On this day· August 11, 2012
Kim Yeon-koung
At the 2012 London Olympics, South Korea finished fourth — off the podium — and the tournament MVP was still a Korean. Kim Yeon-koung scored 207 points, an Olympic record, and was named both MVP and top scorer while carrying a team a place short of a medal. As a middle-schooler she stood under 170 centimetres and nearly quit volleyball for soccer, sure she was too small. Then she grew more than 20 centimetres in high school, reaching 192 — and, having first learned the game as an undersized setter and libero, reinvented herself as an outside hitter who saw the whole court and now had the height to punish it.