Gymnastics · 1964 · Tokyo, Japan
Eighteen Medals, A Record for 48 Years
Closing out her third and final Olympics, a Soviet gymnast completes an 18-medal career haul that no athlete in any sport would match for almost half a century.
18 (9 gold, 5 silver, 4 bronze)
Total Olympic medals
3 (1956, 1960, 1964)
Olympics competed
48 years, until 2012
Record stood
Larisa Latynina competed at three consecutive Olympics for the Soviet Union, Melbourne 1956, Rome 1960 and Tokyo 1964, winning medals in the all-around, every individual apparatus final she reached, and the team event each time. By the time she stood on the uneven bars podium in Tokyo on 23 October 1964 to collect a bronze medal, her final Olympic medal, her career total stood at 18: nine gold, five silver and four bronze.
No athlete in any sport, male or female, had ever won that many Olympic medals, and none would for a remarkably long time afterward. It was not primarily her power that set her apart but her consistency and artistry across three Games and three different eras of the sport, competing into her late twenties against gymnasts a decade younger.
Latynina's record stood for 48 years, until Michael Phelps passed it in the pool at the 2012 London Olympics. She remained, and remains, the most decorated female Olympian in history and the standard against which every gymnast's longevity is still measured.
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