World Top 10 Athletes

According to the Xinhua News Agency, the world top ten Athletes of this year are the following:

1. Fu Mingxia, 23, female, China, diver. Fu Minnxia is the winner of the four gold medals in the last three Olympic Games

2. Steven Redgrave, 38, Britain, rower. Redgrave won five gold medals at five straight Olympic Games after claiming his title at the Sydney Olympics.

3. Marion Jones, 25, female, America, runner. Jones swept three gold medals in women¡¯s 100m, 200m and 4§ç400m relay at the Sydney Olympics. In April she also anchored the USA women¡¯s team to a world record in the 800 meter relay at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia.

4. Zinedine Zidane, 28, France, soccer. The playmaker for French national team plays for Italian Serie A Juventus club. This summer he helped world champions France win the European Championship. He was selected to play on the Euro 200 All-Star team and voted the player of the Euro 2000. This year he was named the player of the year by FIFA for the second time.

5. Iran Thorpe, 18, male, Australia, Swimmer. Thorpe broke the world record in the 400 freestyle and brought home the relay team¡¯s gold in 4§ç100m and 4§ç200m freestyle on the same evening in world record time.

6. Michael Schumacher, 31, male, Germany, auto racer. Shumacher pulled off 9 grand prix victories from 17-legs FI series this year and won the Formula One championship for the third time.

7. Sun Wen, 27, female, China, soccer. Sun was awarded the women¡¯s soccer player of the Century by FIFA in an Internet vote on the FIFA¡¯s official website. She has joined the Women¡¯s United Soccer Association of the United States which will be launched in April.

8. Tiger Woods, 24, male, America, golf player. Woods took the US open, the Britain Open and the PGA to become the youngest player in history to have won all four Majors. He also became only the second player in history to win three Majors in a single season.

9. Inge de Bruijn, 27, female, Netherlands, swimmer. Bruijin won the women¡¯s 500m, 100m freestyle and 100m butterfly in world record time.

10. Felix Savon, 33, male, Cuba, boxer. Savon won three gold medals in the last three Olympic Games. He lost only 17 matches out of the 358 he fought since 1983.



Source: China Daily


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