Janet Evans won almost everything there was to win in swimming, including five Olympic medals.
To her though, the highlight of her career was passing the Olympic torch to boxing legend Muhammad Ali in 1996.
“It was [my] hands-down most favorite Olympic moment,” Evans tells WSB. “And I tell people I’d give up every medal to do it again.”
The Olympic swimmer, who ended her career with seven world records, says it was an honor to play a small part in such a big moment for the Olympic Movement.
Evans adds, “With Atlanta being my last Olympics, passing the torch to Ali and running that torch through the stadium was certainly my greatest lesson as an Olympian.”
“To stand up there with Muhammad Ali… With his courage to say to the world, ‘yeah I’m sick, but I’m still here in the name of the Olympic Movement.’”
Evans also recalls the 1996 Centennial Olympic bombing. As a young athlete, Evans tells WSB nothing prepared her for that experience.
“Being a kid that grew up in California, I thought for a second that it was an earthquake,” she says. “The building I was in shook.”
“I think you don’t think that something like that is going to happen at the Olympic Games.
“It was very tragic and very much a dark day in Atlanta.”
However, Evans says she and her fellow athletes refused to let the bombing define the rest of the Games.
“We said to the world, ‘the Olympics are more, the Olympics bring people together,’ and we weren’t going to let that ruin the spirit of the Olympics.
“And I think that the athletes did a great job honoring the victims, and honoring the spirit of the Games."