Georgeta Damian
Mahe Drysdale
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Dead even across the measured categories. Our all-time ranking places Georgeta Damian at #3 and Mahe Drysdale at #10.
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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.
The case for Mahe Drysdale
Olympic bronze in the men's single in 2008, silver in 2012, gold in 2016, when he held off Damir Martin in a photo finish. He also won world titles in the single in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2011. The Olympic gold came last, which is the awkward shape of a single-scull career: the world titles proved the speed, and Rio was the race the sport had been waiting for him to close. One Olympic gold does not top a five-gold crew career. Five years as the world single, plus a full Olympic medal set, is why he is on this list.