She’s so famous for reality TV, fraternizing with Kardashians, and reckless driving that it’s easy to forget why Caitlyn Jenner was ever famous in the first place. (She won the gold medal in the decathlon at the 1976 Summer Olympics.) Here are some other actors and entertainers who were also world-class athletes.
1. Dr. Benjamin Spock.
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In 1946, he revolutionized the way people cared for their babies (by telling parents to show their babies love and attention) with his book Baby and Child Care. In 1924, Spock, while a student at Yale, rowed for the U.S. men’s crew team. He won a gold medal in Paris that summer.
2. Geena Davis.
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At least she has that Oscar-winning career to fall back on.
Davis seems like one of those people who is successful at everything she tries. Case in point: She took up archery as a hobby in 1997 at age 41. By 1999, she was shooting arrows competitively, and was invited to try out for the U.S. Olympic archery team. Out of 300 archers, she was one of 28 women to reach the semifinals round. There, she placed 24th—not high enough to make the team, but astoundingly high for someone who had only been doing it for two years.
3. Jason Statham.
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“What’s all this then?” –Jason Statham, always.
Statham was a star athlete as a child, excelling in both football (which is what the Brits call soccer) and diving (which is what the Brits call diving), both of which he practiced every day. He got pretty good at diving—Statham was on the English National Diving Squad for 12 years. In 1990, he competed in the Commonwealth Games, which are an Olympic-like thing for countries controlled or once controlled by the British crown. On track for the 1992 Olympics, he gave up diving when he was scouted by a modeling agency.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWrINMm1aCI
4. Bruce Dickinson.
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He flies planes because they’re made of PURE METAL. (And fiberglass.)
He’s the lead singer of legendary heavy metal band Iron Maiden, and he’s also a licensed pilot that flies the band around on tour. But there’s more—Bruce Dickinson is also a world-class fencer. He was on track to compete in the 1984 Olympics, but gave it up to spend the majority of his time on music. When he walked away from fencing, he was the seventh-ranked fencer in England.
5. Harold Sakata.
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In 1948, Hawaiian-born Sakata won a silver medal in weightlifting at the Summer Olympics. After wrestling professionally under the name Tosh Togo, he was discovered by a casting agent, and given the iconic role of scrappy henchman Oddjob in Goldfinger (1964), the third James Bond movie.
6. Hillary Wolf.
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Leaving opponents behind like they were her smarmy little brother.
Among Kevin McAllister’s approximately 75 siblings in the chaos at the beginning of Home Alone was older sister Megan, portrayed by actress Hillary Wolf. After reprising the role in Home Alone 2, she gave up acting to pursue judo. Wolf is a four-time national judo champion, and had a spot on the U.S. Olympic judo teams in 1996 and 2000.
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