One of the most inspiring efforts in Olympic history occurred in the equestrian discipline of dressage, in which riders put horses through their paces in a series of movements, such as canter, trot, and various walking steps. Simply sitting and riding a horse was an incredible accomplishment for Denmark’s Lis Hartel at the 1952 Helsinki Games. After battling polio, she was paralyzed from her knees down and had to be helped onto and off her horse. Even so, she won the silver medal in the first Olympic dressage competition in which women and men faced off. During the medals presentation, she was assisted onto the podium by Sweden’s Henri Saint Cyr, the gold medalist, in a Kleenex moment for spectators. Hartel went on to repeat as the silver medalist at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.
