O lympians train for years, sometimes their entire lives, to become the best of the best at what they do. And some athletes even manage to compete at that high level in more than one sport. Just a handful of people, seven in total, have managed to take home medals in both the Summer and Winter Olympics, in entirely different events. These multitalented athletes switched between disciplines that were sometimes dramatically dissimilar — think going from running in the summer to bobsledding in winter. |
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The first athlete to medal in both the Summer and Winter Games was American boxer Eddie Eagan. He took home a gold medal at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Belgium, then continued to collect accolades in the sport, including a two-year undefeated world tour. His Winter Games gold medal, on the other hand, came almost by happenstance. A friend asked him to be on the 1932 United States bobsled team, and despite having never been in a bobsled before then, he was part of the four-man team that took home gold that year. |
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Eagan was joined in this rare feat by Norway's Jacob Tullin Thams, who became the first-ever Olympic ski jump gold medalist in 1924 and then won his second medal as part of the Norwegian yachting team in 1936. In 1988, Germany's Christa Luding-Rothenburger became the only athlete to medal in the Summer and Winter Olympics in the same year; she earned a gold and silver for speed skating in Calgary and a silver for track cycling in Seoul. (After 1992, the Games shifted to two years apart, so it's a hard act to repeat.) |
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Other athletes to medal in both the Summer and Winter Olympics include Canadian Clara Hughes (cycling and speed skating), American Lauryn Williams (track and bobsled), and American Eddy Alvarez (baseball and speed skating). The most recent addition to the list is German athlete Alexandra Burghardt, who won a bronze medal in the 4 x 100-meter relay in 2024 after taking home silver in the two-woman bobsleigh in 2022. |
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