Only 7 People in History Have Achieved This Staggering Olympic Feat
Every four years, the Olympic Games bring together athletes from around the world and attract a global audience of billions. Winning a gold medal is considered the highest mark of success in sport.
For most competitors, earning a single gold is a defining career moment. Yet a small number of athletes have gone far beyond that by reaching a level of achievement that remains rare in more than a century of Olympic history.
The Elite Club Of Nine And Beyond
Image via Wikimedia Commons/Martin Dougiamas
Out of the thousands who have competed since 1896, only seven athletes have ever won more than eight Olympic gold medals. Six of them now hold nine golds each, and Michael Phelps stands alone with a staggering 23.
Modern Olympics have grown in scale but not in medal opportunities. In Paris 2024, more than 10,000 athletes competed for just over 300 gold medals. With more nations fielding elite programs, the competition to even make a final is fiercer than it was decades ago.
The nine-gold club spans generations and sports: Larisa Latynina in gymnastics, Mark Spitz in swimming, Paavo Nurmi in distance running, Carl Lewis in track and field, Katie Ledecky in freestyle swimming, and Caeleb Dressel in sprint and relay swimming.
Why Swimming And Gymnastics Create More Chances
Some sports simply hand out more medals. Swimming offers dozens of events across four strokes, different distances, and multiple relays. Gymnastics spreads medals across team competitions, the all-around, and individual apparatus finals. Compare that with basketball or soccer, where an athlete can only win one gold every four years, and it’s clear why swimmers and gymnasts dominate the medal table.
Swimming also has relay swimmers who race in preliminary heats and still earn medals if their team wins in the final. It explains how versatile athletes like Phelps, Dressel, and Ledecky have been able to stock their collections so quickly.
What Makes Phelps Untouchable
Image via Wikimedia Commons/JD Lasica
Michael Phelps didn’t just benefit from a medal-heavy sport, though; he mastered every angle of it. He thrived in butterfly, freestyle, and medley races across multiple distances, then added relay medals on top.
He won golds at four straight Olympics, from Athens in 2004 to Rio in 2016, and stayed dominant through different eras of competition.
By the time he retired, Phelps had racked up 23 gold medals. That’s more than double what any other Olympian has achieved. His combination of range, longevity, and consistency set a bar that may never be cleared.
Getting to nine golds demands surviving multiple Olympic cycles, avoiding injury, adapting to rising competition, and sometimes relying on teammates. The fact that only seven people in history have ever pulled it off shows just how unforgiving the pursuit is.