Gwen Jorgensen, the first American to win back-to-back world triathlon titles, could have been an accountant.
She gave up on her Olympic dream as a teenager when she realized she couldn't swim fast enough and decided she'd go to college.
She spent three years on the swim team at Wisconsin, where she was an All-American and Big Ten track champion, and would parlay her master's degree and CPA into a job at Ernst & Young upon graduation.
Then she got a call from Barb Lindquist, at one time the world's top-ranked triathlete and a former Olympian.