The Female Olympians With the Most Golds

Simone Biles has wrapped up her final events at the Olympics, winning a silver medal in the floor event today, with Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade placing first, and missing out on the podium for the balance beam competition.

Widely considered one of the GOATs of gymnastics, Biles ranks among the most decorated Olympic female gold medalists of all time. At the 2024 Paris Games, she won three golds in total: in the individual all-around, the team all-around and the women's vault. This brings her total to an impressive seven gold Olympic medals over the course of her career.

As the following chart based on data compiled by Encyclopædia Britannica shows, four of the world’s top ten performing female Olympians have been gymnasts, two of whom have represented the United States. But it is Larisa Latynina, the former Soviet artistic gymnast, who holds the record for the most Olympic gold medals by anyone in the sports’ history, male or female.

Another notable winner for the U.S. is swimmer Katie Ledecky, who rose to join Latynina at the top of the chart on Saturday, after winning the 800m freestyle final at the Paris Games. This brings her total medal count to 14, having won nine golds, four silver and one bronze over the course of her career. An additional three of these were from this year’s Olympics: gold in the 1500m free, silver in the 4x200m freestyle relay and bronze in the 400m.