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Carl Schuhmann
Born
At the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896, Schuhmann won the wrestling tournament and gymnastics gold in the vault and the team events, and also entered weightlifting and athletics. Without weight classes, he beat heavier men through technique and leverage learned as a gymnast. The early Games made this kind of range possible, but even by their standards his four golds across two sports stand out.
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Frank Kugler
Born
Kugler won medals in three different sports at a single Games, St Louis 1904: wrestling, weightlifting and tug of war, a feat no one has repeated. The fields were small and largely American, which explains how it was possible, but strength and grappling technique tied the three together. He is the most extreme case of early Olympic multi-sport success, and a useful reminder of how different those first Games were.
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Eddie Eagan
Eagan is still the only athlete to win gold at both the Summer and Winter Olympics in different sports: light-heavyweight boxing at Antwerp in 1920 and four-man bobsleigh at Lake Placid in 1932, having barely tried the sled before. The link was nerve and power at the push start rather than technique. A Rhodes Scholar and lawyer, he is the original example of how far raw athletic confidence can carry someone into a new sport.
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Jacob Tullin Thams
Thams won ski jumping gold at the first Winter Olympics in Chamonix in 1924, then 12 years later took silver in sailing in the 8 metre class at the Berlin Summer Games. He is one of very few athletes with medals at both Summer and Winter Olympics, and the two sports share almost nothing beyond balance and a feel for wind. That he made the switch so successfully is what makes him worth knowing.
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Willie Davenport
Davenport won the 110m hurdles at Mexico City in 1968 and bronze in 1976, then, aged 36, pushed a US four-man bobsleigh at the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Games, becoming, with team-mate Jeff Gadley, one of the first Black athletes to represent the US at a Winter Olympics. The hurdler's explosive start was exactly what bobsleigh pilots wanted, and his move set the pattern for the sprinters who followed him into the sport.
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Christa Luding-Rothenburger
Born
In 1988 the East German won speed skating gold in the 1000m and silver in the 500m at the Calgary Winter Olympics, then seven months later took silver in the cycling sprint at the Seoul Summer Games. She remains the only athlete to win medals at Winter and Summer Olympics in the same calendar year, a feat now impossible because the Games were separated in 1994. Skating and track sprinting both depend on explosive leg power and a low, aerodynamic position.
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Seiko Hashimoto
Born
Hashimoto competed at seven Olympic Games across two sports: four Winter Games as a speed skater, where she won 1500m bronze in Albertville in 1992, and three Summer Games as a track cyclist. Her career mirrors Luding's speed skating to cycling path over a much longer span. She later became a politician and, in 2021, president of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee, so few people know the Games from more angles.
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Clara Hughes
Born
Hughes is the only athlete with multiple medals at both Summer and Winter Games: two road cycling bronzes in Atlanta in 1996, then four long-track speed skating medals from 2002 to 2010, including 5000m gold in Turin. Endurance cycling and distance skating share a crouched position and sustained aerobic power, and she switched between them so effectively that she returned to the road for London 2012 at 39.
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Kateřina Neumannová
Born
Neumannová raced mountain biking at the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics, the sport's debut Games, between Winter Games where she won six cross-country skiing medals. The best came last, with 30km gold in Turin in 2006 after years of silver and bronze. The overlap is obvious once you see it: both sports reward climbing power and pacing over long, hilly courses, and she used summer racing as serious training for winter.
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Chris Witty
Born
Witty won speed skating silver and bronze in Nagano in 1998, then rode the 500m time trial for the US cycling team at Sydney 2000, and in 2002 returned to the ice to win 1000m gold in Salt Lake City in a world record, despite having been diagnosed with glandular fever weeks earlier. Like Luding and Hashimoto, she used sprint cycling's explosive demands to sharpen her skating.
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Rebecca Romero
Born
Romero won silver in the quadruple sculls at Athens 2004, then switched to track cycling and, four years later in Beijing, won individual pursuit gold. She was the first British woman to win Olympic medals in two different sports. Rowing gave her the aerobic engine; British Cycling's coaches turned it into the steady, high-cadence pacing the four-kilometre pursuit requires, a cleaner example of planned talent transfer than almost anyone else here.
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Lauryn Williams
Williams took 100m silver at Athens 2004 and 4x100m relay gold at London 2012, then, after only a few months in bobsleigh, won two-woman silver as brakewoman at Sochi 2014. She became the first American woman to win medals at both Summer and Winter Games. The 30-metre push start is essentially a loaded sprint, and her case shows precisely why bobsleigh recruits so heavily from the track.
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Ester Ledecká
Born
At PyeongChang 2018 Ledecká won alpine skiing's super-G on borrowed skis and, a week later, snowboarding's parallel giant slalom, the first athlete to win gold on skis and a snowboard at one Winter Games. She defended the snowboard title in Beijing in 2022. Both disciplines sit under the same international federation, but the equipment, stance and edge technique are completely different. At Milano Cortina 2026 she topped qualifying in the snowboard event before a narrow quarter-final defeat.
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Sarah Storey
Born
Storey, born without a functioning left hand, won Paralympic swimming gold from Barcelona 1992 onwards, then switched to cycling and kept winning, competing in the C5 class for riders with the least severe impairments. By Paris 2024 she had 19 Paralympic golds across the two sports, a British record, and she also raced against able-bodied riders at the Commonwealth Games. Few athletes have dominated two sports at elite level for over three decades.
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Tatyana McFadden
Born
McFadden races in the T54 wheelchair class, for athletes with full arm and trunk function, and has won Paralympic medals at every distance from 100m to the marathon, along with a record run of major marathon wins. At the Sochi 2014 Winter Paralympics she added silver in sitting cross-country skiing, using the same upper-body pushing power on a sit-ski. Her range across sprint, distance and snow makes her one of the most versatile Paralympians of her generation.
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Oksana Masters
Born
Masters has won Paralympic medals in four sports: rowing bronze at London 2012, then Nordic skiing and biathlon at the Winter Games and hand-cycling gold at the Summer Games. A double above-knee amputee, she races in the sitting classes on snow and the H5 hand-cycling class in summer, all built on the same upper-body endurance. At Milano Cortina 2026 she added more biathlon and cross-country titles, taking her past 20 Paralympic medals.
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Kendall Gretsch
Born
Gretsch won biathlon and cross-country skiing gold at the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Paralympics and then, at Tokyo 2020, gold in the PTWC wheelchair class of para triathlon, which combines a hand-bike and racing chair with the swim. She became one of very few athletes with Paralympic gold in both Summer and Winter sports. At Milano Cortina 2026 she was back on the podium on snow, often alongside team-mate Oksana Masters.
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