Hometown heroes: Rochester-area Olympic medal winners over the years

Pittsford native Chris Lillis won a gold medal Thursday in the mixed team aerials in his debut at the Beijing Olympics. The quintuple jump he's recently become famous for did the trick in the final round, sticking the landing to help clinch gold for Team USA.

Lillis continues a long tradition of local athletes who have won Olympic medals.

Kim Batten

Her primary sport at East High School was basketball, but Batten gained national recognition in track and field, especially as a triple jumper. At Florida State University, she emerged as a star at the 400-meter hurdles. A six-time national champion in that event, she won a silver medal in the 1996 Olympic games.

More: Kim Batten's world record run

Ryan Callahan

Callahan won a silver medal with the US hockey team at the 2010 winter games in Vancouver. The Hilton native spent 13 years in the National Hockey League with the New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning.

More: Ryan Callahan's hockey career may be over because of injuries

Bill Cox

William Cox was the first Rochester native to win an Olympic medal. He was just 19 years old when he traveled to Paris in 1924 to compete in the Summer Games. Cox earned a bronze medal running for the United States in the 3,000-meter team race, an event no longer held in the Olympics.

More: RocJocks: Olympic medalist Bill Cox

Kim Insalaco

Won bronze with the women's hockey team during the 2006 games at Torino, Italy. Insalaco joined the Rochester Youth Hockey League and was the only girl in the entire league. She was just 13 when she made the Under 16 Nation Junior Girl’s Team. She moved to Connecticut to play high school hockey and later attended Brown University,

Ryan Lochte

The Canandaigua native first won gold in the 4x200 freestyle relay at the 2004 games in Athens, adding a silver medal in the 200 meters individual medley. He would go on to win 12 medals across four Summer Olympics, including six gold medals.

More: Lochte wins gold with Phelps in 800 relay

Meghan Musnicki

A Canandaigua Academy graduate, Musnicki led her Ithaca College rowing team to back-to-back Division III Championships and was a first-team All-American in 2005. She joined the eight-person U.S. women’s national rowing team in 2010, winning a gold medal at the 2012 Olympic summer games in London and again in the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro.

More: Naples native Meghan Musnicki rowed to gold

Diann Roffe

A longtime Williamson resident, Roffe burst onto the skiing scene when she won the world championship in 1985 at age 17. A series of injuries slowed her over the next few years, but she returned to compete in three Winter Olympics, taking silver in the giant slalom in 1992 and gold in the super G in 1994.

More: Gold-medal skier Diann Roffe aids Olympians

Henrik Rummel

Rummel was part of a 4-man team that won a bronze medal in rowing at the 2012 Summer Olympics. A native of Denmark, Rummel started in the sport as a student at Pittsford Mendon high school, shortly after his family moved to town. He participated in two Olympic games after graduating from Harvard University.

More: Pittsford's Rummel advances, has work to do in Rio

Rich Saeger

Saeger won gold at the 1984 Olympics in the 4x200 freestyle relay. He helped the US swim team set a new world record in the first heat, a mark was then bettered by the US team in the final. The Rochester native later graduated from Southern Methodist University.

Jenn Suhr

The longtime Riga resident starred in basketball and track and field at Roberts Wesleyan College. She then concentrated on the pole vault and won the silver medal in the 2008 Olympic summer games and the gold in the 2012 games. She also won a gold medal at the 2016 World Indoor Championships.

More: Jenn Suhr's courage worthy of gold

Hanna Thompson

Thompson won a silver medal with the women's fencing team at the 2008 games in Beijing. She graduated from East High School in 2001 and was a four-time NCAA All-American at the Ohio State University.

Cathy Turner

Turner had retired from skating after winning the 1979 U.S. short-track title but returned to compete in three winter Olympics. She won individual gold in the 500 meters in both 1992 and 1994, adding silver and bronze in the 3000-meter relay.

More: Olympian Cathy Turner says President George H.W. Bush deserved a gold medal for kindness

Jason Turner

Turner competed in three Olympic games between 2004 and 2012, winning a bronze in the 10-meter air pistol shooting at the 2008 games in Beijing. He had finished fourth, but bronze medalist Kim Jong Su later failed a drug test, disqualifying him and upgrading Turner's position to third. Turner shot competitively at the Rochester Rifle Club from 1987 to 1996 and is now a coach for USA Shooting.

Art Tyler

Tyler was a Kodak engineer who put his PhD in physics to work to design sleds and test them in wind tunnels. With partner and Kodak colleague Edgar Seymour, the pair had twice won the North American and the National 2-man bobsled championships. Seymour broke his leg as the pair competed at the 1956 Olympic games in Italy, but Tyler, 41, earned a bronze medal as part of the US 4-man bobsled team.

Lyndsay Wall

Wall was a 16-year-old from Churchville-Chili high school when she won a silver medal with the women's hockey team in 2002. She returned to win bronze for the US team in 2006. Wall captained the Rochester Americans Peewee Major AAA boys' team in 1998-99, and was an All-American at the University of Minnesota.

More: Lyndsay Wall broke hockey barriers

Abby Wambach

Wambach won gold with the women's soccer team in 2004 in Athens and in 2012 in London, missing the 2008 Olympics with a broken leg. A standout in both soccer and basketball at Our Lady Of Mercy, she is the highest all-time goal scorer for the national team and is second in international goals for both female and male soccer players with 184 goals.

More: Abby Wambach headed into National Soccer Hall of Fame

Bobby Weaver

Weaver won gold as a wrestler at the 1984 games in Los Angeles in the light-flyweight division. Born in Rochester, Weaver grew up in Easton, Pennsylvania where he stood out despite his small stature. He first garnered national attention at the 1976 Olympic trials when, at age 17, he pinned his first 8 opponents, all of whom were older and heavier.

John Williams

A graduate of Honeoye-Falls-Lima high school and the Rochester Institute of Technology, Williams won a bronze medal with his horse Carrick as part of the US equestrian team at the 2004 games in Athens. He had been a member of the US team that won a gold medal in the world championships in Spain in 2002.

Wendy Wyland

Wyland won bronze in platform diving at the 1984 games in Los Angeles. She was not a Rochester native but was a fixture on the local swimming scene. Wyland ran the Webster Aquatic Center and was head swimming and diving coach at the Rochester Institute of Technology before she died in 2003 at age 38.

Contact staff reporter Sean Lahman at slahman@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @seanlahman.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Olympic medal winners from Rochester NY: The area's hometown heroes