Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Who Was the Greatest Olympian of All Time?

Episode Date: August 1, 2021

The modern Olympics have been celebrated for over 100 years. Since their beginning in 1896, there have been over 100,000 athletes who have competed at the Olympics and thousands of medals have been awarded. At every Olympics, just like clockwork, the same debate is initiated: who is the greatest Olympian of all time? Join me as I try to answer this unanswerable question, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The modern Olympics have been celebrated for over 100 years. Since their beginning in 1896, there have been over 100,000 athletes who have competed at the Olympics and thousands of medals that have been awarded. At every Olympics, just like clockwork, the same debate is initiated. Who is the greatest Olympian of all time? Join me as I try to answer this unanswerable question on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? Throughline is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night.

And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the Throughline podcast from NPR. This episode is sponsored by Brilliant.org. Brilliant's mission is to inspire and develop people to achieve their goals in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. one person, one question, and one small commitment to learning at a time. They enable great teachers to illuminate the soul of math, science, and engineering through bite-sized interactive learning experiences. Their courses explore the laws that shape our world,

elevating math and science, from something to be feared to a delightful experience of guided discovery. If you're interested in learning more about any STEM subject, go to everything-everywhere.com slash brilliant. Once again, that's everything-everywhere.com slash brilliant. Let's start by addressing the elephant in the room. Trying to determine who is the greatest Olympian of all time is an almost impossible question. For starters, not all sports are equal.

Not even close. If you're the best basketball player in the world, you can only win one medal per Olympics. Even then, you have to share it with 12 other people on your team. If you're good at swimming, you can win medals at various distances, using different strokes, and in relay. you can slice and dice the different swimming events and get medals for each one. Furthermore, and let's be really honest here, not all of the events draw the best athletes. I have a feeling that all the world's greatest speedwalkers were at one point not the world's greatest speed runners, and then they transitioned into a sport where their legs don't have to leave

the ground. Moreover, if we go back in time, the Olympics really wasn't the thing it was today. Athletes were literally amateurs and often had to have jobs or had to retire early, because there was no money in sports. Mark Spitz set an Olympic record for medals in 1972, and then couldn't afford to swim anymore and had to get a job. So, with that being said, let's dive into it. I'll address the greatest male and female Olympian separately. And let's start with the men. And let's look at the metric, which is the easiest to analyze, total medals one. There is really no question if you use this metric because the person who is number one is so far ahead of everyone else, it isn't even close. Swimmer Michael Phelps. Phelps won 23 Olympic gold medals and 28 medals overall at four

different Olympic games. That's 10 more medals total than the next closest woman, we'll talk about in a bit, and 13 more than the next closest man, Nikolai Andrenov, a Soviet gymnast who won 15. Only 142 people in Olympic history have ever won seven medals combined in anything, and that number would put you amongst the Olympic elite. Phelps won four times that amount. Even if you take out the relay races, he still won more individual medals than anyone else in history. He more than doubled the number of medals that anyone, male or female, have ever won in swimming. So even within his own sport, his accomplishments really stand out. I was kind of hoping that he would compete in Tokyo, just because I really like records, but that's easy for me to say when I'm not the one who has to spend hours every day training at the pool.

But, as I said before, swimming is a sport that has lots of events. Phelps was able to swim different strokes at different lengths and then have races where you swim all the strokes and then have relay races on top of that. So, how about track and field? The record for the most medals is held by Paavo Nirmie of Finland, won nine gold medals and 12 medals overall, in three different Olympics in the 1920s. However, five of those medals were in events that are no longer at the Olympics anymore. Behind him is American Carl Lewis. Lewis won nine gold medals and one silver medal across four different events,

the 100 meter, the 400 meter, the 4x100 relay, and the long jump. He was both one of the greatest sprinters and long jumpers in history, and he won the long jump at four different Olympic games. However, with that silver medal, he wasn't quite perfect. Jamaican Usain Bolt was awarded nine gold medals in nine events over three Olympics. However, one of his relay gold medals was taken away because he had a teammate who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. To wonder what could have been, Bolt actually started out his career running at 400 meters.

If he had wanted to, he could have been very competitive at that distance, which is something that is unheard of for people who also run 100 meters. He could have probably even been a competitive long jumper. So, okay, so what about beating your competition? Who crushed their opponents by the largest margin? That would probably be American long jumper Bob Beeman, who had one of the greatest single performances in Olympic history when he demolished the world record in 1968.

