The Olympic spirit has always been about performing at your very best and overcoming the odds to be crowned champion. As such, throughout the years the Games have provided us with some magical moments that have touched the hearts of fans around the world.

The Beijing Olympics had its fair share of extraordinary performances, but most were overshadowed by record-breaking swimmer Michael Phelps and the hysteria surrounding Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt. Others, however, do deserve a share of the limelight for their largely unsung achievements. So take a bow...

10. Tia Hellebaut takes gold in the women’s high jump: Croatia’s Blanka Vlasic was a surefire gold medallist going into the Games. Not only was she the reigning world champion but she had not lost an event since June 2007. Accordingly, she cleared all heights with relative ease, slowly narrowing the field of challengers. Belgian outsider Tia Hellebaut wasn’t exactly taken seriously as a threat to win a gold, as through the 2.02 metre height she was anything but picture perfect. Besides, a pair of Russian athletes seemed to be the toughest challengers Vlasic had to face. Hellebaut, however, managed to keep pace with Vlasic and, in an unforeseen turn of events, she managed to clear 2.05 meters (a personal and Belgian record by far) on her first attempt. Vlasic only managed the height in two attempts and with neither clearing 2.07 the Belgian had the surprise victory.

9. Yukiko Ueno pitched and pitched and then pitched some more: Don’t you just love women’s softball? Well here is a story that will astonish those who are fond of the sport. Ueno threw the final 28 innings of the tournament for the Japanese over two days. 21 of them in a single day! The last seven of those were the finals in one of the biggest upsets of the entire Olympics, but we will get back to that later. Anyone who knows the sport knows just how tough it is on the body to pitch 28 innings. This was a superhuman effort from Ueno.

8. Hungary’s water polo team – Olympic champions of the Millennium: The words that rang true after Sydney in 2000 and Athens in 2004 still ring true. Hungary is the only country to have won a gold in the men’s water polo event at the Games in the new Millennium. The title they won at Sydney was defended in Athens, and now re-defended in Beijing. They simply overwhelmed the surprise finalists of Team USA (a silver medal finish that almost earned them their own space on this list) after having beaten the freshly-crowned European champion Montenegro team. Hungary becomes only the second country to win three consecutive titles in the sport, and the first to do so with the modern rules in place.

7. Olga Kharlan carries the Ukraine team on her back: Zorro could not have brought this fencing team back from certain defeat against hosts China. The team sabre gold was looking securely in the hands of the home squad as they led by 10 points, 25-15 in the final. Then along came Kharlan. She did the unthinkable, single-handedly outscoring the Chinese team 21-20, en route to securing 21 of Ukraine’s 30 points for the win. Her precision was a thing of beauty and her determination could be seen even through the mask she was wearing. Her body language simply exuded confidence as she broke down each and every member of the Chinese team.

6. Japanese softball team ends US supremacy: Yukiko Ueno’s brilliant individual effort was massive, but she was just a piece of the puzzle that resulted in what might have been the upset of upsets. Japan managed to dethrone the USA in women’s softball. Just how big of a deal is that? Consider the fact that softball will not be a featured event in 2012 in London, mainly because the IOC saw it as a totally USA-dominated sport. Well, looks like Japan managed to beat some long odds, and in the process they also managed to kick the IOC’s best excuse for cutting baseball squarely in the nuts.

5. Can Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh lose? Beach volleyball has its very own dream team. A tandem so good you cannot even find words for it. The USA duo simply took care of business and lived up to their billing as favourites when they won the women’s beach volleyball event. Once you consider the fact that this leaves the duo still unbeaten in their past 108 games, you have to admit they have a case for doing something special. I imagine a 108-match winning streak in any sport would mean quite a lot. Same goes for volleyball.

4. You’re never too old for the Olympics – Dara Torres: She’s 41. She first competed in the 1984 Los Angeles Games. She just recently had a baby. And she was competing and winning medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. American Dara Torres is an inspiration to every athlete, as she not only looked on par with much younger competitors, she bested all but one of them in the 50-metre freestyle. She was also a part of a medley team that took silver. With two medals won, she truly proved that age does not matter.

3. South Africa’s Natalie Du Toit swam at the Olympics: Du Toit became the first amputee to compete at the Olympics when she qualified with a fourth-place at the world open water championships in May. Du Toit lost her left leg in a motorcycle accident in 2001. Her achievement is made even more extraordinary by the fact that she failed to qualify for the Sydney Games in 2000 prior to her accident. Her story shows just how far someone can get with sheer determination.

2. Overcoming the biggest of tragedies in the flatwater canoe event: Hungary’s György Kozmann and György Kolonics were likely medal finishers for both the 500m and 1,000m flatwater C2 events during the preparation for the Games. With a crowded field of challengers the gold was not guaranteed, but a medal was the minimum expected of them. Then tragedy struck. Just weeks before the Olympic Games Kolonics died after collapsing during a training session. Kozmann received a new team-mate, Tamás Kiss, and had to make do with just the 1,000m event as another pair was selected to run the 500. With the expectations of a medal lifted, and the death of a close friend still fresh in the mind, Kozmann and Kiss willed their canoe to slide in for bronze, which will probably mean more to their fans than any gold medal ever won.

1. Maarten van der Weijden wins swimming gold! His story has really been gaining steam the past two days to the point that I cannot really deem it an under-the-radar one, but it is such an exceptional tale that it has to be told over and over again. Maarten was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2001. During the worst times doctors saw him having only weeks, maybe just days, left to live. Yet he overcame this horrible disease and, after two years completely away from the sport, he began training again. In Beijing he took home the gold medal in the 10k open water event.