain Bolt at 9.58 seconds.
Since retiring, Greene has appeared on television shows such as "Dancing With the Stars," "To Tell the Truth," and "Hell's Kitchen," according to IMDb. He was born in Kansas City, Kansas.
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Muhammad Ali was born Cassius Clay in Louisville, Kentucky.
He competed in the 1960 Olympics in Rome and won a gold medal in his fight against three-time European champion Zbigniew Pietrzykowski, per the Olympics. He went on to become one of the most famous boxers in the world, as well as an activist and philanthropist.
Ali also served as the final torch bearer at the 1996 Olympics, and he carried the Olympic flag into the opening ceremony in 2012.
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Carly Patterson was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In addition to her individual all-around gold medal, she helped win silver for Team USA at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
According to her IMDb profile, Patterson has also appeared as herself in the gymnastics movie "Stick It" and TV shows such as "Extreme Makeover" and "Celebrity Duets."
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Crocker, who is from Portland, Maine, was a member of the US teams that set world records in the 400-meter relay during the 2000 and 2004 Olympics, according to Team USA. Crocker also set three world records in 100-meter butterfly events until his teammate Michael Phelps broke the record in 2009.
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Michael Phelps was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He dominates the record for most Olympic gold medals with 23 wins — more than double any other athlete.
With a wingspan of 6 feet and 7 inches, Phelps has the optimal body type for swimming, The Telegraph reported. He competed in his first Olympics at age 15 but didn't win any medals. In each of his next four Olympics, he became the most decorated athlete.
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Raisman is a six-time medalist and two-time Olympian. At the 2012 Olympics in London, she was the most decorated American gymnast. She is also the second-most decorated Olympic gymnast in US history behind Shannon Miller, who has seven Olympic medals.
Raisman has spoken publicly about the abuse she and her team suffered at the hands of USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar from the time she was 15 years old. She announced she was retiring from the sport in January 2020. Since then, she's been a vocal advocate of mental health and healing from past traumas.
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The pair, who were both born and raised in Michigan, were teamed up together in 1997 and went on to compete in two Olympics. They were the first American ice dancers to win gold in an Olympic competition, The Washington Post reported.
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Though famed Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn grew up in Vail, Colorado, she was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is one of the most decorated skiers in history and the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in the downhill skiing event, per NPR. Vonn retired from the sport in 2019.
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Born in Sand Hill, Mississippi, Bowie won gold in the 4 x 100-meter relay, silver in the 100-meter, and bronze in the 200-meter, according to her Olympics bio. She was also the 2017 100-meter world champion.
She died in May 2023, at the age of 32, from complications of childbirth, CNN reported, citing her autopsy report. She was reportedly believed to be eight months pregnant.
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He competed in the men's 4 x 400-meter relay for the United States. Born in St. Louis, the Olympian didn't start competing in track until his senior year of high school.
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Bergoust grew up in Missoula, Montana, and was inspired by a television show to get into freestyle aerial ski jumping, according to the US Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame. He went on to win three national championships, the World Cup Championship, World Championship, and an Olympic gold medal before retiring in 1996.
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Born in Fremont, Nebraska, Jordan Larson has been a member of the US women's indoor volleyball team since 2009 and competed in three Olympics. When her team won the silver medal in the 2012 Olympic Games in London, she started all eight matches.
In 2021, Team USA — led by Larson — took home the gold. She's also competing in Paris this year.
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Palmer only took up diving at the age of 20, Today.com reported. At 29, the Carson City native won bronze for the women's 3-meter springboard at the 2020 Olympics (held in 2021 following a delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic). The last time a female diver from the US won an Olympic medal was in 2000, when Laura Wilkinson took home gold, Swimming World Magazine reported.
Palmer was also a member of the 2018 World Cup team and won a bronze medal in the mixed team event. She was also the 2019 national champion in the 3-meter synchro event.
She is not returning to the Olympics in Paris.
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Pitou won two silver medals at the 1960 Olympics, according to her bio. Born in Bayside, Queens, her family moved to Center Harbor, New Hampshire, when she was just 3 years old.
