Georgeta Damian
Matthew Pinsent
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 Matthew Pinsent at #4.
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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 Matthew Pinsent
Four Olympic golds, all of them, from the coxless pair with Redgrave in 1992 and 1996 to the coxless fours of 2000 and 2004. He is the other half of the pair that carried British rowing from Barcelona to Atlanta, and then the stroke-side constant of the fours that followed. Four golds in four Games, with no Olympic medal of another colour, is as clean a sweep career as the sport has. Redgrave's fifth gold is the reason Pinsent sits fourth rather than beside him.