Your favorite stories of people becoming famous in one day

For sports, I'm thinking more of a "who is this person and why am I suddenly thinking about them?"

One who comes to mind for me was Elizabeth Manley in the '88 Olympics. Everyone was talking about Debi Thomas vs. Katarina Witt, then, Manley puts on the performance of her life and steals the show and the silver.

Buster Douglas is kinda close. People knew who he was before and just gave him no chance. Then he becomes a household name in one night in Japan.

 

Not quite a day, but merely a flight. Beat that!

 

Sad how it happened and not a favorite story, but Ron Goldman

 

There are a lot of people on this thread I have never, ever heard of.

 

For the record, Allison Stokke was already a state champ and girls California state recordholder in the polevault before she became Internet famous. She was the American freshman recordholder for the polevault and sophomore recordholder

 

Linda Lovelace. Film at 11".

 

And only then because of pervs and pedos.
(pole vault is two words, just as an aside)

 

yay!

 

Actually, not so yay...

Pole vaulter Allison Stokke doesn't want to be your sex symbol

 

I don’t think much of her really. So she jumps up and down in warmups. Meh.

 

When I am on my shitty tablet, and it autocorrects to pole-vault, (look, my MacBook gives it a dash in the middle), I am definitely not going back to correct it. My audience is a guy who burns his steak and slathers it with ketchup.