Type of sport: artistic gymnastics

Her record for the most Olympic medals won by one per­son stood for 48 years. Only this year, a swim­ming machine named “Michael Phelps” was able to col­lect more Olympic medals than our gym­nast (he has 24, Latyn­i­na has 18). How­ev­er, Phelps’ achieve­ment can­not change Lar­isa Semyonovna’s title alone: ​​she is the strongest Olympian of the 20th cen­tu­ry, he is the strongest of the 21st. Gym­nasts and swim­mers are hap­py peo­ple, because their sports allow them to bring back a dozen medals from one cham­pi­onship or Olympics, some­thing that a wrestler or box­er can­not even dream of. There­fore, in order to give oth­er ath­letes a place in our sym­bol­ic Hall of Fame, we have placed only one rep­re­sen­ta­tive of gym­nas­tics here. Although, of course, we remem­ber Niko­lai Andri­anov, and Boris Shakhlin, and Alex­ei Nemov, and many oth­ers.

Alexander Popov

Sport: swimming

One of the two great­est swim­mers of our coun­try — Alexan­der Popov and Vladimir Sal­nikov each have 4 Olympic medals.

But Popov takes oth­er titles: he is a 6‑time world cham­pi­on and a 21-time (!) Euro­pean cham­pi­on.

Even Phelps, with all his great­ness, announced his retire­ment at 27, while Alexan­der won his last gold at 33.

Yelena Isinbayeva

Type of sport: pole vaulting

Accord­ing to Isin­baye­va, today her main dream is fam­i­ly and chil­dren. But per­haps the records set by Ele­na will last until the time when her own chil­dren will have their own wed­dings.

Lena’s 27th world record — 5.06 m — is approx­i­mate­ly 25–30 cm high­er than the best results of her com­peti­tors.

Alexander Karelin

Sport: Greco-Roman wrestling

For­eign experts com­pil­ing lists of the most famous ath­letes of all time are reluc­tant to include ours, but there are names that sim­ply can­not be ignored. Kare­lin is just such a case. For 13 years, Alexan­der the Great remained unde­feat­ed in Gre­co-Roman wrestling, and for 6 years in a row he did not con­cede a sin­gle point to his oppo­nents.

Sergey Bubka

Type of sport: pole vaulting

A lot has passed since Bub­ka fin­ished com­pet­ing, but his records (6.14 m out­doors and 6.15 m indoors) have still not been bro­ken. More­over, when the Japan­ese cal­cu­lat­ed on a com­put­er at what height above the bar Sergei flew at the cham­pi­onship in Tokyo, it turned out that that jump was enough to over­come 6.37 m — no mat­ter how sports med­i­cine and tech­nol­o­gy devel­op, this mile­stone will not be achieved in the near future Not a sin­gle per­son on Earth can over­come it.

Yuri Vlasov

Sport: weightlifting

In five years of absolute dom­i­na­tion in the bar­bell, this heavy­weight with his own hands raised the world record in triathlon total by 70 kg. Vlasov fin­ished his first Olympics with four records and walked through Rome from the sta­di­um to the Olympic vil­lage on foot, fol­lowed by a crowd chant­i­ng the name of the cham­pi­on. In total, Vlasov set 31 records.

Lidia Skoblikova

Type of sport: speed skating

The first half of the 60s in speed skat­ing was marked by Skob­liko­va; she climbed to the high­est step of the Olympic podi­um 6 times. In 1964, she won all 4 dis­tances of the Games. Plus, Lidia Pavlov­na is a 2‑time absolute world cham­pi­on in clas­si­cal all-around and a mul­ti­ple world cham­pi­on in indi­vid­ual dis­tances.

Lyubov Egorova

Type of sport: skiing

Shares with Skob­liko­va the world record for the num­ber of gold medals at the Win­ter Games. In addi­tion to the 6 high­est in Egorova’s track record, there are also 3 sil­ver Olympic awards. How­ev­er, it is dif­fi­cult to choose the great­est ski­er of the USSR/Russia, since both Lar­isa Lazuti­na (11-time world cham­pi­on, 5 high­est Olympic medals) and Raisa Smetan­i­na, who won 10 medals at 5 Olympics (made her debut at the Games) can claim this title. 1976, the last time she stood on the podi­um in Albertville 1992).

Vladislav Tretiak

Type of sport: hockey

If you can argue about who was the best field hock­ey play­er of all time, then there is no doubt about who the best goal­keep­er is. Three-time Olympic cham­pi­on, ten-time world cham­pi­on, best goal­keep­er of the 1974, 1979, 1981, 1983 world cham­pi­onships. In 1990, 6 years after the end of his career, he was called to the NHL, offer­ing any mon­ey, but he refused — he did not want to turn out to be weak­er than his for­mer self: “I have earned my name all my life.” In 2000, the Inter­na­tion­al Hock­ey Fed­er­a­tion and the Russ­ian Hock­ey Fed­er­a­tion pro­claimed Tre­ti­ak the best play­er of the 20th cen­tu­ry, and this despite the fact that Vyach­eslav Feti­sov has more titles (except for Sovi­et and inter­na­tion­al awards in the col­lec­tion of the famous defend­er — 2 Stan­ley Cups won).

Anastasia Davydova

Sport: synchronized swimming

This frag­ile girl is the embod­i­ment of Russia’s absolute supe­ri­or­i­ty in syn­chro­nized swim­ming: 5‑time Olympic cham­pi­on, 13-time world cham­pi­on, 7‑time Euro­pean cham­pi­on. After the Games in Lon­don, Davy­do­va end­ed her career, which last­ed 12 years. She is the best syn­chro­nized swim­mer of the decade 2000–2009.