Joan Benoit

Winner of the first women's Olympic marathon in Los Angeles in 1984, Benoit Samuelson made the US team only after knee surgery 17 days before the trials. In the Olympic race she broke away early, against the conventional wisdom of the day, and was never caught. Her longevity is the other half of the story: she kept racing marathons into her sixties, giving recreational runners a model for a lifetime in the sport.