Most Olympic gold medals: All-time most successful Olympic champions
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Winning an Olympic medal is an incredible accomplishment that many strive for, but comparatively few manage to achieve.
Even fewer still can say they’ve climbed to the very top of the podium and felt the weight of an Olympic gold medal around their neck.
And far from achieving that monumental feat just once, some athletes can say they’ve been crowned as Olympic champions more than once.
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But who, then, can boast the title of most successful Olympic champion? There are quite a few tied places in the all-time leaderboard, yet only one reigns supreme.
A few more British athletes may stand a chance of fighting their way onto this list by the time all is said and done at the 2024 Paris Olympics, including swimmer Adam Peaty, equestrian Charlotte Dujardin and gymnast Max Whitlock.
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Athletes with the most Olympic gold medals
5. Edoardo Mangiarotti, Ryan Lochte (and more) – 6 gold medals
It’s a big tie for fifth place in the all-time gold medal tally at the summer Olympic Games, with 15 athletes having won six Olympic titles.
Edoardo Mangiarotti gets first mention given those six golds were just some of the 13 Olympic medals (the highest total of all 15 of these Olympians) that the Italian fencer won between 1936 and 1960.
Just behind him in total medals with 12 – half of which were gold – between 2004 and 2016 is American swimmer Ryan Lochte.
The rest of the current six-time Olympic champions are as follows: Belgian archer Hubert Van Innis, Japanese gymnast Akinori Nakayama, Italian fencer Valentina Vezzali, Swedish canoeist Gert Fredriksson, Hungarian canoeist Danuta Kozák, British cyclist Sir Chris Hoy, Belarusian gymnast Vitaly Scherbo, German equestrian Reiner Klimke, Hungarian fencers Pál Kovács and Rudolf Kárpáti, Italian fencer Nedo Nadi, then-East German swimmer Kristin Otto and American swimmer Amy Van Dyken.
4. Nikolai Andrianov, Boris Shakhlin, Isabell Werth (and more) – 7 gold medals
Eleven athletes in the history of the modern summer Olympics have grabbed one more gold medal than that first batch did.
Among them are Russian and Soviet gymnasts Nikolai Andrianov and Boris Shakhlin, who each at one point held the title of most decorated male Olympian with their respective total caches of 15 and 13 medals.
One of a few athletes on this list who could add to their existing haul this year is German equestrian Isabell Werth, who won seven golds among her 12 Olympic medals between 1992 and 2021.
Werth is expected to compete at Paris 2024 alongside two fellow seven-time Olympic champions, the American swimming duo of Katie Ledecky and Caeleb Dressel.
Other athletes with seven summer Olympic golds to their names are: Czech gymnast Věra Čáslavská, former Soviet gymnast Viktor Chukarin, American runner Allyson Felix, cyclist and all-time Team GB medals leader Sir Jason Kenny, Hungarian fencer Aladár Gerevich and Russian synchronised swimmer Svetlana Romashina.
3. Birgit Fischer, Sawao Katō, Jenny Thompson (and more) – 8 gold medals
Six Olympians, meanwhile, have finished their careers with a total of eight summer Olympic gold medals.
The first to do so was American track and field athlete Ray Ewry, who between 1900 and 1908 had a 100 per cent record of Olympic titles in the standing long jump, high jump and triple events, with golds for all of his eight medals. That record of eight individual gold medals stood for just over a century.
Japanese gymnast Sawao Katō (from 1968-1976), American swimmers Matt Biondi (1984-1992) and Jenny Thompson (1992-2004) and German canoeist Birgit Fischer (1980-2004) were the next to achieve the feat of totalling eight Olympic gold medals in their careers, while Jamaican runner Usain Bolt in 2016 joined Ewry as the athletes with the most Olympic medals (eight) that are all gold.
2. Larisa Latynina, Paavo Nurmi, Mark Spitz, Carl Lewis – 9 gold medals
There’s a four-way tie for athletes on nine Olympic gold medals – the second-highest tally in history – between Larisa Latynina, Paavo Nurmi, Mark Spitz and Carl Lewis.
A total of 18 Olympic medals between 1956 and 1964 makes Latynina, a former Soviet gymnast, the most successful female Olympian of all time, while Finnish distance running phenom Nurmi paired his nine golds from 1920 to 1928 with three silver medals.
Lewis was a star for the US in both track and field, winning nine gold medals (and one silver) from 1984-1996 across the 100m, 200m, 4x100m relay and long jump events.
American swimming sensation Spitz won his first two Olympic gold medals alongside a silver and a bronze in 1968, before grabbing seven more golds (along with seven world records) in his seven events at the 1972 Games in Munich for an achievement bettered by only one athlete...
1. Michael Phelps – 23 gold medals
The greatest Olympian of all time in the eyes of many, Michael Phelps's tally of 23 Olympic gold medals is a total that may never be beaten.
Eight of those came in his eight events at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, breaking the record held by fellow American swimmer Spitz, with the rest of his record 28 total Olympic medals – including three silvers and two bronzes – coming between 2000 and 2016.
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