#1
Michael Phelps — 28 medals
More than double the total of the next closest athlete on this list. His 23 gold medals alone outnumber Larisa Latynina's entire career medal count of 18.[1]
People & Abilities
The Most Decorated Olympians of All Time
The athletes who turned the podium into a habit, ranked by total Olympic medals (gold, silver, and bronze combined) across both Summer and Winter Games.
Pictured: Michael Phelps, #1 with 28 Olympic medals.
| Rank | Athlete | Total medals | Sport |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Michael Phelps (USA) | 28 (23G) | Swimming |
| 2 | Larisa Latynina (Soviet Union) | 18 (9G) | Gymnastics |
| 3 | Marit Bjørgen (Norway) | 15 (8G) | Cross-country skiing |
| 4 | Nikolai Andrianov (Soviet Union) | 15 (7G) | Gymnastics |
| 5 | Ole Einar Bjørndalen (Norway) | 13 (8G) | Biathlon |
| 6 | Katie Ledecky (USA) | 13 (8G) | Swimming |
| 7 | Boris Shakhlin (Soviet Union) | 13 (7G) | Gymnastics |
| 8 | Edoardo Mangiarotti (Italy) | 13 (6G) | Fencing |
| 9 | Takashi Ono (Japan) | 13 (5G) | Gymnastics |
| 10 | Birgit Fischer (Germany) | 12 (8G) | Canoe sprint |
No matching rows.
The Top 10
#2
Larisa Latynina — 18 medals
Held the record for most total Olympic medals of any athlete, in any sport, for 48 years — from her final Games in 1964 until Phelps broke it in 2012. After retiring as a competitor, she coached the Soviet national gymnastics team from 1966 to 1977, guiding it to team gold at three more Olympics.[1]
#3
Marit Bjørgen — 15 medals
The most decorated Winter Olympian in history. Her career in cross-country skiing spanned five Winter Games, from Salt Lake City 2002 to PyeongChang 2018.[1]
#4
Nikolai Andrianov — 15 medals
A Soviet gymnast whose medal haul through the 1970s remains one of the most dominant individual stretches in the sport's history. At the 1976 Montreal Games alone he won seven medals — four of them gold — making him the most decorated athlete at those Olympics.[1]
#5
Ole Einar Bjørndalen — 13 medals
Nicknamed "The King of Biathlon," he competed across an extraordinary six Winter Olympics, from Lillehammer 1994 to Sochi 2014. At Salt Lake City 2002 he swept every individual and relay biathlon gold on offer, a clean sweep no other biathlete has matched.[1]
#6
Katie Ledecky — 13 medals
The most decorated female swimmer in Olympic history, with a distance-freestyle winning streak that has spanned four Games so far, from London 2012 to Paris 2024. She's also the only swimmer, male or female, to win the same individual event at four consecutive Olympics, having taken the 800-meter freestyle every time since London.[1]
#7
Boris Shakhlin — 13 medals
A Soviet gymnast nicknamed "the Steel One" for his strength on the rings and pommel horse, he held the record for most medals won by a male Olympian until Nikolai Andrianov surpassed him in 1980. Orphaned at age 12 and raised by his grandmother in Siberia, he went on to win pommel-horse gold at both the 1960 and 1964 Games.[1]
#8
Edoardo Mangiarotti — 13 medals
Italy's most successful Olympian, he won medals in both foil and épée across five Games between 1936 and 1960 — a career interrupted for eight years by World War II. He was naturally right-handed but switched to fencing left-handed as a teenager at the urging of his father Giuseppe, a champion fencing master who believed it gave him an edge.[1]
#9
Takashi Ono — 13 medals
Japan's first individual Olympic gymnastics gold medalist, winning the horizontal bar at Melbourne in 1956 en route to a haul across four Games that still ranks him among gymnastics' most decorated competitors. He carried Japan's flag at the 1960 Rome opening ceremony and was married to fellow Olympic gymnast Kiyoko Ono.[1]
#10
Birgit Fischer — 12 medals
The only woman to win Olympic gold 20 years apart, first at Moscow 1980 and last at Athens 2004, across six Games and four decades of kayaking dominance. She's also the only paddler to be both the youngest and oldest Olympic kayaking champion in history, first at 18 for East Germany and again at 42 for a unified Germany.[1]
Sources
- General Olympic record-keeping and reporting (Olympics.com, Britannica, CBS News), current as of the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Games.