Josefa Idem-Guerrini

At the 2012 Olympic Games Josefa Idem-Guerrini set an Olympic record by becoming the first woman to compete at eight Olympic Games. Born in West Germany, she first competed at the Games in 1984, immediately wining a bronze medal with Barbara Schüttpelz in the K-2. Shortly after the Seoul Games, she moved to Italy. There, she met her new coach and future husband, Guglielmo Guerrini. The new partnership proved successful, winning her first World Championship medals in 1989. Starting in 1990, Josefa Idem competed for Italy, and she promptly won her first world title, in the K-1 500, adding a second one in the K-1 5,000 in 1991. The results at the Olympic Games were somewhat disappointing, finishing fourth in Barcelona and third in Atlanta. But Idem rose to the top again, winning another world title in 1998 (K-1 1,000), her first Olympic gold in Sydney and the double (K-1 500 and 1,000) at the 2001 World Championships in Poznań. After giving birth to her second child, she made a comeback at the Athens Olympics. While failing to defend her title, she still managed a silver medal. She repeated this at the Beijing Games, where she finished only 4/1000ths of a second behind the gold medallist, Inna Osypenko-Radomska. During her career she won five Olympic medals, and 22 World Championship medals, including five World golds.