Steve Redgrave
Kathrin Boron
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Steve Redgrave leads 4 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Steve Redgrave at #1 and Kathrin Boron at #5.
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The case for Steve Redgrave
Five Olympic golds in five Games: the coxed four in 1984, the coxless pair in 1988, 1992 and 1996, and the coxless four in 2000. He also won an Olympic bronze in the coxed pair in 1988, six Olympic medals in all, and nine World Championship golds. No other man has won an Olympic rowing gold at five Games. The partners changed, from Andy Holmes to Matthew Pinsent to the Sydney four, which is the right way to read the record: the constant was the standard he required of the boat, including after a diabetes diagnosis on the way to Sydney.
The case for Kathrin Boron
Four Olympic golds in German sculling, across the double and the quad, from Barcelona 1992 to Athens 2004. Where Redgrave and Pinsent owned sweep boats, Boron owned the two-oar side of the regatta through the same years. The career sits inside the German programme that followed unification, and it is the women's sculling counterpart to Pinsent's four-for-four. Count golds and Games and she belongs in this group. Count only British pairs and she disappears, which is a bad way to rank the sport.