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Athletes

New York, over the years, has produced some of the biggest names in sports, including some incredible Olympic athletes. These famous Olympians from New York have achieved some of the highest honors in sports history just by qualifying for the Olympics, as most athletes will never be chosen to represent their countries. While not all of these popular New York Olympians took home a medal, they all made their home state proud just be competing.&nbsp;Which Olympians are from New York? Some huge names came out of the state, including Michael Jordan, Ryan Lochte, and Patrick Kane. However, there are also some up and coming <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/famous-people-from-new-york-city/reference?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">stars from New York</a> - like Chris Mazdzer. Browse this list to learn about some amazing New York athletes.&nbsp;

List of Olympians from New York | Olympic Athletes Born Here

Olympic Athletes Born in New York

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Best Rankings of Sports Teams and Players, Interesting Sports Facts, and Moments in Sports

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Michael Jordan

Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963), also known by his initials MJ, is an American former professional basketball player and the principal owner of the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played 15 seasons in the NBA, winning six championships with the Chicago Bulls. His biography on the official NBA website states: "By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time." He was one of the most effectively marketed athletes of his generation and was considered instrumental in popularizing the NBA around the world in the 1980s and 1990s.Jordan played three seasons for coach Dean Smith with the North Carolina Tar Heels. As a freshman, he was a member of the Tar Heels' national championship team in 1982. Jordan joined the Bulls in 1984 as the third overall draft pick. He quickly emerged as a league star and entertained crowds with his prolific scoring. His leaping ability, demonstrated by performing slam dunks from the free throw line in Slam Dunk Contests, earned him the nicknames Air Jordan and His Airness. He also gained a reputation for being one of the best defensive players in basketball. In 1991, he won his first NBA championship with the Bulls, and followed that achievement with titles in 1992 and 1993, securing a "three-peat". Although Jordan abruptly retired from basketball before the beginning of the 1993–94 NBA season, and started a new career in Minor League Baseball, he returned to the Bulls in March 1995 and led them to three additional championships in 1996, 1997, and 1998, as well as a then-record 72 regular-season wins in the 1995–96 NBA season. Jordan retired for a second time in January 1999, but returned for two more NBA seasons from 2001 to 2003 as a member of the Washington Wizards.
Jordan's individual accolades and accomplishments include six NBA Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) Awards, ten scoring titles (both all-time records), five MVP Awards, ten All-NBA First Team designations, nine All-Defensive First Team honors, fourteen NBA All-Star Game selections, three All-Star Game MVP Awards, three steals titles, and the 1988 NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award. He holds the NBA records for highest career regular season scoring average (30.12 points per game) and highest career playoff scoring average (33.45 points per game). In 1999, he was named the greatest North American athlete of the 20th century by ESPN, and was second to Babe Ruth on the Associated Press' list of athletes of the century. Jordan is a two-time inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, having been enshrined in 2009 for his individual career, and again in 2010 as part of the group induction of the 1992 United States men's Olympic basketball team ("The Dream Team"). He became a member of the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2015.
Jordan is also known for his product endorsements. He fueled the success of Nike's Air Jordan sneakers, which were introduced in 1984 and remain popular today. Jordan also starred as himself in the 1996 film Space Jam. In 2006, he became part-owner and head of basketball operations for the Charlotte Bobcats (now Hornets), and bought a controlling interest in 2010. In 2014, Jordan became the first billionaire player in NBA history. He is the third-richest African-American, behind Robert F. Smith and Oprah Winfrey.

Ryan Lochte

Ryan Steven Lochte ( LOK-tee; born August 3, 1984) is an American competitive swimmer and 12-time Olympic medalist. Lochte's 12 Olympic medals earn him the second-most decorated Olympian along with Natalie Coughlin, Dara Torres, and Jenny Thompson. He currently holds the world record in the 200-meter individual medley (long and short course) and 400-meter individual medley (short course). As part of the American teams, he also holds the world record in the 4×200-meter freestyle (long course) and 4x100-meter freestyle (mixed) relay.
Lochte's success has earned him SwimSwam's Swammy Award for U.S. Male Swimmer of the Year in 2013, the World Swimmer of the Year Award and the American Swimmer of the Year Award twice. He has also been named the FINA Swimmer of the Year three times. He has won a total of 90 medals in major international competition (54 gold, 22 silver, and 14 bronze) spanning the Olympics, the World Championships, Pan American Games, and Pan Pacific Championships, including six Olympic gold medals and 39 world championship titles.
Lochte specializes in the backstroke and individual medley, but is also a freestyle and butterfly swimmer. He is noted for the speed and distance he attains while kicking underwater. Lochte is also known for his dominance in the short course format (25-yard and 25-meter-long pools). Lochte swam the 100-meter individual medley in 50.71 seconds on December 15, 2012, at the FINA World Championships in Istanbul, Turkey. At this same event, he is also credited with swimming the fastest 200-meter individual medley, finishing in 1 minute 49.63 seconds.In 2016, Lochte generated international controversy when he claimed that he and three other American swimmers had been pulled over and robbed by armed men with police badges while in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Brazilian authorities sharply denied Lochte's version of events and shed light on misdeeds by Lochte and the other athletes that precipitated the events of the night. Lochte was widely criticized following the incident and was suspended from competition by USA Swimming. Some subsequent reports suggested that certain claims by the authorities might have been untrue and that Lochte's version of events might have been the result of language barrier and miscommunication. On July 23, 2018, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency imposed a 14-month suspension from competition on Lochte because he had received a "prohibited intravenous infusion."

