After soccer legend Pelé backed out of lighting the Olympic torch due to poor health, Brazil chose Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima to ignite the cauldron at the opening ceremony. De Lima, a distance runner, is best known for winning the bronze medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics despite being tackled by a protester. He was leading late in the run, but his shot at the gold was derailed when an Irish priest, Cornelius Horan, grabbed him and knocked him into the crowd. (Horan had a history of disrupting sporting events, including the British Grand Prix, to promote his theory that the world was coming to an end.) De Lima had lost only seconds before an observer helped to pull Horan off him, but the damage was done. De Lima remained unfazed and finished the race third with a smile. Besides winning the bronze, de Lima was awarded the Pierre de Coubertin medal — an honor rarely bestowed in the Olympics — for “exceptional demonstration of fair play and Olympic values.” From heartbreak in 2004 to Olympic glory in 2016, De Lima has been a true sportsman in every sense of the word.