And I have an entire previous episode about this subject. His Olympic record in the long jump still stands, and it's the oldest Olympic record from any sport in any event that is still standing. Okay, so what about longevity? Winning a ton of medals at one Olympics is great, but if you can only win one per Olympics, then success might be thought of as winning over multiple Olympics. There is only one person who has won an Olympic gold medal at five different Olympics. British Rower, Steve Redgrave, won a gold medal in 1984. 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, and 2000. However, another athlete who should receive special mention in terms of longevity is

Italian fencer Eduardo Mangiarati. He won gold medals at four different Olympics and three more medals at a fifth Olympics. However, those Olympic gold medals span from 1936 to 1960, which were 24 years apart. Two Olympics were canceled during World War II. and if those had taken place, he probably would have won medals at seven Olympics. I shouldn't overlook the Winter Olympics either. Norwegian cross-country skier Bjorn Dahlia won eight gold medals and 12 medals overall. I should finally mention that just being in the Olympics is pretty impressive.

So who has appeared in the most Olympic games? That would be Canadian equestrian athlete Ian Miller, who has appeared in 10 different Olympics. His first Olympic was in 1972 in Munich. and his last was in 2012 in London. Canada boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, and he qualified for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, but his horse was injured. So had politics and animal welfare not gotten in the way,

he could have competed in 12 Olympics. His first and only medal came at the age of 61 in 2008 in Beijing. Okay, so what about the women? The top female medal winner and the top Olympian period before Michael Phelps, is Soviet gymnast Larissa Latinina. She won nine gold medals and 18 medals overall over three Olympics in the 1950s and 1960s. She was the first woman to win a medal in every gymnastics event at the Olympics. At the Winter Olympics, Norwegian cross-country skier Marit Björgen won eight gold medals and 15 medals overall. She's the most decorated Winter Olympian in history. She might be competing

in Beijing in 2022 at the age of 42 to pad her medal count. She won five medals in 2018, so it's definitely not under the question for her to tie or surpass Larissa Latitina's record. American sprinter Alice and Felix won nine medals, which is the most by any woman in track and field. She won six gold and three silver, just short of the track record set by Carl Lewis. Many of her medals came in relay races, but she also won a gold by herself in the 200 meters. She is competing in Tokyo, and if she can be.

win one medal, she will set the record for the most medals in women's Olympic track and field history, breaking her tie with Jamaican sprinter Merlin Addy. The closest Bob Beeman feat I could find for a woman, at least in terms of margin of victory, might be the 800-meter freestyle swimming event held in Rio. American swimmer Katie Ladecki won the event by an incredible 11 seconds. The next closest competitor wasn't even on the television camera when she ended the race. Assuming that Ladeki competes in Paris in 2024, which she says she will, she is likely to become the woman with the most Olympic swimming medals. She is currently two behind American Jenny Thompson, who has 12. As far as longevity, at the time I am recording this, there hasn't been a woman who has won a gold

medal at five different Olympic games, but that might change very, very soon. American Sue Bird and Diana Tarassi have both won four gold medals at basketball at four different Olympics. Both are on the American Olympic team in Tokyo, which is heavily favored to win. What's interesting is that Diana Teresi is only 39 years old, and the 2024 Olympics are only three years out instead of four due to the pandemic. She could possibly be on the team again for a sixth gold medal. The woman who has competed in the most Olympics is the competitive shooter from the Republic of Georgia, Nino Saluk Vodazi. She has been at nine Olympics, with the ninth being Tokyo. She has indicated she'll probably try to compete in Paris in 2024

to tie the record for the most Olympic appearances by anyone. Now, all the people I've just mentioned show extreme excellence in their chosen sports. But maybe the greatest Olympian is someone who has excelled in more than one sport. Czech Winter Olympian Esther Ledeca won two gold medals at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. She won gold medal in the Super G,

which is an alpine skiing event. And then she went and won the gold. metal in the parallel giant slalom event in snowboarding. British Olympian Rebecca Romero won a silver medal in 2004 in rowing and then a gold medal in 2008 in cycling. The most impressive accomplishments might be the athletes who won medals at both the summer and winter Olympics. American Eddie Egan won a gold medal in boxing in 1920 and then won a gold medal in the

four-man bobslin in 1932, becoming the only person ever to win gold medals at both the summer and winter Olympics. American Lauren Williams won the gold medal at the 2012 Olympics in the 4-by-100-meter relay, and then won a silver medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics in the two woman bobsled. Canadian Clara Hughes won two cycling bronze medals in 1996, and then proceeded to win five more medals in speed skating in 2002, 2006, and 2010. She is the only person to ever win multiple medals at both the summer and winter Olympics. I'll finally end with Krista Ludding Rothensberger from East Germany. She won a silver medal in cycling in 1988 in Seoul.

She also won four medals in speed skating in 84, 88, and 92, including two gold medals. Her 1988 medals made her the only person ever to win summer and winter Olympic medals in the same year. Who you think the greatest Olympian is is ultimately a matter of opinion. Regardless who you think it is, I bet it's likely that it was someone mentioned in this episode. With every Olympic Games, there will be new athletes setting new records, adding new names to the debate about who is the greatest Olympian of all time. The associate producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Thor Thompson. If you'd like to support the show, please donate over at patreon.com. There is content only available to supporters, merchandise, and even opportunities for a show producer credit.

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