Elisabeta Lipă
Georgeta Damian
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Elisabeta Lipă leads 3 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Elisabeta Lipă at #2 and Georgeta Damian at #3.
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The case for Elisabeta Lipă
Five Olympic golds and eight Olympic medals across six Games, from Los Angeles 1984 to Athens 2004. She raced in more than one boat class as Romanian women's rowing rebuilt itself around a small group of athletes who simply kept qualifying. The five golds match Redgrave's. The eight medals do not: nobody in the sport has a longer Olympic medal list. A ranking that only counts men's sweep rowing misses the most decorated career the regatta has produced.
The case for Georgeta Damian
Five Olympic golds in three Games. In Sydney she won the women's pair and the eight. In Athens she won the double and the eight. In Beijing she won the eight again. The career is shorter than Lipă's and just as heavy in gold. It is also a reminder that rowing medals are boat results: Damian's five golds include races she could not have won as a single athlete, and races the Romanian eight kept winning after the rest of the sport had started to plan against them.