Chris Mazdzer

Christopher "Chris" Mazdzer (; born June 26, 1988) is an American luger who has been active internationally since 2001. He competed at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, finishing 13th on both occasions.  At the 2018 Winter Olympics Mazdzer won the silver medal in the Men's Single Luge, becoming the first U.S. men's singles luge medalist and is the first and currently only non-European to win a medal in that event.



Patrick Kane

Patrick Timothy Kane II (born November 19, 1988) is an American professional ice hockey right winger for the Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL). The Blackhawks selected him with the first overall pick in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft. Kane also represented the United States at the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics.
Kane has won three Stanley Cups as a member of the Blackhawks, in 2010, 2013 and 2015, winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the playoffs in 2013. Kane won the Hart Memorial Trophy as Most Valuable Player and Art Ross Trophy as scoring champion in the 2015–16 NHL season. Kane, who led the NHL with 106 points (46 goals, 60 assists), is the first American-born player to win the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL's scoring leader. He was also the first American-born player to win the Hart Trophy. In 2017, he was named one of the 100 Greatest NHL Players.

Matt Mortensen

John Daly

John Daly (born June 10, 1985) is an American skeleton racer who has competed since 2001. He has been on the World Cup podium many times, at such tracks as  Winterberg, Calgary, and St. Moritz .

Julia Marino

Julia Marino is an American-raised Paraguayan freestyle skiing athlete who has competed since 2010 in the halfpipe and slopestyle disciplines.
Marino was born in Bahía Negra, a small village in the Paraguayan northwestern department of Alto Paraguay, but was adopted by an American family at the age of six months, and has lived there ever since.
She has competed for her adopted country until 2013, winning a World Cup medal during the 2012–2013 World Cup in slopestyle. After that, Marino decided to compete for her native Paraguay and has qualified to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, becoming the first Winter Olympian to represent the South American country.

Morgan Schild

A. J. Kitt

Alva Ross "AJ" Kitt IV (born September 13, 1968) is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from the United States.  A member of the U.S. Ski Team for over a decade, Kitt specialized in the speed event of downhill, and also raced in Super-G and combined. He retired from international competition following the 1998 season with six World Cup podiums, which included one downhill victory. Kitt was a bronze medalist in the downhill at the 1993 World Championships. He also had the lead in three World Cup races which were subsequently nullified by FIS officials, due to weather conditions that did not allow the entire field of competitors to start the race. In each, Kitt was awarded the race's prize money and trophies, but not the World Cup points.

Aaron Miller

Aaron Miller may refer to:

Aaron Miller (ice hockey) (born 1971), ice hockey player
Aaron E. Miller, American neurologist
Aaron David Miller (born 1949), American Middle East analyst and author
Aaron Miller (mixed martial artist), American martial artist
Aaron Miller (politician), see Michigan House of Representatives
Aaron Miller (baseball), pitcher

Peter Camejo

Peter Miguel Camejo Guanche (December 31, 1939 – September 13, 2008) was a Venezuelan American author, activist and politician. In the 2004 United States presidential election, he was selected by independent candidate Ralph Nader as his vice-presidential running mate on a ticket which had the endorsement of the Reform Party.Camejo was a three-time Green Party gubernatorial candidate most recently in 2006, when he received 2.3 percent of the vote. Camejo also ran in the 2003 California recall election finishing fourth in a field of 135 candidates (2.8%), and in 2002, finishing third with 5.3%. In the 1976 presidential election he ran for the Socialist Workers Party, receiving 90,310 votes.

