My Google search turned up Eddie Eagan, who won as a boxer in summer and as part of a bobsled team in winter (1930 and 32). Has anyone ever won as an individual athlete in both?
Silver?
Bronze?
And has anyone ever come close to matching or exceeding the extraordinary versatility of champion athletic gifts possessed by Jim Thorpe? Was he some kind of superhuman freak of nature?
The only person to win a gold medal in Winter and Summer Olympic Games is Eddie Eagan (United States) in boxing (1920) and the bobsled (1932).
Looks like Christa Luding (winter gold and a summer silver) and Clara Hughes (winter gold and summer bronze) come close.
One of Eagan’s fellow travellers in the 1932 four-man bob team was Clifford Gray, writer of the lyrics for If You Were the Only Girl (In the World).
This makes me wonder if Gray is the only Olympic gold medallist ever to have written the ‘B’ side of a Perry Como hit.
There are only five athletes who have one medals in both Summer and Winter Games. From Wikipedia: Eddie Eagan, Gillis Grafström (by virtue of the fact that figure skating has been both a Summer and Winter Olympics event), Clara Hughes (speed skating, cycling), Christa Luding (speed skating, cycling) and Jacob Tullin Thams (sailing, ski jumping).