In high school, she tried out for the boy's skiing team by wearing a hat to disguise her gender, as reported by the Laconia Daily Sun. At 17, she was selected for the US Olympic ski team.
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Lipinski was born in Pennsylvania but spent her early years in New Jersey. She had a highly successful skating career and was the youngest skater to win the World Professional Figure Skating Championships, according to her website.
She went on to provide commentary for professional skating competitions. She was NBC's Olympic skating commentator for the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, alongside Johnny Weir.
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Umphrey, who was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, competed in the 1996 Olympics on the men's gymnastics team, leading them to a fifth place finish — the best showing the team had had since the 1984 Games.
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According to History.com, Jenner set a world record and earned a gold medal with 8,617 points in the decathlon, which consists of 10 track and field events, including pole vault, long jump, 100 meter race, discus, and javelin.
Of course, Jenner is now best known for her relationship to the Kardashian-Jenners, including her time on "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," and for coming out as transgender in 2015. But before reality TV, Jenner was one of the world's greatest athletes.
And even before that, Jenner was just a kid growing up in Mount Kisco, New York.
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Jordan, who grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina, appeared in two Olympics, per his bio. First, in 1984 at the Los Angeles games before he became a professional NBA player. Then, famously at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics as part of the "Dream Team."
The Dream Team consisted of Jordan, Patrick Ewing, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, Scottie Pippen, Karl Malone, and more. They easily dominated the competition, and were called "the greatest collection of basketball talent on the planet."
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The Lamoureux sisters competed in three Olympic games together: the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, the 2014 Sochi Olympics, and the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, according to the Olympics bios. They retired in 2021, ahead of the Beijing Games.
At their first two appearances, they earned silver medals with the team, but in Pyeongchang, the two sisters pulled out a win in the final game, per SB Nation — Monique scored a goal to secure a tie, and then Jocelyne scored the winning shoot-out goal.
The twins grew up in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
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Biles, who was born in Columbus, Ohio, has been said to essentially be competing against herself — that's how far ahead she is of everyone else in her sport.
She made her first Olympics appearance in Rio in 2016 and took home five medals, and she made history at the 2020 Olympic Trials when she won, becoming the only woman in history to do so twice, Newsweek reported at the time.
The Tokyo Olympics were a little rockier — Biles withdrew from five events, citing her mental health and the "twisties," a condition where gymnasts experience a feeling of getting lost in the air. However, she made a triumphant return to the balance beam event, where she won bronze. She also headed home with a silver medal in the team competition.
She's also competing in Paris this year.
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Miller also won seven medals: two golds, two silvers, and two bronze.
Miller appeared at two Olympic Games: 1992 in Barcelona and 1996 in Atlanta. But before all that, she grew up in Edmond, Oklahoma.
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Harding performed at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville and the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer before getting banned from the sport entirely in June 1994 due to her role in an attack on fellow ice skater Nancy Kerrigan — you can watch "I, Tonya" for the details.
But before her ice skating career ended, Harding was prolific. ESPN reported she was the first American woman to successfully land a triple axel in competition, and the second woman ever.
Harding was born and raised in Portland, Oregon.
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Bryant was born in Philadelphia and went to high school in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, before moving out west to play for the Los Angeles Lakers for 20 years, cementing his legacy as one of the greatest players of all time.
During that time, Bryant also led the US men's basketball team to its first gold medal in eight years in 2008, and then another one in 2012, before retiring from the national team, per his Olympics bio.
Jayson Tatum wore Bryant's number, 10, at the 2020 Olympics to honor the basketball legend after his death in January 2020.
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Beisel, who hails from Saunderstown, Rhode Island, appeared in three Olympics before retiring. She medaled at the 2012 Olympics in London, earning a silver medal for the 400-meter individual relay and a bronze for the 200-meter backstroke, per her Olympics bio.
