Any athlete who makes it to the Olympics has some serious skill, but a few rise to the very top. Norwegian Bjorn Daehlie, for example, was born to ski. During the course of three Olympics, the king of the Winter Games took home eight golds and four silvers. In his final race, at Nagano in 1998, he gritted through and won by 8.1 seconds -- after an entire two hours of furious cross-country skiing. Afterward, the guy was so spent he couldn’t stand up for five minutes. (Todd Warshaw/Getty Images Sport)