Joel Ladd Thomas (born December 13 1966) is an American former competition swimmer and Olympic gold medalist. At the 1991 Pan American Games in Havana Cuba Thomas won a gold medal as a member of the winning U.S. team in the 4x100-meter medley relay. Individually he also received a silver medal for finishing second in the 100-meter freestyle event.Thomas represented the United States at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona Spain. Given a list of categories: company, educational institution, artist, athlete, office holder, mean of transportation, building, natural place, village, animal, plant, album, film or written work, what category does the paragraph belong to?
The answer to this question is:
Athlete