Legends of the Olympic Games - 1976 to 1988

Tokyo, Japan

The 32nd Summer Olympics finally start on July 23 in Tokyo after a year's delay because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Here is AFP Sport's third set of five legends of the Games:

Nadia Comaneci: perfect 10

Perfection is a rare commodity but 45 years ago in Montreal, the 14-year-old Romanian gymnast was judged to have achieved it seven times.

The tiny Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut had paved the way four years earlier in Munich, when her captivating performances and three golds ignited gymnastics' popularity and four years later resulted in a fierce rivalry with Comaneci.

The result was Comaneci, who like Korbut stood just 4ft 11in (1.50m), scoring the first perfect 10.00 scores -- four times on the uneven bars and three times on the beam as she won gold in both and the all-round title.

Two further gold medals followed at the Moscow Games in 1980.

Fellow gymnasts later detailed abuse and beatings at the hands of Romania's coach Bela Karolyi. While under his care, Comaneci was once reportedly rushed to hospital after drinking bleach.

Comaneci competed until 1981 and fled Romania just before the fall of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989. She now lives in the United States.

Greg Louganis: diving great

The American won two golds at Los Angeles in 1984 and successfully defended both at Seoul, despite smashing his head on a springboard, and could have had more had the US not boycotted the Moscow Games in 1980.

The enduring image is of Louganis painfully hitting the back of his head during a reverse two-and-a-half somersault in pike in the preliminary rounds at Seoul -- the stuff of nightmares for divers.

But with his wound stitched up Louganis retained his title, cementing his place in Olympic lore.

Life had never been easy for Louganis. The adopted son of a Swedish-Samoan teenage couple was bullied at school, abused by his business manager and discovered he was HIV positive six months before the Seoul Games.

Edwin Moses: Unbeatable hurdler

Rarely has an athlete exerted such sustained dominance as American 400m hurdler Moses, who won 122 consecutive races from 1977 to 1987, picked up two Olympic gold medals and set four world records.

At the 1976 Montreal Olympics, his first international event, the 20-year-old Moses won by a record margin of eight metres and set a new world mark.

Moses missed the 1980 Moscow Games because of the US boycott, but won a second gold at Los Angeles in 1984 and a bronze at Seoul 1988, aged 33.

When asked how he wanted to be remembered, Moses said: "As the guy nobody could beat."

His 1983 world record of 47.02sec was broken by current holder Kevin Young's 46.78 at the Barcelona Olympics and to this day only four athletes have ever dipped under Moses's best, set 38 years ago.

Daley Thompson: decathlon king

Thompson was studying at boarding school when his father was shot dead in a street argument, but he overcame the tragedy to become the most celebrated decathlete in history, winning two Olympic golds and setting four world records.

The Briton, whose fierce competitive drive and irreverent attitude divided opinion, won his first Olympics at 1980 in the Moscow Games boycotted by the United States and West Germany, winning over the pro-Soviet crowd.

Four years later, Thompson had a hard-fought battle with German world record holder Jurgen Hingsen, until pulling away with strong performances in the discus, pole vault and javelin.

Thompson, virtually assured of gold, could afford to finish 11 seconds below his personal best in the final 1,500 metres and still break Hingsen's world record, but he cantered home to finish a whisker off a new mark.

He wore a T-shirt emblazoned with: "Is the world's 2nd greatest athlete gay?" at the winner's press conference -- a provocative reference to rumours about US great Carl Lewis.

He then joked about fathering a child with Princess Anne, creating negative headlines in his hour of triumph.

Thompson's athletic achievements are not in doubt: he was undefeated in all competitions between 1979 and 1987, and he is the only decathlete to hold the world, Olympic, Commonwealth and European titles at the same time.

"All I ever wanted to be was the best. I don't enjoy fame," he told the Independent in 2008.

Carl Lewis: heir to Owens

Lewis stole the show at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, when he matched Jesse Owens' achievement of winning four gold medals in the 100m, the 200m, the long jump and the 4x100m relay.

In 1988, Lewis gained a second gold medal in the 100m after Ben Johnson was disqualified for doping, successfully defended his long jump gold and picked up a silver in the 200m.

In Barcelona in 1992, the American anchored the 4x100m relay team to victory and won a third consecutive long jump gold, beating fierce rival and world record holder Mike Powell in the final.

In 1996, a 35-year-old Lewis summoned up one last golden leap to win a fourth long jump in Atlanta, taking his career haul to nine Olympic titles.

Lewis was named male athlete of the century by the IAAF in 1999 and sportsman of the century by the International Olympic Committee.

But Lewis was never universally popular, his aloof attitude rankling with rivals and spectators.

His achievements lost some lustre in 2003 when it was revealed that he had failed three tests for small amounts of stimulants at the US Olympic trials for the 1988 Seoul Games, where Canada's Johnson was vilified for doping and Lewis inherited his gold.

"The climate was different then," Lewis said later of the stimulants. "Over the years a lot of people will sit around and debate (whether the drug) does something. There really is no pure evidence to show that it does something. It does nothing."