My vote for the title of Greatest Olympian? Carl Lewis, hands down.

Everyone talks about the great Olympic feats of Jesse Owens, but Lewis matched Owens (four gold medals in track and field in one Olympics) and then returned for gold medals in three more Olympics.

Lewis is the only man ever to win the 100-meter dash in back-to-back Olympics. He's the only man to win the long jump in back-to-back Olympic Games — and he did it four times. He won nine gold medals and one silver, and if teammates hadn't dropped the baton in the '92 Games. he would have won another gold in the sprint relay. He also made the 1980 Olympic team in the long jump and 4x100 relay, but was unable to compete because of the U.S.-led boycott.

Other contenders for the top 10 list of greatest Olympians:

• Nadia Comaneci. In the 1976 Montreal Olympics, at age 14, she scored the first perfect 10 on the uneven bars. The scoreboards were not even equipped to display scores of 10 — her marks were displayed as 1.00. She went on to score a total of seven perfect 10s while winning the gold medal in the all-around, beam and uneven bars, plus a bronze medal on the floor exercise and a silver for Romania's finish in the team competition. Nowadays, Comaneci would have been barred from competition — athletes must be at least 16.

• Fanny Blankers Koen. After losing her prime years to World War II (the Olympics were canceled for 12 years), she returned for the 1948 Games as the "Flying Housewife." By then, she was a 30-year-old housewife with two children and in the early stages of her third pregnancy. She won the 100, 200, hurdles and 4x100 relay. She remains the only female track athlete to match Lewis' and Owens' feat of winning four golds in a single Olympics. She probably would have won six gold medals, but rules limited athletes to three individual events, which meant she couldn't compete in the high jump and long jump, which were won with marks that were inferior to Fanny's world records in those events. In 1999, the IAAF voted her its female Athlete of the Century.