Mark O. Madsen
Olympic Result: Silver, 2016
The recently retired Mark O. Madsen (that’s O. as in middle initial, short for Overgard, not O’Madsen, a mistake often observed over the years) represented his native Denmark at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where he earned a silver medal in Greco-Roman Wrestling. The only man ahead of Madsen in the 75kg division was two-time Olympic champ Roman Vlasov of Russia, who had also won gold four years earlier.
Mark O. Madsen is a bit of an outlier in that, unlike many of his fellow Olympians, he pursued MMA alongside his amateur athletics career. Madsen took his first pro fight in 2013, winning both that and a second bout the following year. Already Junior European champ who had medaled at several World Championships, Madsen then turned his focus back to wrestling in pursuit of his Olympic dream — not entirely voluntarily, mind you. Receiving a guaranteed salary from the Danish Wrestling Federation for years, as ESPN noted in 2019, the wrestler pretty much had his hand forced. And so, when push came to shove, Madsen opted against pursuing another Olympic medal, instead choosing to pursue his UFC dream at the admittedly late age of 35 when he finally signed with the company as an 8-0 “prospect.”
“The Olympian” won his first four UFC bouts, though he would suffer a broken jaw in his 2020 win against Austin Hubbard, losing a year of precious career time as a result. Back-to-back losses to an overweight Grant Dawson and Jared Gordon in 2022 and 2023, however, sent Mark O. Madsen into retirement.
