The Greatest Rower at the Olympic Games
Who is the greatest rower of all time based on Olympic Games performances? We have used a weighted total medal count of each male and female rower from all modern Olympic Games to rank their overall performance, using data from all Olympics including the Tokyo 2020 Games.
The best all-time performing rower at the Olympic Games is Romanian Elisabeta Lipă who won eight medals (5 of them gold) between 1984–2000. The highest ranked male is British rower Steve Redgrave also with five gold medals. See the table below to see how other athletes have ranked.
See also the best athlete from each sport, and the best overall.
Top Olympic Games Rowers
Here are the top-ranked athletes from the sport of Rowing for performances at all Olympiads, using the Topend Sports Weighted Ranking System to order the athletes, awarding points for both gold (6 points) and other medals (silver 2 pts, bronze 1 pt).
Table: The Top Ranked Athletes from Rowing at the Olympic Games (including 2021)
| rank | name | country | gender | Gold | Silver | Bronze | total medals |
rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Elisabeta Lipă | Romania | F | 5 | 2 | 1 | 8 | 35 |
| =2 | Georgeta Damian | Romania | F | 5 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 31 |
| =2 | Steve Redgrave | Great Britain | M | 5 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 31 |
| 4 | Doina Ignat | Romania | F | 4 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 27 |
| =5 | Kathrin Boron | Germany | F | 4 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 25 |
| =5 | Viorica Susanu | Romania | F | 4 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 25 |
| 7 | Matthew Pinsent | Great Britain | M | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 24 |
Related Pages
- List of the best athlete from each Olympic sport
- The greatest ever Olympic athlete
- About Olympic Medal Ranking Systems
- Medal tables from all Olympic Games
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