Who Has Won The Most Medals In A Single Olympic Games?

Winning just one Olympic medal is an incredible feat that most people will never achieve, not to mention winning MULTIPLE Olympic medals! Some of the Olympians we’ve seen throughout history have truly dominated their sport and have won many medals, Olympic and otherwise, for being the best. But which of these Olympians were also the best Olympian overall during the set of games they competed in. Using data compiled by Wizard Pins of the the winningest Olympian at every modern Olympics from 1896 and on, I found the most dominate Olympians on the list. While their analysis included both the summer and winter Olympics, all of the Olympians that earned the largest amounts of medals participated in the summer Olympics. More often than not the biggest winners were members of the swim or gymnastics team, both of which have many event opportunities to win a medal in.

The following Olympians all won at least 7 medals for their sport in just a single Olympics:

• Michael Phelps (USA) won 8 medals in the 2008 Olympics. All 8 were gold medals won for swimming.
• Michael Phelps (USA) also won 8 medals during the 2004 Olympics. He won 6 gold and 2 bronze medals for swimming.
• Aleksandr Dityatin (URS) won 8 medals during the 1980 Olympics. He won 3 gold, 4 silver, and 1 bronze medal for artistic gymnastics.
• Mark Spitz (USA) won 7 medals during the 1972 Olympics. He won 7 gold medals for swimming.
• Nikolay Andrianov (URS) won 7 medals during the 1976 Olympics. He won 4 gold, 2 silver, and 1 bronze medal for artistic gymnastics.
• Boris Shakhlin (URS) won 7 medals during the 1960 Olympics in Rome, Italy. He won 4 gold, 2 silver, and 1 bronze for artistic gymnastics.
• Willis Lee ( USA) won 7 medals during the 1920 Olympic games. He won 5 gold, 1 silver, and 1 bronze medal for shooting.

Were you surprised to see that all of the top Olympians to win 7 medals or more during one Olympic games are all from either the United States or Russia?