The 7 Athletes Who’ve Won The Most Medals At The Winter Olympics

Winning a single medal at the Olympics is an impressive accomplishment that most people can only dream of. However, there are some athletes who’ve managed to amass a very sizeable collection, including the ones who have taken home the most of all time while competing at the Winter Olympics.

Here are the athletes who’ve won the most medals at the Winter Olympics

Athletes who compete at the Winter Olympics spend years training for their moment in the spotlight, but most of them will end up going home without a medal.

Simply winning one is an achievement you can brag about for the rest of your life, but those people have nothing on the members of a pretty exclusive club that’s home to the competitors who have ended up with a double-digit medal count.

7. Stefania Belmondo, Cross-Country Skiing, Italy: 10

There are two people who’ve earned exactly ten medals at the Winter Olympics, and we’ll kick things off with Stefania Belmondo.

The Italian cross-country skier was 19 years old when she made her Olympic debut in Calgary in 1988 but failed to medal in the three events she competed in. However, she returned in Albertsville in 1992 and snagged a gold, silver, and bronze in the 30 km, pursuit, and 4 x 5 km team relay, respectively, and never missed the podium for the remainder of a career where she competed five times.

Belmondo had to settle for two bronzes in the pursuit and relay in Lillehammer in 1994, and she got the same in the latter in Nagano in 1998 while adding a silver in the 30 km. She capped things off with a bang in Salt Lake City, as she repeated that feat in the 30km, got her first medal in the 15 km by winning the gold, and also appeared on the podium in the 10 km for the first time with a bronze.

6. Raisa Smetanina, Cross-Country Skiing, Soviet Union: 10

Cross-country skiing is disproportionately represented on this list, as four of the seven athletes competed in a discipline where there are plenty of medals to go around thanks to the seven events they can take part in.

Raisa Smetanina took part in three of them when she headed to the Winter Olympics for the first time in Innsbruck in 1976 and secured a medal for the Soviet Union in every one: gold in the 10 km and relay and a silver in the 5 km.

She’d also competed five times, and he won at least one medal every single time she took part. Smetanina improved on her 5 km performance with a gold in Lake Placid in 1980, but the USSR had to settle for the silver in the relay that year.

She missed the top spot on the podium for the first time in Sarajevo while winning silver in the 10 and 20 km, and that was once again the case in 1988 when she was the runner-up in the former and finished in third place in the latter.

Her Olympic career came to a close as a member of the Unified Team in 1992, and while Smetanina only got a single medal, she ended it on a high note with one final gold in the relay.

5. Arianna Fontana, Short-Track Speed Skating, Italy: 11

Arianna Fontana is the only active Olympian on this list, and there’s a solid chance she’ll be moving up the ranks by adding to her total on her home turf in 2026.

Milano Cortina will be the sixth time Fontana competes for Italy as a speed skater who specializes in the short track, and it’s been two decades since she got her first medal when her team won the bronze in the 3000 m relay in Turin.

She won her first individual medal (and the only one she got at the 2010 Olympics) in the 500 m in Vancouver, and she also won her first silver in that event in Sochi in 2014 while adding a bronze in the 1500 and another in the relay. Her performance in the 500 m continued to trend upward with her first gold in PyeongChang in 2018, which she supplemented with a bronze in the 1000 m and her first silver in the relay.

She was able to defend her 500 m crown with another gold in Beijing in 2022, and her collection grew even more with a silver in the 1500 m and the same in the 2000 m mixed relay.

4. Bjørn Dæhlie, Cross-Country Skiing, Norway: 12

No country has won more medals at the Winter Olympics than Norway, so it makes sense that they’re the most well-represented country on this list.

Our second Norwegian is Bjørn Dæhlie, who would be the most accomplished cross-country skier in the history of the Winter Olympics if not for a fellow native I’ll mention in a little bit.

Dæhlie competed four times after making his debut in 1988, and this is a particularly impressive achievement when you consider he was shut out entirely in Calgary. However, he bounced back in a big way in 1992 with the gold in the 50 km, pursuit, and 4 x 10 km relay and a silver in the 30 km.

The results were the same for that event and the pursuit in 1994, and he earned another gold in the 10 km as his team took home the silver in the relay. He once again came home with four medals following his final Winter Olympics in 1998: gold in the 10 km, 50 km, and relay and a silver in the pursuit.

His eight gold medals put him in a tie for first with two other athletes when it comes to the most of all time.

3. Ireen Wüst, Speed Skating, Netherlands: 13

I will never turn down the opportunity to mention what has become one of my favorite bits of Winter Olympics trivia since I became aware of it: the Netherlands has won a total of 147 medals heading into 2026, and 133 of those were secured in speed skating.

The country has produced a number of dominant athletes on that front, and none of them are more decorated than Ireen Wüst. She competed five times between 2006 and 2022, ushering in her career with a gold in the 3000m and a bronze in the 1500 m in Turin.

She left Vancouver with a lone gold in that second event but ended up with a whopping five medals in 2014 (gold in the 3000 m and team pursuit and silver in 1000, 1500, and 5000 m). Wüst “only” won three in 2018 with gold in the 1500 m and silver in the 3000 m and pursuit, and her swan song in Beijing netted her a final gold in the 1500 m plus a bronze in the pursuit.

2. Ole Einar Bjørndalen, Biathlon, Norway: 14

Norway headed into the 2026 Olympics with a one-medal lead over Germany in the biathlon with 55, and Ole Einar Bjørndalen is responsible for around 25% of that total.

Bjørndalen was a six-time Olympian whose career began in Lillehammer and ended in Sochi. He failed to medal in 1994 before getting a silver in the sprint and a gold in the relay in 1998, and he peaked in Salt Lake City with four goals in those two events as well as the individual and pursuit.

He had three more medals in Turin but failed to get a gold, but he added one more in the relay in Vancouver and two in Sochi to finish his career with eight to earn the top spot in that category alongside Dæhlie and…

1. Marit Bjørgen, Cross-Country Skiing, Norway: 15

Last, and certainly not least, we have Marit Bjørgen, who is the most decorated Winter Olympian of all time thanks to the 15 medals she won as a cross-country skier for Norway in the five competitions she competed in.

She earned a silver in the team relay in 2002 and another in the 10 km in 2006, but 2010 marked a turning point; Bjørgen left Vancouver with five medals, including three golds in the pursuit, sprint, and relay.

She got three more with wins in the pursuit, 30 km, and team sprint in 2014, and hit a grand total of eight by coming out on top in the 30 km and relay in 2014. She also got a silver and two bronzes in Sochi, which put her over Bjørndalen for sole possession of first place on the all-time medal table.