White Rock area resident and doctor Peter Snell is pretty famous in his home country New Zealand, where he won three Olympic gold medals for running. Today he and wife Miki are world-class competitiors in the growing sport of orienteering. Photo by Benjamin Hager

White Rock area resident and doctor Peter Snell is pretty famous in his home country New Zealand, where he won three Olympic gold medals for running. Today he and wife Miki are world-class competitiors in the growing sport of orienteering. Photo by Benjamin Hager

Earlier this week we reported on the Lake Highlands-born wrestler Florian Skilang Temengil, who will represent his parents’ native country Palau in the summer Olympics, which kick off this week in Rio de janeiro, Brazil.

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I began working at the Advocate in 2008. One of the first major projects assigned me was tracking down all of the former Olympians from East Dallas and Lake Highlands, and I was surprised and giddy about how many I found, with help from Advocate readers, of course, which is the trove from where all our most amazing ideas hail.

From Lake Highlands, we located and interviewed Darvis Patton who competed on the track in 2004 in Athens,
 where he won Silver in the 4×100 men’s relay. The there was Erin Aldrich, a track and field star at the Olympic Games in 2000 in Sydney. (Erin is also a professional volleyball player who missed the 2008 team due to injury).

One of my favorite finds was Peter Snell. If you read running magazines, Snell’s name comes up all the time. He was known as being a member of the four-minute-mile club when only a handful of athletes had achieved the milestone. Though he works at UT Southwestern and lives near White Rock, he is from New Zealand, where is is incredibly famous; a statue of the three-time gold medalist stands on the north island of Opunake. Read the whole article about Lake Highlands area Olympians here.

And in East Dallas, we tracked down even more.

There is Ryan Berube, an American swimmer who won gold in 1996 in Atlanta, Ga.
 Another swimmer, Martina Moravcova, competed for her home Slovakian in 1992 in Barcelona, Spain; in 1996 in Atlanta, Ga.; in 2000 in Sydney Australia and in 2004 in Athens, Greece
. She took two silver medals in 2000. Daniel Watters medaled in swimming in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, and Vince Poscente competed in skiing in 1992 in Albertville — he still lives in Dallas and works as a motivational speaker.

Read the full East Dallas article here.