There are a enough outdoor products to paste Kim's face on; Guns, ammo, shooting clothes to name a few. As for the Wheaties box, ya never know? It's all about supply and demand, even demographics play a part in it. Hey, if you can get a fishing pro on it, why not an olympic shooter? I'll a box or two if she does!

I know this story is a bit of a joke and I am not trying to take away anything from Ms. Rhodes accomplishments because they are quite spectacular and honor worthy. However, I think the title Best Olympian ever should be saved for someone who is a true athlete.

I think that Michael Phelps is probably the best and has been as dominant in a sport as anyone i can remember.

GTbigsky,
You are full of $hit, mostly where your brains should be if you think that a shotgunner who performs to the level Kim Rhode does is not a true athlete.
I cannot believe that anyone would make such an absurd observation. I do not believe that she is the greatest US Olympian, but to say she is not an athlete borders in lunacy. I'll give you a year to train and all the shells you can shoot (which would probably amount to about a tenth of what she shoots) and I would venture to say that you could not break 80 x 100 international targets consistently.
I'm through being harsh now.

Without taking anything away from Kim Rhode or Michael Phelps, I nominate Ashton Eaton as best Olympian, for winning the decathlon this year with an all-time record 9039 points.

Jesse Owens only won 4 golds (100, 'running broad jump', 200, 4x100 relay), but I think we can get past the numbers in his case.

The 1936 Berlin Olympics were the first Games to be flavored by overt nationalism by the host city, and they were supposed to showcase Nazi Germany's Aryan supremacy. They were a carefully, masterfully choreographed propaganda movie. Jesse Owens basically said "shove that."

What Owens did to the Nazis has never been done again in the real world. Only Michael Jordan beating the aliens in "Space Jam" comes close, and it was just a movie.

There may have been others as great an Olympian (never mind US Olympian) as Jesse Owens, but nobody was greater.

99explorer, I agree with O Garcia. While the decathlon is a good measure of all-around performance, the athletes are hardly the best at any single event. I can't justify calling someone the absolute best when there are numerous people who could beat them in any single event.

OGarcia. You make a good point. A certain sportswriter once called the decathlon "a cult of mediocracy," because the winner could have come in second in every event.

No discussion of great Olympians would be complete without mention of "Eddie the Eagle," who represented Great Britain in the ski jump event in Calgary, Canada during the 1988 Winter Olympics.
Being the only competitor from Great Britain, he holds the record for that country, despite finishing dead last and being ranked #55 in the world.
If you didn't like his style, you had to admire his nerve.