Distinguished journalist Joe Posnanski, a columnist for the NBC SportsWorld website, recently compiled a list of top 100 all-time Olympians.
He begins with these words: "Can you definitely rank over a century's worth of Olympians from a wide array of sports and disciplines? No, but let's try anyway."
Posnanski's ambitious project includes two legendary athletes from Japan: gymnast Sawao Kato (No. 23), who amassed a collection of 12 Olympic medals, including eight golds from the 1968 Mexico City Games, 1972 Munich Olympics and 1976 Montreal Games; and judoka Tadahiro Nomura (No. 62), who captured first-place medals in the extra lighweight division in 1996 in Atlanta, in 2000 in Sydney and 2004 in Athens.