Steve Redgrave
Georgeta Damian
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Steve Redgrave leads 3 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Steve Redgrave at #1 and Georgeta Damian at #3.
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The case for Steve Redgrave
Five Olympic golds in five Games: the coxed four in 1984, the coxless pair in 1988, 1992 and 1996, and the coxless four in 2000. He also won an Olympic bronze in the coxed pair in 1988, six Olympic medals in all, and nine World Championship golds. No other man has won an Olympic rowing gold at five Games. The partners changed, from Andy Holmes to Matthew Pinsent to the Sydney four, which is the right way to read the record: the constant was the standard he required of the boat, including after a diabetes diagnosis on the way to Sydney.
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.