Michael Fred Phelps (born June 30, 1985) is an American swimmer who has, overall, won 16 Olympic medals—six gold and two bronze at Athens in 2004, and eight gold at Beijing in 2008, becoming the most successful athlete at both of these Olympic Games editions. In doing so he has twice equaled the record eight medals of any type at a single Olympics achieved by Soviet gymnast Alexander Dityatin at the 1980 Moscow Summer Games. His five gold medals in individual events tied the single Games record set by compatriot Eric Heiden in the 1980 Winter Olympics and equaled by Vitaly Scherbo at the 1992 Summer Games. Phelps holds the record for the most gold medals won in a single Olympics; his eight at the 2008 Beijing Games surpassed American swimmer Mark Spitz's seven-gold performance at Munich in 1972. Phelps' Olympic medal total is second only to the 18 Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina won over three Olympics, including nine gold. Phelps also holds the all-time record for most gold Olympic medals, at 14.

Phil Hellmuth (born July 16, 1964) is an American professional poker player. He is best known for holding a record 11 World Series of Poker bracelets, for winning the Main Event of the 1989 World Series of Poker (WSOP) and for his temperamental, "poker brat" personality. He is also a member of the WSOP's Poker Hall of Fame.

Phillip Jerome Hellmuth, Jr. was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison for three years before dropping out to play poker full time. He now lives in Palo Alto, California with his wife Katherine Sanborn (a psychiatrist at Stanford University) and their two sons Philip III and Nicholas.

As of 2011, his total live tournament winnings exceed $13,000,000. He is ranked fourth on the All Time Money List, behind Erik Seidel, Daniel Negreanu, and Phil Ivey. As a poker player, Hellmuth is known for taking his seat in tournaments hours after they begin.

In 1989, the 24-year-old Hellmuth became the youngest player to win the Main Event of the WSOP by defeating the two-time defending champion Johnny Chan in heads up play; his record has since been broken twice, when Peter Eastgate won in 2008 and Joe Cada won in 2009. Hellmuth holds the records for most WSOP cashes (85) and most WSOP final tables (45), overtaking T. J. Cloutier.

Jason Mercier (born November 12, 1986) is an American professional poker player from Hollywood, Florida. He has won two World Series of Poker bracelets and one European Poker Tour title. Mercier is a member of Team PokerStars Pro and was named the Bluff Magazine Player of the Year for 2009.

As of June 2011, Mercier is ranked first in the world by ESPN.

In 2008 Mercier made two final tables at the European Poker Tour (EPT). His first was at the EPT San Remo in season 4 where he won the event earning €869,000 ($1,372,893) with a final table that included online professional poker players, and Team PokerStars Pro's Dario Minieri (3rd) and William Thorson (6th). The following season he made his second EPT final table coming in 6th in the 2008 EPT Barcelona event in season 5, earning €227,800 ($324,946). Sebastian Ruthenberg. won the tournament.

In October 2008, he won the EPT London £20,000 High Roller Event. Better known as the "2008 £1 Million Showdown", this non-title event earned Mercier an additional £516,000 ($944,847). The final table included runner-up John Juanda who had recently won the 2008 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event. Other notable contestants at the final table were online pros Mike "SirWatts" Watson and Isaac Haxton as well as professionals Scotty Nguyen, David Benyamine and Isabelle Mercier.

Shane Keith Warne (born 13 September 1969) is a former Australian international cricketer widely regarded as one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the game. In 2000, he was selected by a panel of cricket experts as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Century, the only specialist bowler selected in the quintet and the only one still playing at the time. He is also a cricket commentator and a professional poker player.

Warne played his first Test match in 1992, and his 708 wickets was the record for the most wickets taken by any bowler in Test cricket, until it was broken by Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan on 3 December 2007. He took over 1000 international wickets (in Tests and One-Day Internationals)—he was the second bowler to reach this milestone after Muttiah Muralitharan. A useful lower-order batsman, Warne also scored over 3000 Test runs, and he holds the record for most Test runs without a century. His career was plagued by scandals off the field; these included a ban from cricket for testing positive for a prohibited substance, charges of bringing the game into disrepute by accepting money from bookmakers, and sexual indiscretions.