Muzzled!

SAN GABRIEL, Calif.—Only two athletes in history have won medals in six consecutive Olympic Games.

Only two.

Let me put this in perspective. There are about 13,000 Olympians, both summer and winter, during each four-year cycle. Since 1896, when the modern Games began, there have been 184,869 Olympians. So we’re talking about something that happens .001 percent of the time, which is just one click above…never.

The first athlete is Armin Zöggeler, a carabiniere from the Tyrolean Alps who has won two gold medals, one silver medal, and three bronzes during the 1994 through 2014 Winter Games. Armin’s nickname is “Ice Blood,” and you’ll see why if you watch his 2002 Salt Lake City luge run on YouTube. Luge is one of those sports that require constant daily training, constant care of your equipment, and such fine-tuning that the winners and losers are judged by thousandths of a second. It’s the most precisely timed sport in the world.

The Italians feel so strongly about Armin Zöggeler’s six-medals-in-six-Olympics feat that they’ve asked him to carry the national flag in opening and closing ceremonies three times. He was only able to accept twice because the other time would have interfered with his training runs.

The other six-in-six Olympian is a woman from Southern California. She should have been asked to carry the flag at the closing ceremonies in Rio. I have nothing but respect for Simone Biles and her five medals in gymnastics, but this sixth medal in six Olympic Games was not only a once-in-a-century achievement, it was also accomplished by a 37-year-old woman who was fighting injuries, who was struggling against decades of sexism in her sport’s Olympic organization, who has to train by herself while raising a 3-year-old son, and who had to learn a whole new sport halfway through her medal run because the Olympics decided only men could compete in her preferred event.

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