In 2021, instead of competing in Tokyo, she became the first woman to swim the 10.4-mile trip from Rhode Island's mainland to Block Island, CBS News reported. She also competed on season 39 of "Survivor" in 2019.
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The South Carolina native made it to the 1964 Olympics held in Tokyo, where he took home the gold medal in heavyweight boxing, besting Germany's Hans Huber.
He'd later be the reigning heavyweight champion of the world from 1970 to 1973, and was the first boxer to ever defeat Muhammad Ali in what was called the "Fight of the Century" in 1971, as reported by The New York Times.
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At the 1964 Olympics, Australian Ron Clarke was widely expected to be the winner of the 10,000-meter race, as he held the world record. On the other hand, Mills, who grew up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, was a nobody. In fact, an announcer introduced Mills at the game as, "Billy Mills of the United States is in there — a man no one expects to win this particular event."
But in a huge upset, Mills broke from the pack at the last second and won the race, beating the record holder. He became an instant superstar.
"The tape breaks across my chest," Mills told NPR in 2020, as he retold the story. "'I won. I won. I won.' An official came up and said, 'Who are you?' And I said, 'Oh, my God, did I miscount the laps?' He said, 'Finished. Finished. You're the new Olympic champion.'"
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Armstrong is from Memphis, Tennessee and went on to participate in three consecutive Olympics between 2008 and 2016 as a cyclist. She earned three gold medals throughout those years and became the most decorated American female in her sport, according to her website.
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At the 2016 Olympics in Rio, Manuel made history when she won the 100-meter freestyle, the first Black woman to do so, per USA Swimming. The Sugar Land, Texas, native has won two gold medals and two silver medals.
In 2021, as co-captain of the US women's team, she added a bronze medal to her list of achievements for the women's 4x100-meter freestyle relay. However, after being diagnosed with overtraining syndrome, she failed to add any individual medals. Still, she's far from defeated.
"A victory is not giving up. I had the courage to go out there and try and possibly fail," she said, the Associated Press reported. "I've learned so much about myself. What I do know is that I'm a fighter."
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Just after turning 13, Poynton-Hill won an Olympic silver medal after diving from the springboard at the 1928 Olympic Games. At the time, she became the youngest Olympic medalist and returned for two more Olympics.
At the end of her career, she had earned two gold medals, one silver, and one bronze.
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Clark — a West Dover, Vermont, native — first went to the Olympics in 2002 and won gold. She returned to the games four more times, earning two more bronze medals. Although she is now retired, she is still considered the best in her sport.
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At the 2012 games in London, Douglas made history when she won the individual all-around event, cementing her place in Olympic history, according to the Olympics website.
The Newport News native returned for the 2016 Olympic games in Rio — which was unheard of at the time — and scored another gold medal with her team, which became known as the "Final Five."
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Ohno started his career in speed skating at just 14 and entered the Olympics for the first time in 2002, according to the Olympics website. He returned two more times and earned a total of two gold medals, two silver, and four bronze.
After his Olympic career, Ohno won "Dancing With the Stars" in 2007 and went on to become a best-selling author.
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Retton — a Fairmont, Virginia, native — only participated in one Olympic Games, but it catapulted her into superstardom. When she entered the games in 1984, she was known as America's sweetheart and then made history as the first American woman to win the individual all-around competition. At those games, she also won two silver medals and two bronze medals.
After the Olympics, Retton was the face of a cereal brand, appeared in a few TV shows, and her hometown even named a street and a park after her.
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Heiden first went to the Olympics in 1976, but the speed skater's return in 1980 is what put him down in history. In all five races that year, he won gold and set an Olympic record, per the Olympics.
Hailing from Madison, Wisconsin, Heiden became the first person in Olympic history to win five gold medals in one year and win every race that was available to him.
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In 2000, Gardner won his match against Russia's Aleksandr Karelin — who remained the champion for 13-straight years. Coming from a dairy farm in Wyoming, Gardener quickly became a star after what is now known as one of the most historic upsets in Olympic history.
Gardner went on to win a bronze medal at the 2004 Olympics.
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