We looked earlier at Olympians who won every event they entered at the Olympics – see “The Undefeated Olympians” from 25 June 2014. But what about those Olympians who may not have won a gold medal in every event, but still won a medal in every Olympic event they entered? How many of those have there been?

Well, that number is pretty big, but let’s look at those Olympians who entered the most events and still won medals in all of them. Here is the list for the Summer Olympics, including all those winning medals in 6 or more events:

[table]

Name,Gdr,NOC,Sport,G,S,B,TM

Paavo Nurmi,M,FIN,ATH,9,3,0,12

Natalie Coughlin,F,USA,SWI,3,4,5,12

Ray Ewry,M,USA,ATH,10,0,0,10

Carl Lewis,M,USA,ATH,9,1,0,10

Gary Hall Jr.,M,USA,SWI,5,3,2,10

Valentina Vezzali,F,ITA,FEN,6,1,2,9

Zoltán von Halmay,M,HUN,SWI,3,5,1,9

Isabell Werth,F,GER,EQU,5,3,0,8

Kornelia Ender,F,GDR,SWI,4,4,0,8

Aaron Peirsol,M,USA,SWI,5,2,0,7

Tom Jager,M,USA,SWI,5,1,1,7

Mariya Gorokhovskaya,F,URS,GYM,2,5,0,7

Rudolf Kárpáti,M,HUN,FEN,6,0,0,6

Kristin Otto,F,GDR,SWI,6,0,0,6

Steven Redgrave,M,GBR,ROW,5,0,1,6

Lucien Gaudin,M,FRA,FEN,4,2,0,6

Matt Grevers,M,USA,SWI,4,2,0,6

Kim Su-Nyeong,F,KOR,ARC,4,1,1,6

Wu Minxia,F,CHN,DIV,4,1,1,6

Viktor Sidyak,M,URS,FEN,4,1,1,6

Doina Ignat,F,ROU,ROW,4,1,1,6

Murray Rose,M,AUS,SWI,4,1,1,6

Max Décugis,M,FRA,TEN,4,1,1,6

Rebecca Soni,F,USA,SWI,3,3,0,6

Renate Stecher,F,GDR,ATH,3,2,1,6

Daniela Silivaş,F,ROU,GYM,3,2,1,6

Rüdiger Helm,M,GDR,CAN,3,0,3,6

[/table]

Paavo Nurmi
There are 13 females and 15 males in the above list, with 11 sports represented. Paavo Nurmi leading with 12 medals in 12 events is not a surprise, but few would likely have picked Natalie Coughlin to tie Nurmi at 12.

For the Winter Olympics, there are less events and the Olympians tend to have won fewer medals, so we’ll look only at those who won medals in all of their 4 or more events:

[table]

Name,Gdr,NOC,Sport,G,S,B,TM

Wolfgang Hoppe,M,GER,BOB,2,3,1,6

Eugenio Monti,M,ITA,BOB,2,2,2,6

Matti Nykänen,M,FIN,SKJ,4,1,0,5

Jayna Hefford,F,CAN,ICH,4,1,0,5

Hayley Wickenheiser,F,CAN,ICH,4,1,0,5

André Lange,M,GER,BOB,4,1,0,5

Samppa Lajunen,M,FIN,NCO,3,2,0,5

Caroline Ouellette,F,CAN,ICH,4,0,0,4

Bernhard Germeshausen,M,GDR,BOB,3,1,0,4

Gillis Grafström,M,SWE,FSK,3,1,0,4

Vladislav Tretyak,M,URS,ICH,3,1,0,4

Jennifer Botterill,F,CAN,ICH,3,1,0,4

Becky Kellar,F,CAN,ICH,3,1,0,4

Meinhard Nehmer,M,GDR,BOB,3,0,1,4

Yevgeny Plyushchenko,M,RUS,FSK,2,2,0,4

Jan Behrendt,M,GER,LUG,2,1,1,4

Stefan Krauße,M,GER,LUG,2,1,1,4

Igor Kravchuk,M,RUS,ICH,2,1,1,4

Bjarte Engen Vik,M,NOR,NCO,2,1,1,4

Lyubov Kozyreva-Baranova,F,URS,CCS,1,3,0,4

Josef Benz,M,SUI,BOB,1,2,1,4

Bernhard Lehmann,M,GDR,BOB,1,2,1,4

Fred Anton Maier,M,NOR,SSK,1,2,1,4

Erich Schärer,M,SUI,BOB,1,2,1,4

Angela Ruggiero,F,USA,ICH,1,2,1,4

Jenny Schmidgall-Potter,F,USA,ICH,1,2,1,4

Sten Stensen,M,NOR,SSK,1,1,2,4

Radiya Yeroshina,F,URS,CCS,0,3,1,4

Julie Chu,F,USA,ICH,0,3,1,4

Jiří Holík,M,TCH,ICH,0,2,2,4

Saku Koivu,M,FIN,ICH,0,1,3,4

Ville Peltonen,M,FIN,ICH,0,1,3,4

Leo Visser,M,NED,SSK,0,1,3,4

[/table]

Hayley Wickenheiser

The Winter list has 33 Winter Olympians with 4 or more medals, interestingly led by two bobsledders – Wolfgang Hoppe and Eugenio Monti with 6 each. There are 10 females and 23 males, representing 8 sports.

In both lists, those who were in our previous undefeated post can be seen – Ray Ewry with 10, Rudolf Karpati and Kristin Otto with 6 among the Summer Olympians; and Caroline Ouellette with 4 among the Winter Olympians.