{"id":648005,"date":"2026-06-19T23:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T23:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/648005\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T23:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T23:42:09","slug":"the-first-and-only-person-to-win-an-olympic-gold-medal-and-a-grammy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/648005\/","title":{"rendered":"The first and only person to win an Olympic gold medal and a Grammy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/Nagarjun Kandukuru \/ Grammys<\/p>\n

Fri 19 June 2026 20:45, UK <\/p>\n

As the wealth of novelty numbers and misguided pop detours attest to, there\u2019s always been a dubious overlap of sports<\/a> and music.<\/p>\n

Ever seen Glenn Hoddle and Chris Waddle\u2019s stiff, uncomfortable dancing on Top of the Pops for their earnest \u2018Diamond Lights\u2019 single? Perhaps you blocked out Kevin Keegan\u2019s drippy \u2018Head over Heels in Love\u2019 ballad. And, while faring a little better in New Order\u2019s \u2018World in Motion\u2019, famed midfielder John Barnes\u2019 clunky flow on 1988\u2019s \u2018Anfield Rap\u2019 rattles around Liverpool FC\u2019s skeleton closet as the tacky hip-hop disaster it is.<\/p>\n

Granted, we\u2019re dwelling in UK football territory here, but music and sport\u2019s clash fares little better across the Atlantic, from boxer Manny Pacquiao\u2019s po-faced cover of \u2018Sometimes When We Touch\u2019 to former track and field athlete Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis\u2019 soggy synth-funk flop \u2018Break It Up\u2019 which very much did not win a Grammy.<\/p>\n

The only real success that doesn\u2019t have a whiff of novelty is Six-time World Snooker Champion Steve Davis, who jumped into a fairly acclaimed second career as an electronic musician and DJ. Still, it\u2019s slim pickings for any sports star\u2019s entry to the Recording Academy\u2019s consideration. Regarding an actual music release, it\u2019s only sextuple boxing champion Oscar De La Hoya who got close, nominated for \u2018Best Latin Pop Album\u2019 at the 2001 Grammys for his eponymous debut album, Shakira walking away with the gong instead for Shakira: MTV Unplugged.<\/p>\n

Nearly 40 years earlier, Muhammad Ali found himself nominated for \u2018Best Comedy Album\u2019<\/a>. Back when he was still Cassius Clay, the trash-talking boxer geared himself for his World Heavyweight Championship fight with the incumbent title holder Sonny Liston with 1963\u2019s I Am the Greatest LP, full of skits centred on Clay\u2019s colourful braggadocio. It wouldn\u2019t win, the prize handed to Allan Sherman\u2019s My Son, the Nut instead, but Clay\u2019s lyrical punch and rollercoaster monologues would sow the seeds for rap awaiting around the corner.<\/p>\n

So, who is the only Olympic gold medalist to have won a Grammy?<\/p>\n

Despite enjoying the prime of his NBA career as far back as 1979, Los Angeles Lakers legend Magic Johnson was still able to wow the basketball world even into the 1990s \u2013 Johnson wound up co-captaining the so-called \u2018Dream Team\u2019 for the 1992 Summer Olympics, joining some of the biggest stars of the day over to Barcelona for the United States Men\u2019s Olympic Basketball Team\u2019s domination.<\/p>\n

Helped by Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Charles Barkley, the \u2018Dream Team\u2019 won Gold with an 8-0 record with Johnson averaging 8.0 points, with the Lakers star receiving significant ovations due to his recent announcements of a HIV diagnosis.<\/p>\n

Such private battles would lead to his Grammy Award. In efforts to educate on the topic of HIV\/AIDS awareness, as well as fight the virus\u2019s stigma<\/a>, Johnson decided to release an audio version of his What You Can Do to Avoid AIDS information book.<\/p>\n

For the first and only time for any Olympic Gold winner, he won, taking the Grammy for \u2018Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Album\u2019 in 1993 amid the era\u2019s \u2018Magic Effect\u2019 that saw more heterosexual men take tests and a broader cultural shift away from the homophobia of prior years.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/Nagarjun Kandukuru \/ Grammys Fri 19 June 2026 20:45, UK As the wealth of novelty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[32677,96,2836,128,10258,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-648005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1990s","tag-entertainment","tag-grammy-awards","tag-music","tag-olympic-games","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}