Most Successful Olympic Female Athletes

Last Updated 2014-05-12

This is a list of the most successful Olympic female athletes, sorted by the number of gold medals. Note that different sports have a different number of events where medals are available. Therefore athletes in some sports, e.g. swimming, have the opportunity to win more medals than athletes in other sports. Also note that the number of events has increased in recent years, which favours athletes that have competed during the last decades.

Ranking	Athlete	Nation	Sport	Years Competing	Games	Gold Medals	Silver Medals	Bronze Medals	Total
1.	Larisa Latynina	Soviet Union	Gymnastics	1956–1964	Summer	9	5	4	18
2.	Birgit Fischer	Germany	Canoeing	1980–2004	Summer	8	4	0	12
3.	Jenny Thompson	United States	Swimming	1992–2004	Summer	8	3	1	12
4.	Věra Čáslavská	Czechoslovakia	Gymnastics	1960–1968	Summer	7	4	0	11
5.	Marit Bjørgen	Norway	Cross-country skiing	2002–2014	Winter	6	3	1	10
6.	Lyubov Yegorova	Russia	Cross-country skiing	1992–1994	Winter	6	3	0	9
7.	Valentina Vezzali	Italy	Fencing	1996–2012	Summer	6	1	2	9
8.	Kristin Otto	East Germany	Swimming	1988	Summer	6	0	0	6
8.	Lidia Skoblikova	Soviet Union	Speed skating	1960–1964	Winter	6	0	0	6
8.	Amy Van Dyken	United States	Swimming	1996–2000	Summer	6	0	0	6

Sources: wikipedia.org, cc search