To help finance their Olympic preparations the "Matildas," as the Australian women's soccer players are known, posed nude for a calendar.

Sydney 2000.

The story goes that an angry Mohammad AU threw his Olympic gold medal of 1960 into the river after being barred from a "whites only" Ohio restaurant. The IOC replaced it after 36 years. Atlanta 1996.

Rafael Nadal (ESP)

With three consecutive Roland Garros titles between 2005-2007, an insatiable will to win every single point and a brutal, pummelling style of play, Spain's Rafael Nadal is the undoubted king of the clay court.

The bullish Mallorcan is one

of the few men stopping Roger Federer from total domination of the game and seemingly has sport in his genes, with his uncle the ex-Barcelona defender Miguel Angel Nadal playing at three World Cups for Spain while another uncle, Toni Nadal, is Rafael's coach.

Born in 1986 he was playing tennis by the age of four, was entered at competition at

eight and at 16 was the youngest man to ever win an ATP game at the Mallorca International series of 2002.

Such is the draw to take part at what should be a truly unforgettable Beijing Games that Federer, Nadal and most of the world's top players of either gender will be vying for gold out on the hard courts in

China 2008.

BOXING

Manus Boonjumnong (THA)

Manus Boonjumnong came to prominance when he beat world champion Willy Blain and fancied Cuban Yudel Johnson Cedeno on his way to winning the light welterweight (64kg) boxing gold at Athens.

It propelled him to

superstar status in his native Thailand but he soon became equally well-known for blowing the 600,000 dollars he earned from his Athens win on card games, soccer betting and excessive partying.

His stepped back from the ring and his wife left him, but he made a successful comeback when he was

crowned Asian Games champion in 2006, only to be knocked out early at the 2007 World Amateur Boxing Championships in Chicago.

The 28-year-old, whose brother Non won a welterweight silver at the 2007 worlds, claims he is now a reformed character after spending time in a monastry.

How he fares in Beijing will

be eagerly watched not just by Thailand but by boxing fans around the world.

BASKETBALL

Yao Ming (China)

China's leading athlete the giant 2.26 metre tall Yao Ming broke into basketball's showpiece league the NBA to become an international

megastar who earns untold dollars in the marketing arena.

He was his nation's flag bearer at the last Games and the emblematic athlete will now face the mouthwatering challenge of leading China, under intense scrutiny, to an unprecedented Olympic medal when the Games take place in Beijing in 2008.

It would be a significant

achievement for the basketball mad nation, who recently finished way down the rankings at the 2006 world championships in Japan, where however Yao was the tournament's top scorer with an average of 25.3 points per game.

Born in 1980, he stands at a colossal 2.26 metres and

enjoys such remarkable coordination he had US scouts scrambling for his signature following an impressive performance at the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney.

In the 2002 draft he was picked first, something a foreigner had never experienced, and it was the Houston Rockets who were the lucky team to secure his

services.

The Texan outfit had to haggle hard for his release from the Shanghai Sharks with the Chinese authorities, who gained guarantees of his release for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

CYCLING

Rebecca Romero (GBR)

If Britain's cycling world champion Rebecca Romero wins on the track at Beijing she will make Olympic history by being only the second women to take medals at two

different sports.

Romero, 28, won quadruple skulls rowing silver in Athens 2004 adding a world championship gold a year later, before she got fed up and left the sport.

A chance call led her to the new discipline of cycling and in true Olympian style Romero took to the

task with relish, winning silve - after only a year in the sadd - in the 3km individual pursu at the 2007 world championships.

A year later, she became th world champion in the same distance, overpowering American Sarah Hammer in

the individual pursuit, before helping Britain to gold in the team event.

Brimming with enthusiasm for her newfound passion, th special amphibious athlete may just be on her way to making Olympic history.

***Brazilian runner Vanderlei Lima was far ahead of the field and 7 km from the finish when a defrocked priest, Cornelius Horan, leapt from the crowd and began to push and shore the bewildered athlete. Lima ended the race third after the distraction but was awarded a special medal. Athens 2004.***

***Britain's Linford Christie won the 100m gold at Barcelona, but he was disqualified from the event after two false starts.

Atlanta 1996.***

***All three medals in the shot-put were won by athletes who had previously served doping bans. This was the first time it had happened. Barcelona 1992***