Abby Wambach

Mary Abigail Wambach (born June 2, 1980) is an American retired soccer player, coach, two-time Olympic gold medalist and FIFA Women's World Cup champion. A six-time winner of the U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year award, Wambach was a regular on the U.S. women's national soccer team from 2003 to 2015, earning her first cap in 2001. As a forward, she currently stands as the highest all-time goal scorer for the national team and holds the world record for international goals for both female and male soccer players with 184 goals. Wambach was awarded the 2012 FIFA World Player of the Year, becoming the first American woman to win the award in ten years. She was included on the 2015 Time 100 list as one of the most influential people in the world.
Wambach competed in four FIFA Women's World Cup tournaments: 2003 in the United States, 2007 in China, 2011 in Germany, and 2015 in Canada, being champion of the last edition; and two Olympics tournaments: 2004 in Athens and 2012 in London, winning the gold medal on both. All together, she played in 29 matches and scored 22 goals at these five international tournaments. She played college soccer for the Florida Gators women's soccer team and helped the team win its first NCAA Division I Women's Soccer Championship. She played at the professional level for Washington Freedom, magicJack, and the Western New York Flash.
Known for scoring goals with diving headers, a technique she began honing as a youth in her hometown of Rochester, New York, one of her most notable header goals occurred in the 122nd minute of the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup quarterfinal match against Brazil. Wambach scored the equalizer in stoppage time helping the Americans to eventually progress to the championship final against Japan after defeating Brazil in penalty kicks. Her last-minute goal set a new record for latest goal ever scored in a match and was awarded ESPN's 2011 ESPY Award for Best Play of the Year. Following her performance at the 2011 World Cup, she was awarded the tournament's Bronze Boot and Silver Ball. In 2011, she became the first ever soccer player of either gender to be named Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press.
Wambach announced her retirement on October 27, 2015. Her last game was played on December 16 in New Orleans when the United States played its last match of its 10-game Victory Tour following its win at the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup. Her autobiography, Forward, released in September 2016, became a New York Times best seller.

Norman Armitage

Norman Armitage (January 1, 1907, as Norman Cudworth Cohn, – March 14, 1972) was an American saber fencer.

Abel Kiviat

Abel Richard Kiviat (June 23, 1892 – August 24, 1991) was an American middle-distance runner. He was the oldest living American Olympic medalist at the time of his death. He competed for and coached the Irish American Athletic Club, and was later a member of the New York Athletic Club.

Adam Rosen

Adam Joseph "AJ" Rosen (born April 12, 1984) is an American-born US-British Olympic luger who has competed since 2003. He is Great Britain's best-ever luge athlete.

Al Zerhusen

Al Zerhusen (December 4, 1931 – January 29, 2018) is a former U.S. soccer midfielder who played extensively for the U.S. national team.  He is a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame.
When Zerhusen was five, his family moved from New York to Germany where he learned to play soccer.  He moved back to the U.S. in 1950 and settled in Cincinnati, Ohio.  However, he was soon after drafted into the Army.  After a period stationed in Germany, Zerhusen was transferred back to a base in Cincinnati.  In 1954, he played for the Armed Forces soccer team in Cincinnati.  At the time soccer was not a truly professional sport in the U.S. so when Zerhusen left the Army, he remained an amateur with the Cincinnati Kolping Soccer Club.  In 1956, he was selected for the U.S. team which competed in the 1956 Summer Olympics.  The Olympic tournament in 1956 was single game elimination and the U.S. lost 9-1 to Yugoslavia in the first game, Zerhusen scoring for the U.S.  However, in preparation for the games, the U.S. had played several exhibition matches and Zerhusen scored seventeen goals in nine games leading up to the Olympics.
While many sources show Zerhusen’s national team career beginning in 1954, none of the U.S. games played during this year are counted by USSF or FIFA as full internationals.  It wasn’t until the April 7, 1957 6-0 thrashing at the hands of Mexico in a 1958 World Cup Qualifier that Zerhusen earned his first official cap with the U.S. national team.  After losing all four qualifying games, two to Mexico and two to Canada, the next U.S. game was an 8-1 loss to England in 1959.  However, that year saw greater success for the U.S. at the Pan American games.  In the 1959 Pan American Games, the U.S. took the bronze behind ten goals by Zerhusen, including four goals in the game against Haiti.  A month later the U.S. began qualifications for the 1960 Summer Olympics, but was quickly eliminated with a loss and a tie to Mexico.
In 1960, Zerhusen scored his only goal in a full international when he tied Mexico 3-3 in a 1962 FIFA World Cup qualifier.  However, Mexico won the game in Mexico and the U.S. had yet again failed to qualify for a major tournament.  Zerhusen continued to play for the U.S. into 1965, earning a total of nine caps, but never again scoring.
By this time, Zerhusen had established himself as one of the top amateur midfielders in the U.S.  He was the captain of the Los Angeles Kickers for ten years.  In both 1958 and 1964, the Kickers won the National Challenge Cup.  The Kickers also made it to the 1960 National Cup finals, but fell to the Ukrainian Nationals that year.  In 1961, Zerhusen was with the Los Angeles Scots who also fell to the Ukrainian Nationals in the title series.  The Scots lost 7-4 on aggregate, with Zerhusen scoring all four of the Scots’ goals.  Over his years with the Kickers and the Scots, Zerhusen was the Greater Los Angeles Soccer League’s leading scorer 13 times.
In 1978, Zerhusen was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame.
He was the Director of the Los Angeles Soccer Club.  He also coached several of the club's teams.

