- 50 contenders
- Im Dong-Hyun (South Korea)
- Usain Bolt (Jamaica)
- Kenenisa Bekele (Ethiopia)
- Sally Pearson (Australia)
- David Rudisha (Kenya)
- Caster Semenya (South Africa)
- Lin Dan (China)
- Saina Nehwal (India)
- LeBron James (United States)
- Artur Beterbiev (Russia)
- Katie Taylor (Ireland)
- Tony Estanguet (France)
- Max Hoff (Germany)
- Anna Meares
- Julien Absalon (mountain biking; France)
- Jack Bobridge (track; Australia)
- Maris Strombergs (BMX; Latvia)
- Matthew Mitcham (Australia)
- Anky van Grunsven (Netherlands)
- Valentina Vezzali
- Marta (Brazil)
- Neymar (Brazil)
- Jordyn Wieber (United States)
- Kohei Uchimura (Japan)
- Teun de Nooijer (Netherlands)
- Luciana Aymar
- Teddy Riner (France)
- Sarah Menezes (Brazil)
- Lena Schöneborn (Germany)
- Mahé Drysdale (New Zealand)
- Lobke Berkhout (Netherlands)
- Du Li (China)
- Tomoyuki Matsuda (Japan)
- Michael Phelps (United States)
- Alicia Coutts (Australia)
- Missy Franklin (United States)
- Ryan Lochte (United States)
- Federica Pellegrini (Italy)
- Steven Lopez (United States)
- Roger Federer (Switzerland)
- Timo Boll (Germany)
- Javier Gomez (Spain)
- Misty May-Treanor (United States)
- Ekaterina Gamova (Russia)
- Behdad Salimikordasiabi (Iran)
- Saori Yoshida (Japan)
- Paul Elvstrom
- Steve Redgrave
- Mia Hamm
- Teresa Edwards
- Mark Spitz
- Maria Grozdeva
- Carl Lewis
- Darrell Pace
- Sun Hee Lee
- Yaping Deng
- Olga Brusnikina
- Jenny Thompson
- Ralf Schumann
- Shirley Robertson
- Elisabeta Oleniuc-Lipa
- Stephanie Cook
- Ryoko Tani
- David Douillet
- Rechelle Hawkes
- Dhyan Chand
- Andrey Lavrov
- Anja Andersen
- Alexander Moskalenko
- Karen Cockburn
- Steffi Graf
- Nicholas Massu
- Alina Kabaeva
- Kate Allen
- Simon Whitfield
- Regla Torres
- Charles Kiraly
- Brenda Villa
- Nikolai Andrianov
- Larissa Latynina
- Patrick Mboma
- Ilona Elek
- Edoardo Mangiarotti
- Hans Günter Winkler
- Reiner Klimke
- Chen Yanqing
- Blyth Tait
- Pyrros Dimas
- Lis Hartel-Holst
- Fu Mingxia
- Irini Merleni
- Aleksandr Karelin
- Gregory Louganis
- Felicia Ballanger
- Jens Fiedler
- Leontien Zijlaard-van Moorsel
- Paolo Bettini
- Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesja
- Julien Absalon
- Anne-Caroline Chausson
- Maris Strombergs
- Birgit Fischer
- Gert Fredriksson
- Štěpánka Hilgertová
- Peter Hochschorner and Pavol Hochschorner
- Cassius Clay
- Teofilo Stevenson
- Natalie Cook
- Ricardo Santos
- Michael Jordan
- Zhang Ning
- Alan Budikusuma
- Kim Soo-Nyung
- Fanny Blankers-Koen
- Kyong Hyun Kim
- Guoliang Liu
- Sarah Josephson and Karen Josephson
- Andras Balczo
- Natalia Lavrova
- Dezső Gyarmati
- ESPN
- Julien Absalon
- Rebecca Adlington
- Ben Ainslie
- Gregory Bauge
- Kenenisa Bekele
- Yohan Blake
- Usain Bolt
- Kobe Bryant
- Veronica Campbell-Brown
- Fabian Cancellara
- Mark Cavendish
- Vivian Cheruiyot
- Cesar Cielo
- Thomas Daley
- Mahe Drysdale
- Mohamed Farah -->
- Roger Federer
- Melissa Franklin
- Pau Gasol
- Tyson Gay
- Chris Hoy
- Phillips Idowu
- Yelena Isinbayeva
- LeBron James
- Carmelita Jeter
- Kosuke Kitajima
- Na Li
- Xiang Liu
- Ryan Lochte
- James Magnussen
- Lashawn Merritt
- Koji Murofushi
- Rafael Nadal
- Federica Pellegrini
- Victoria Pendleton
- Michael Phelps
- Dwight Phillips
- Asafa Powell
- Teddy Riner
- Dayron Robles
- David Rudisha
- Robert Scheidt
- Caster Semenya
- Yang Sun
- Kohei Uchimura
- Anky van Grunsven
- Valentina Vezzali
- Blanka Vlasic
- Marianne Vos
- Jordyn Wieber
- Bradley Wiggins
- Mariel Zagunis