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Some Olympic achievements defy both physics and human potential! Join us as we countdown the winter sports records that have stood the test of time and may never be broken. From sweeping entire podiums to winning gold in completely different sports at the same Games, these feats showcase athletic achievement at its most extraordinary.
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00:00She did that in Lake Louise, and then she did it again here.
00:04Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most amazing Winter Olympics records that are extremely difficult to break.
00:11You've had victories, podiums, and the yellow bib this season. Has this been a lot of fun?
00:16For sure it's a lot of fun.
00:17We will not be including records that are literally impossible to beat due to rule changes and technicalities.
00:24Number 10. The Dutch Speed Skating Sweeps
00:26So a lot of the skaters from the other countries have walked into the Oval and looked around and said,
00:31Wow, it looks like a Dutch person designed this Oval.
00:34Kicking us off is a display of national dominance that borders on silliness.
00:38At the Sochi Games in 2014, the Netherlands completely monopolized the speed skating events.
00:44The Dutch team achieved four separate podium sweeps, meaning they took gold, silver, and bronze in four different races.
00:51The last thing we need is to give the Dutch sort of a home ice advantage feel because they're already so good.
00:55In the modern Olympics, countries are strictly limited on how many athletes they can send, usually capping out at three per event.
01:02That means to sweep a podium, a nation needs a 100% success rate from the skaters they put on the ice.
01:09To do that four times in two weeks? It's a statistical anomaly.
01:13With the sport becoming more global every year, seeing one country hoard 23 medals in a single discipline is a sight we likely won't see again.
01:21When it comes to speed skating, nobody does it better than the Dutch.
01:26The Netherlands medal tally at the last Winter Olympics was the best by any nation in any single sport in the history of the Games.
01:33Number 9. Armin Zügelers' Sixth Olympiad medal streak.
01:37You are accompanied by a strong national pride.
01:41Italy must win.
01:42You must honor and bring prestige to our country with a strong national pride and patriotism.
01:48In Luge, victory is measured in thousandths of a second, and a single wrong twitch usually ends your night.
01:55Yet one man spent two full decades refusing to leave the podium.
01:59Italy's Armin Zügelers was known as the cannibal in his home country for devouring the competition.
02:05He took home a medal in men's singles at every Olympics from Lillehammer in 1994 all the way to Sochi in 2014.
02:11That is six consecutive Winter Games.
02:15While gravity stays the same, human reflexes naturally slow down with age.
02:19But Zügelers proved that even at 40, he was still one of the three fastest men on ice.
02:24Maintaining that level of physical precision and mental fortitude for 20 years is the kind of consistency that defies the shelf life of a modern athlete.
02:32The Olympics are always a great moment for an athlete.
02:35Just by participating, it's quite something.
02:38And even better to win a medal.
02:40It's always a great feat for an athlete.
02:42Number 8.
02:43Marit Björgin's 15 career medals
02:45Marit Björgin is quite simply the iron lady of cross-country skiing.
02:49She didn't just participate.
02:51She completely owned the sport across five different Olympics.
02:54By the time she finally hung up her skis in 2018,
02:57she had amassed a staggering 15 medals, eight of them gold,
03:01surpassing her compatriot Ulle Einar Björndalen as the most decorated Winter Olympian in history.
03:06To even get close to this,
03:08a modern athlete would need incredible versatility across sprints and distance events,
03:13plus the luck to stay healthy for 16 years in one of the most physically punishing sports on Earth.
03:18Given the brutal toll of competitive skiing,
03:2115 trips to the podium is a mountain that will likely never be climbed again.
03:27Number 7.
03:35Irina Rodnina's Decade of Perfection
03:38Our next pair, from the Soviet Union,
03:42Irina Rodnina and Alexei Ilinovich.
03:47In figure skating, ice is slippery and judges are fickle.
03:51One bad fall or a subjective scoring controversy usually ends a winning streak.
03:55That is, unless you're Irina Rodnina.
03:58This Soviet pair's legend won three consecutive Olympic gold medals from 1972 to 1980.
04:03But the unbreakable part isn't just the medals.
04:06It's the fact that she literally never lost.
04:08For 11 straight years, spanning World Championships and Olympics,
04:19she took gold every single time she stepped on the ice,
04:22even after switching partners halfway through her career.
04:25Today, the physical demands of complex throws and lifts mean pair skaters often retire by their mid-20s.
04:31A decade-long undefeated streak is a level of perfection the sport simply doesn't allow anymore.
