Most Successful Summer Olympic Athletes

Last Updated 2014-05-12

This is a list of the most successful Summer Olympic 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. But this will not change the fact that Michael Phelps is the pre-eminent number one, with twice as many gold medals as any other athlete.

Ranking	Athlete	Nation	Sport	Years Competing	Gender	Gold Medals	Silver Medals	Bronze Medals	Total
1.	Michael Phelps	United States	Swimming	2004–2012	M	18	2	2	22
2.	Larisa Latynina	Soviet Union	Gymnastics	1956–1964	F	9	5	4	18
3.	Paavo Nurmi	Finland	Athletics	1920–1928	M	9	3	0	12
4.	Mark Spitz	United States	Swimming	1968–1972	M	9	1	1	11
5.	Carl Lewis	United States	Athletics	1984–1996	M	9	1	0	10
6.	Birgit Fischer	Germany	Canoeing	1980–2004	F	8	4	0	12
7.	Sawao Kato	Japan	Gymnastics	1968–1976	M	8	3	1	12
7.	Jenny Thompson	United States	Swimming	1992–2004	F	8	3	1	12
9.	Matt Biondi	United States	Swimming	1984–1992	M	8	2	1	11
10.	Ray Ewry	United States	Athletics	1900–1908	M	8	0	0	8

Sources: wikipedia.org, cc search