The Best Olympic Athletes From Each Sport
There is plenty of evidence that multiple gold medal winning swimmer Michael Phelps is the most successful Olympic Games athlete of all time, from all sports. However, because sports such as swimming, gymnastics and athletics have many events and therefore many medals available to win, athletes from these sports have an advantage when counting total medals won. This is particularly true if you compare athletes from those sports to team sports such as football, handball and hockey where there is only one of each medal available at each Olympiad.
Not taking anything away from the very successful athletes such as Phelps, Nurmi and Latynina, there is an unfair advantage to athletes from the sports which have many more medals available. The very talented and maybe just as great athletes from other sports may be missing out of just accolades. Therefore we have compared only athletes from within each sport, to get a list of the greatest Olympian of all time from each sport.
We have ranked the athletes from each sport including results from the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. To determine the top-ranked athlete from each sport, we have used the Topend Sports Weighted Ranking System to order the athletes, as this appears to give fair credit for winning both gold medals and the minor placings.
Top Olympic Athlete From Each Sport
Here are the top-ranked athletes from each Olympic sport (including results from 2021). Both current and past sports are listed, though of the past sports only included are those that have been present for at least three Olympiads. Golf is not yet listed as there are no multiple medalists. Karate is not listed as it was only contested once, in Tokyo 2021.
Table: The Top Ranked Athletes from Each Olympic Sport (current sports)
| Sport | Athlete | Country | Gold | Silver | Bronze | total medals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Archery | Hubert Van Innis | Belgium | 6 | 3 | 0 | 9 |
| Athletics | Paavo Nurmi | Finland | 9 | 3 | 0 | 12 |
| Badminton | Gao Ling | China | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Basketball | Sue Bird | USA | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| Diana Taurasi | USA | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | |
| Boxing | László Papp | Hungary | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Félix Savón | Cuba | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | |
| Teófilo Stevenson | Cuba | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | |
| Canoeing | Birgit Fischer | Germany | 8 | 4 | 0 | 12 |
| Cycling | Jason Kenny | Great Britain | 7 | 2 | 0 | 9 |
| Diving | Wu Minxia | China | 5 | 1 | 1 | 7 |
| Equestrian | Isabell Werth | Germany | 7 | 5 | 0 | 12 |
| Fencing | Edoardo Mangiarotti | Italy | 6 | 5 | 2 | 13 |
| Field Hockey | Leslie Claudius & Udham Singh |
India | 3 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| Lidewij Welten & Eva de Goede | The Netherlands | 3 | 1 | 0 | 4 | |
| Football | Christie Rampone | USA | 3 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| Gymnastics | Larisa Latynina | USSR | 9 | 5 | 4 | 18 |
| Handball | Michaël Guigou, Nikola Karabatic and Luc Abalo | France | 3 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| Judo | Teddy Riner | France | 3 | 0 | 2 | 5 |
| Modern Pentathlon | András Balczó | Hungary | 3 | 2 | 0 | 5 |
| Rowing | Elisabeta Lipă | Romania | 5 | 2 | 1 | 8 |
| Rugby | Jerry Tuwai | Fiji | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Sailing | Ben Ainslie | Great Britain | 4 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| Shooting | Carl Osburn | USA | 5 | 4 | 2 | 11 |
| Swimming | Michael Phelps | USA | 23 | 3 | 2 | 28 |
| Synchronized Swimming | Svetlana Romashina | Russia | 7 | 0 | 0 | 7 |
| Table Tennis | Ma Long | China | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| Taekwondo | Steven López | USA | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| Hwang Kyung-Seon | South Korea | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 | |
| Hadi Saei | Iran | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 | |
| Tennis | Venus Williams | USA | 4 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| Triathlon | Alistair Brownlee | Great Britain | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Volleyball (beach) | Kerri Walsh | USA | 3 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| Volleyball (indoor) | Ana Fernández + 5 others | Cuba | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Water polo | Dezső Gyarmati | Hungary | 3 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| Weight lifting | Pyrros Dimas | Greece | 3 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| Wrestling | Kaori Icho | Japan | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Mijaín López | Cuba | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
Table: The Top Ranked Athletes from Each Olympic Sport (past sports)
Only past sports included are those that have been present for at least three Olympiads.
| Sport | Athlete | Country | Gold | Silver | Bronze | total medals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseball | Pedro Luis Lazo | Cuba | 2 | 2 | 0 | 4 |
| Polo | John Wodehouse | UK | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Softball | Laura Berg | USA | 3 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| Tug of War | Frederick Humphreys, Edwin Mills & John Shepherd |
Great Britain | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
Related Pages
- The ranking systems compared, and the comparison of the top countries in 2008
- About Olympic Medal Ranking Systems
- medal tables from all Olympic Games
- About Olympic Medals
Any comments, suggestions, or corrections? Please let us know.
Old Comments
- Looking forward to the updates to this table. Some new names after London 2012: Cycling Chris Hoy: 5G, 1S (+ 1 event to go) or Bradley Wiggins: 4G 1S 2B, sailing: Ben Ainslie: 4G, 1S. All 3 are from Great Britain, BTW (from kieran, Aug 2012) - UPDATED!
- Tug of war in the Olympics? What? I don't even think tug of war is a sport let alone an OLYMPIC SPORT! What?
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