The main multi-medalist of the Olympic Games will definitely surprise you! This is not Marchand or even Biles.
Andrey Shitikhin August 11, 2024, 19:00 Moscow time Audio version: Your browser does not support the audio element.
A French swimming genius and an American gymnast lost to a member of the Chinese parliament.
The sports program for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris has been finalized. All the medal games have been drawn. And we can summarize who became the main hero of these Games. Of course, the first thing that comes to mind are the exploits of Novak Djokovic, Armand Duplantis, Sydney McLaughlin-Levron and Sifan Hassan. But they were not the main multiple medal winners of the Olympic Games.
Of course, I would like to mention the French swimming genius Leon Marchand, of whom the Russian world record holder Kliment Kolesnikov called him “as stupid as a bull”. Marchand won four gold medals in individual events and took bronze in the relay. His performance is a real triumph. No one else has won so many gold medals in Paris.
Leon Marchand at the Olympics did what the great Phelps only dreamed of:
French swimmer achieved the impossible at the Olympics! Phelps only dreamed of this
Several other swimmers each took five medals: Americans Torrie Husk and Regan Smith, as well as Australians Molly O’Callaghan and Kaylee McKeown. Nine athletes each received four medals, including American gymnasts Simone Biles and Brazilian Rebeca Andrade, and the flag bearer of the US team at the closing ceremony, swimmer Katie Ledecky, who equaled the number of Olympic gold medals with the legendary Larisa Latynina.
American Ledecky repeated Latynina’s speech:
The American repeated the legendary record of the Soviet champion. It took 60 years!
But in terms of the total number of awards, the palm goes to the Chinese Zhang Yufei. He won six (!) medals in Paris. And at the same time, not a single gold: silver in the 4x100m mixed medley relay and five bronzes in the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay, the women’s 4x100m medley relay, the 50m freestyle, as well as the 100m and 200m butterfly.
Zhang Yufei
Photo: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images
Interestingly, Zhang Yufei is a member of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislative body. She was elected to parliament in 2023 and almost immediately after her election she stated that swimming remains her main occupation.
In 2022, one of the world’s best breaststroke swimmers, Qin Haiyang, joined her training group. And Zhang Yufei said that this motivated her a lot. “If the boys can do pull-ups with a weight of 15 kg, then I can do it; if they do it 40 times, then I can do it too.”
Zhang Yufei
Photo: From Zhang Yufei’s personal archive.
Taking into account her performance in Tokyo, the 26-year-old Chinese athlete has 10 Olympic medals: two gold, three silver and five bronze. The athlete went to Paris with one goal: to win a gold medal. But it didn’t work out. So we will probably see her again at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. By the way, her parliamentary powers will still be in effect by then.
