Week 8: Jessica Ennis
Olympic poster girl Jessica Ennis has brought the team glory with her first Olympic gold in the heptathlon. Congratulations! If you’d like to knit your own Jessica Ennis doll to take you to glory, check out our free pattern here.
Week 7: Sebastian Coe
It’s all hotting up today as the women’s football starts kicking across the field. We’ve had Olympic fever for a while and now that London’s boiling at 30°C it seems time to announce the ultimate Knitlympian: Seb Coe. It’s all down to Seb that the games are here; he headed up the Olympic bid committee and has followed it through by being involved every step of the way.
You may have voted for him in 1992 when he became a Member of Parliament, but we’d like to think he’s most famous for his athletic prowess. He took home the gold for the 1500m and silver for the 800m in the 1980 Moscow Olympics and then the same again in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
Week 6: Steve Redgrave
There are only 9 more days before the competition begins! With the events so close, we couldn’t help but feature Britain’s Greatest Olympian, Sir Steve Redgrave. He isn’t just any athlete, this rower has competed in 5 Olympic Games over 16 years.
Redgrave took home 5 gold medals, one each from the 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996 and 2000 Games. He also fit in a bronze medal in 1988. A British institution, Redgrave was invited to row the Gloriana for the Queen’s Jubilee pageant.
If you want to knit your own Steve Redgrave click here to go to our FREE pattern.
Week 5: Dick Fosbury
Not many athletes can say that they completely changed their sport, but Fosbury can! Before 1968 the High Jump was a completely different competition, but Fosbury revolutionised the sport with his Fosbury Flop, now the most popular technique for clearing the bar.
The American only won one medal, Gold for High Jump in the 1968 Mexico Olympics, but he has had an enduring impact on the world of sporting.
Week 4: Chris Hoy
Only 24 days to go and we’re gearing up with a bit of cycling. As the Tour de France is whizzing its way through Stage 3 we’d like to tip our hats to Chris Hoy. London 2012 will be his fourth Olympics cycling the indoor track.
Hoy’s first medal was a silver in the 2000 Sydney Games for Team Sprint, followed by a gold in the 2004 Athens Games for the 1km Time Trial. In 2008 he brought home a hat trick of gold medals in Beijing, the first Brit to bring home 3 golds home in a single Games since 1908, for Sprint, Team Sprint and Keirin.
Week 3: Cathy Freeman
This Australian athlete sprinted into the world’s hearts in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Of Australian Aboriginal heritage, she was only the second Aborigine to become an Olympic champion. Her kit was as eye-catching as her win: she wore a green and white bodysuit by Nike that covered her whole body, except for her face, hands and feet.
When she won her gold medal she historically took her victory lap holding both the Australian flag and the Aboriginal flag. In her Olympic career she won two medals: silver at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and gold at the 2000 Sydney Games, both for the 400 metres. She retired from competitive sport in 2003, and in 2011 became the proud mother of a daughter, Ruby.
Week 2: Nadia Comăneci
If you were a girl in the late 1970s, there’s a very good chance you had a poster of Nadia hanging from your bedroom wall. This elf-like Romanian shook up the gymnastics world and brought home 5 gold medals. She was the first to ever score a 10.0 with her Uneven Bars routine at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. The score boards weren’t equipped for a perfect score and displayed 1.00 instead!
Nadia won 8 medals in total: 3 gold at the 1976 Montreal Games for Uneven Bars, Balance Beam and All-Around, as well as 1 silver for Team and 1 Bronze for Floor; at the 1980 Moscow Games she took home 2 golds for Balance beam and Floor, and 2 silver for All-Around and Team.
Week 1: Mark Spitz
To celebrate the arrival of the Olympic torch and the torch relay we are celebrating a Knitlympian each week. Today, as the flame makes its way from Exeter to Taunton, we’d like to showcase the talented, moustachioed Mark Spitz.
Spitz is an American swimmer won an impressive 9 gold medals in two Olympics: in the 4 x 100 metre freestyle and 2 x 200 metre freestyle in Mexico City in 1968 and in the 100 metre and 200 metre butterfly, 100 metre and 200 metre freestyle, the 4 x 100 metre freestyle, the 2 x 200 metre freestyle and the 4 x 100 medley in Munich. While he is certainly famous for swimming, he’s also famous for his moustache, which swam through both Olympics with him.
Knit Mark and 19 other Olympians in Knitlympics. Be sure to bookmark this page and check back every week for a Knitlympic update and Knitlympian of the week!
