Each month, the European Olympic Academies selects an important, inspiring figure who embodies the Olympic values. Find our past portraits below and on Facebook.
Coming up…
… to be published in the middle of the month.
Fanny Blankers-Koen 
With her amazing achievements, the Dutch track and field athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen broke barriers and the stigma that age and motherhood were factors that caused limitation to being successful in women’s sport…
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Paavo Nurmi 
Famous all over the world, Nurmi became an unending source of national pride for the newly independent Finland winning nine gold medals and three silver medals in running competitions during the Olympic Games of the 1920s…
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Nadia Comăneci 
Nadia Comaneci was breaking Olympic world records in the sport of gymnastics. At age 14, the Romanian athlete became the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10.0 at the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympic Games…
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Valeriy Sushkevych 
Valeriy Sushkevych is one of the optimistic and resilient individuals who has shown strength for the people of Ukraine, especially the persons with disabilities. He made miracles happen for the Paralympic athletes of Ukraine in the Beijing Paralympics 2022…
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Claudia Pechstein 
With her current participation in the Beijing Olympics at the age of 49, Claudia Pechstein sets the records for oldest female Winter Olympian of all time and most participations in Winter Olympic Games as a woman…
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Hermann Maier 
At the 1998 Winter Olympics, Maier suffered a near fatal crash in which he partially landed on his head. Despite the dramatic nature of the crash, Maier made an incredible return to competition just three days later and won 2 gold medals at the Nagano games…
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Bibian Mentel-Spee
During an illustrious career for over two decades, Mentel-Spee won three Paralympic gold medals and 5 World Championship gold medals in para snowboarding events. The Dutch athlete had been due to compete at the 2002 Winter Olympic Games before undergoing a leg amputation to treat bone cancer in 2001…
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Emil Zátopek 
Emil Zátopek is widely recognised as one of the greatest runners in Olympic history. He is best known for winning three gold medals at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952 and for pioneering gruelling interval training methods…
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Maria Gorokhovskaya 
The Soviet Ukrainian Maria Gorokhovskaya represented the first USSR gymnastics team to ever compete at the Olympics and also became the first female athlete to be awarded 7 medals at a single Olympics at Helsinki in 1952…
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Sebastian Coe 
Sebastian Coe is one of the most decorated and acclaimed athletes in Olympic history. The British middle-distance runner won four Olympic medals, including back-to-back 1,500m gold in Moscow and LA in the 1980s, plus two Olympic silver medals…
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