Larisa Latynina
Rebeca Andrade
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The verdict
Larisa Latynina leads 4 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Larisa Latynina at #2 and Rebeca Andrade at #12.
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The case for Larisa Latynina
For 48 years she held the record for the most Olympic medals won by any athlete in any sport. Latynina took 18 across three Games — nine gold, five silver and four bronze in 1956, 1960 and 1964 — a total not surpassed until Michael Phelps in 2012, and still the record for a gymnast. She won the Olympic all-around in Melbourne in 1956 and again in Rome in 1960, added world all-around titles in 1958 and 1962, and finished with 14 World Championship medals including nine golds. She competed the entire 1958 World Championships while several months pregnant and won the all-around. Her era offered more medal opportunities than today's, but she also faced the strongest gymnastics nation on earth in her own selection trials, and after retiring she coached the Soviet women's team to three consecutive Olympic team titles from 1968 to 1976.
The case for Rebeca Andrade
The best gymnast Latin America has produced and the only woman to beat Simone Biles in a major all-around final in a decade, taking the world title in Liverpool in 2022 while Biles was on hiatus. Andrade won Brazil's first Olympic gymnastics gold on vault in Tokyo in 2021 along with all-around silver, then returned in Paris in 2024 to win floor exercise ahead of Biles, with silver in the all-around and on vault and bronze with the Brazilian team — six Olympic medals in total, making her the most decorated Olympian in Brazilian history across all sports. She did it after three separate anterior cruciate ligament reconstructions, an injury history that ended most careers before hers began. Her Paris floor gold produced the image of the Games, with Biles and Jordan Chiles bowing to her on the podium, and she has become the single biggest driver of gymnastics participation in South America.