Sir Steve Redgrave
DOB: 23/3/1962 Event: Rowing Medals: 5 Gold, 1 Bronze Flag: GBR
Last Updated: 06/12/11 9:56am
Regarded as Britain's greatest Olympian, Redgrave is one of an elite group of just four people to have won gold medals at five consecutive Olympic Games.
He is the most successful rower in the history of the sport and, together with long-time partner Matthew Pinsent, holds a record 14 Olympic and World Championship gold medals.
The 49-year-old was honoured for his achievements with an MBE in 1987 and a CBE in 1997 before he was given a knighthood in 2001.
Born in Marlow, Buckinghamshire in 1962, Redgrave's first taste of Olympic glory came at the Los Angeles games in 1984 when he was part of the Great Britain crew that won the Coxed Fours.
He followed that up four years later in Seoul when he triumphed with Andy Holmes in the Coxless pairs - also winning a bronze medal in the Coxed Pairs.
For the 1992 Barcelona Olympics in Redgrave teamed up with Pinsent to claim gold again in the Coxless Pairs, a feat they repeated at the Atlanta games in 1996 where they set an Olympic record that stands to this today.
Immediately after that win he famously told a TV interviewer that anyone who saw him near a rowing boat again should shoot him.
But the following year he announced he would continue and in 2000 he rowed into the history books at the Millennium Games Sydney with a fifth consecutive gold in the Coxless Fours.
He announced his retirement from rowing after Sydney but has continued to maintain close links with the sport and the Olympics.
