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The Greatest Water Polo player at the Olympic Games

Who is the greatest water polo player of all time based on Olympic Games performances? We have used a weighted total medal count of each male and female water polo player from all modern Olympic Games to rank their overall performance, using data from all Olympics including the Tokyo 2020 Games.

The best all-time performing water polo player at the Olympic Games is Hungarian player Dezső Gyarmati, who won 3 golds and one silver and bronze between 1948–1964. Another water polo player, Paulo Radmilovic of Great Britain, has won four Olympic gold medals, however one of these was in a swimming event. Two female water polo players have won three gold, Melissa Seidemann and Maggie Steffens from the USA gold winning teams from 2012-2021. See the table below to see how other athletes ranked.

See also the best athlete from each sport, and the best overall.



Top Olympic Athletes From Water Polo

Here are the top ranked athletes from the sport of Water Polo for performances at all Olympiads, using the Topend Sports Weighted Ranking System to order the athletes, awarding points for both gold (6 points) and other medals (silver 2 pts, bronze 1 pt).

Table: The Top Ranked Athletes from Water Polo at the Olympic Games (including Tokyo 2020)

rank name country gender Gold Silver Bronze total
medals
rating
1 Dezső Gyarmati Hungary M 3 1 1 5 21
2 György Kárpáti Hungary M 3 0 1 4 19
=3 Melissa Seidemann USA F 3 0 0 3 18
=3 Maggie Steffens USA F 3 0 0 3 18
=3 Paulo Radmilovic Great Britain M 3 0 0 3 18
=3 Charles Smith Great Britain M 3 0 0 3 18
=3 Tibor Benedek Hungary M 3 0 0 3 18
=3 Péter Biros Hungary M 3 0 0 3 18
=3 Tamás Kásás Hungary M 3 0 0 3 18
=3 Gergely Kiss Hungary M 3 0 0 3 18
=3 Tamás Molnár Hungary M 3 0 0 3 18
=3 Zoltán Szécsi Hungary M 3 0 0 3 18

notes: initial data from Wikipedia of multiple Olympic gold medalists (with at least 3 gold medals, including results from 2021). For the ranking order, we have used the Topend Sports Weighted Ranking System.



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Olympics Extra

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