Alan Helffrich

Alan Boone Helffrich (August 7, 1900 – February 3, 1994) was an American athlete, winner of gold medal in 4 × 400 m relay at the 1924 Summer Olympics.
Born in Yonkers, New York, Alan Helffrich was one of America's greatest middle distance runners in the 1920s. Helffrich won the AAU titles in 880 yd in 1921, 1922 and 1925. As a Pennsylvania State University student, he won the NCAA championships in 880 yd in 1922 and 1923 and IC4A championships in 880 yd in 1923 and in 440 yd in 1924.
At the Paris Olympics, Helffrich ran the second leg in the American 4 × 400 m relay team, which won the gold medal with a new world record of 3.16.0. Helffrich was the only runner to defeat Paavo Nurmi when the Finn toured the United States in 1925, scoring a victory in the half-mile run at the Yankee Stadium. He ended Nurmi's 121-race win streak that had started in 1921.After his running career, Helffrich officiated at athletics meets in New York City from 1930 to 1955 and served, until his death at age 93, as president of the New York Chapter of the United States Olympians.

Alan Valentine

Alan Chester Valentine (February 23, 1901 – July 14, 1980) was an American academic who competed on the gold-medal winning American rugby union team in the 1924 Summer Olympics, was president of the University of Rochester, and served in the Truman Administration as a Marshall Plan official and as the first head of the Economic Stabilization Agency.

Ray Barbuti

Raymond James  Barbuti (June 12, 1905 – July 8, 1988) was an American football player and sprint runner who won two gold medals at the 1928 Summer Olympics.
In 1924 while playing fullback at Lawrence, Long Island, New York high school, Barbuti set a New York state record, which still stands (2013), scoring eight touchdowns in one game.  He attended Syracuse University where he won the IC4A championship in the 400 m sprint in 1928 in a time of 48.8 seconds. The same year he won the AAU Championship in the 400 m dash in a time of 51.4. He played fullback on the Syracuse football teams of 1926, 1927, and 1928 and was the captain of both the football and athletics teams.
His trainer, Peter Poole, very seldom let him run his two preferred distances, the 200 yd and the 400 yd, in the same competition, so Barbuti chose the 400 m and 4 × 400 m at the 1928 Summer Olympics and won both, setting a world record in the relay at 3:14.2. Next week he set another world record, at 3:13.4 in the 4×440 yd relay in London in a match against Great Britain.
During World War II Barbuti served with the US Air Force in the 83rd Bombardment Squadron which was part of the 12th Bombardment Group also known as the Earthquakers.  He was awarded the Air Medal and the Bronze Star. While stationed in Gambut, Libya, Barbuti helped to organize the Western Desert Track and Field Championships.  The competition was between the 12th Bombardment's track men, members of the RAF, and Australian troops.  With Barbuti's talent on the track as a runner and as a coach, the men of the 12th won 1st place in 8 out of 11 events.  He retired in the rank of major and became deputy director of the Civil Defense Commission for New York State and director of the New York State Office of Disaster Preparedness. In his spare time he acted as a referee in more than 500 intercollegiate football games.
On December 24, 1957, Barbuti appeared as a "contestant imposter" on the game show To Tell the Truth. This episode is still in existence and was most recently aired by GSN on January 20, 2009. The host was Bud Collyer and the panel consisted of Betsy Palmer, Don Ameche, Kitty Carlisle and Hy Gardner.

Alfred Lane

Alfred Page Lane (September 26, 1891 – October 1965) was an American sports shooter who competed at the 1912 and 1920 Summer Olympics. He is a five-time Olympic Champion, and is the first of five shooters to have won two Olympic individual gold medals.

Allan Kwartler

Allan S. Kwartler (nicknamed "Doc"; September 10, 1917 – November 11, 1998), born in New York City, was an American sabre and foil fencer.
He was Pan-American sabre champion, 3-time Olympian, and twice a member of sabre teams that earned 4th-place in Olympic Games (1952, 1960).

