Yuzuru Hanyu
Katarina Witt
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Katarina Witt leads 3 of 5 categories. Our all-time ranking places Yuzuru Hanyu at #1 and Katarina Witt at #6.
The case for Yuzuru Hanyu
The most complete skater of the quadruple era, and the first man in 66 years to defend an Olympic title. Hanyu won gold at Sochi 2014 and Pyeongchang 2018, the first back-to-back men's champion since Dick Button in 1952, and did it in the deepest and most technically inflated field the sport has ever staged. He set 19 world records under the ISU Judging System, more than any skater in any discipline: the first short program over 100 points, 101.45 at Sochi; the first free skate over 200 and first total over 300, 322.40 at the 2015 NHK Trophy; then 330.43 at the 2015 Grand Prix Final. Four consecutive Grand Prix Final titles from 2013 to 2016, two world championships and six Japanese national titles sit alongside a 2020 Four Continents win that completed the Super Slam, every major junior and senior title, a first for a male single skater. He turned professional in 2022 and immediately sold out solo productions at the Tokyo Dome.
The case for Katarina Witt
The most watched skater of the television era and the last woman before the quadruple age to defend an Olympic title. Witt won gold at Sarajevo 1984 and Calgary 1988, the first back-to-back women's champion since Sonja Henie, and added four world titles in 1984, 1985, 1987 and 1988 plus six consecutive European championships from 1983. Calgary produced the Battle of the Carmens, in which she and the American Debi Thomas skated to the same score; Witt won on presentation with the more conservative technical content, a result that crystallised the sport's permanent argument between difficulty and performance. She was trained in Karl-Marx-Stadt by Jutta Müller, in the most systematic skating program East Germany ever built, and competed under state surveillance that later filled a Stasi file thousands of pages long. After reunification she became a global commercial figure, and she returned as a reinstated professional to the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, finishing seventh with a program dedicated to Sarajevo under siege.