Penny Pitou

Penelope Theresa "Penny" Pitou (born October 8, 1938) is a former United States Olympic alpine skier, who in 1960 became the first American skier to win a medal in the Olympic downhill event. In 2001, Pitou was inducted into the New England Women's Sports Hall of Fame.Pitou moved with her family from New York to Center Harbor, New Hampshire at the age of three. There she began skiing on a hill in her backyard, later progressing to the nearby Gilford Outing Club and Belknap Mountain (now Gunstock) ski areas. By the age of 15 Penny and her family moved to Laconia, New Hampshire, where she graduated from Laconia High School in 1956 and attended Middlebury College, where she was a member of the class of 1960.As a freshman at Laconia High in 1953, she ignored the no-girls-rule and tried out for the boys' ski team. "I hid my hair under my hat and asked my friends to call me Tommy," she said. "I made the team and everything went great until I competed in a downhill race at New Hampton School. I crashed in front of a gate-keeper, my hat flew off and my hair came down. It's one of the few times in my life that I was at a loss for words."Her ski career continued apace however, and at the age of seventeen she was first selected for the U.S. Olympics Ski Team. Her self-described Olympic mentor, 1952 double-medalist Andrea Mead Lawrence, encouraged Penny to continue working on her skiing after a disappointing performance in the 1956 Games in Italy. Her perseverance paid off in 1960, when Pitou won silver medals for second place in both the Downhill and Giant Slalom events at the 1960 Olympics in Squaw Valley, California.At the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 1958 in Austria, Pitou met the Austrian alpine skier Egon N. Zimmermann. They married in 1961, had two children, and settled in New Hampshire. The couple divorced in 1968.

Pitou appeared as Miss X but not as the mystery guest on "What's My Line". She continues to be active in the ski community, and runs a skiing school and a travel company through which she leads ski groups to various European resorts. She was seen in December 2007 with New York Senator Hillary Clinton in preparation for the New Hampshire primary for the 2008 American presidential election.

Allan Potts

Allan W. Potts (May 14, 1904 – November 5, 1952) was an American National Indoor and Outdoor Champion speed skater who competed in the 1932 Winter Olympics and in the 1936 Winter Olympics. Inducted May 18, 1967, at Detroit, Michigan, into The National Speedskating Hall of Fame  and also once known as The Fastest Human.
He was born in Brooklyn and died in New York City.
In 1932 he participated in the 500 metres event but was eliminated in the heats.
Four years later he finished sixth in the Speed skating at the 1936 Winter Olympics, set a world record in men's 500-metre shortly before the 1936 winter Olympics, and made the time of 42.4 seconds and 32nd in men's 1500-metre.

Allen Coage

Allen James Coage (October 22, 1943 – March 6, 2007) was an American-Canadian judoka and professional wrestler. He won medals for the United States at several international judo competitions, including the heavyweight bronze medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics, and later appeared in professional wrestling promotions such as the World Wrestling Federation, New Japan Pro Wrestling and Stampede Wrestling under the ring names Bad News Brown, Buffalo Allen, and Bad News Allen.

Todd Marchant

Todd Michael Marchant (born August 12, 1973) is a retired American professional ice hockey player who played 17 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL). He played nine seasons with the Edmonton Oilers and almost six seasons with the Anaheim Ducks, along with just over a season with the Columbus Blue Jackets and a game with the New York Rangers. He also played 49 games in the American Hockey League (AHL) between his time with the Binghamton Rangers and Cape Breton Oilers.

New York, over the years, has produced some of the biggest names in sports, including some incredible Olympic athletes. These famous Olympians from New York ...

Bands/Musicians

A list of twin musicians, with photos! This list includes both fraternal and identical twins. Only 2% of the world's population are twins, and only 0.2% are identical twins. Why have a singleton when you can double the kids for double the fun? Twin singers are extra rare, but there are many twins music groups and bands with twins to learn about here.To this day, twins are considered exotic. Couples trying for their first child often muse that fraternal twins (one boy, one girl) would be ideal. In scientific terms, identical twins are known as &quot;monozygotic&quot; and fraternal twins as &quot;dizygotic&quot;. While twins may be unusual, some researchers suggest that as many as 1 in 8 pregnancies begin as twins, however, only one fetus is brought to full term as the other disintegrates. This is known as &quot;Vanishing Twin Syndrome.&quot; There is also such a thing as semi-identical twins in which the twins inherit identical genes from their mother, but different genes from their father. This list includes all types of twins, male and female, and they have all done something notable in the world of music.