04:43Number 6.
04:45Eddie Egan's Summer and Winter Gold
04:46Now here is the ultimate dual threat.
04:49Eddie Egan stands alone as the only human in history to win gold in both the Summer and Winter Olympics in different sports.
04:56In 1920, he punched his way to a light heavyweight boxing title in Antwerp.
05:0112 years later, he swapped his gloves for a helmet and won gold in the four-man bobsled at Lake Placid.
05:07While modern athletes like Lauren Williams have meddled in both seasons,
05:11winning gold in two different sports in two different seasons is simply unheard of.
05:15It's a display of versatility that modern specialization has made virtually extinct,
05:20ensuring Egan's unique place in the history books remains safe forever.
05:23Number 5.
05:25Tony Zeiler's 6.2-second margin
05:27At the 1956 Cortina Games, Austrian phenom Tony Zeiler, aka the Blitz from Kitz, won all three Alpine events.
05:46But his performance in the giant slalom bordered on ridiculous,
05:50beating the silver medalist by a massive 6.2 seconds.
05:54To put that in perspective, the top 30 racers in modern Olympic skiing often finish within just two seconds of each other.
06:00Zeiler was practically skiing in the future, utilizing parallel technique while his rivals were still struggling to stem their turns.
06:07Today, training is optimized to within an inch of its life, meaning the gaps between athletes are microscopic.
06:13A six-second victory today would require the entire field to fall down or get lost on the way down the mountain.
06:19It's a margin of victory that belongs to a bygone era.
06:26Tony Zeiler, 20 years, inspired by history, driven by innovation.
06:31Number 4.
06:32Nils van der Poel's 10,000-meter decimation
06:34In 2022, Swedish speed skater Nils van der Poel broke both the world record and the spirit of his entire competition.
06:50In the 10,000-meter, an event usually decided by final lap sprints and photo finishes,
06:55he crossed the line nearly 14 seconds ahead of the silver medalist.
06:58He later published a training manifesto, revealing a routine of ultra-running and eating ice cream that no other physiologist could make sense of.
07:06Ready.
07:10In an era of aerodynamics, wind tunnels, and marginal gains, winning by nearly half a lap is laughable.
07:17Unless you're Nils, of course.
07:19To create a gap this large against modern, fully-optimized professional athletes is a statistical anomaly that suggests he briefly broke the known limits of human endurance.
07:28Number 3.
07:35Esther Ledecka's dual sport gold
07:37They're both out clean.
07:39This is the defense of the world championship title.
07:42In Pyeongchang 2018, Esther Ledecka did the unthinkable.
07:46She borrowed a pair of skis and won the Super G by a razor-thin .01 seconds.
07:51Then, just a week later, she grabbed her snowboard and won the parallel giant slalom.
07:55Esther Ledecka, Esther Ledecka, an Olympic champion and world champion in the past.
08:01She became the first athlete in history to win gold in two different sports at the same Winter Olympics using completely different equipment.
08:08The training schedules, muscle memory, and technical requirements for skiing and snowboarding are totally different,
08:13which is why coaches never let athletes do both.
08:16It was so unexpected that she famously celebrated her skiing win by staring at the clock in total confusion.
08:22This is a logistical and athletic miracle that we will likely never see again.
08:27Athletes just aren't supposed to do this.
08:29I think maybe Esther can give them hope that, you know, competing and being successful in more than one sport is possible.
08:37Number 2.
08:38Ule Einar Björndalen's biathlon sweep
08:40You need to be top prepared if you want to be on podium, and in a moment I am not there.
08:46The biathlon is arguably the cruelest sport in the Olympics.
08:49You have to ski until your heart is about to burst, and then shoot a tiny target with a trembling hand in the freezing cold.
08:55One miss and you lose.
08:57Because then you need to ski like a hell, shoot fast and shoot good.
09:02Yet at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, the king of biathlon, Ule Einar Björndalen, won the sprint, the pursuit, the individual, and the relay.
09:11He went a perfect 4-for-4 in the highest variance sport there is.
09:14It is statistically comparable to a golfer hitting a hole-in-one four days in a row.
09:19The field is far too deep, and the sport is too unpredictable for anyone to ever be this perfect across all formats again.
09:26It was a singular moment of absolute mastery.
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09:55Number 1. Eric Hyden's Impossible Sweep
10:00He seemed to arrive out of nowhere, hurtling himself into the very center of our consciousness,
10:06just when we needed a little diversion from several international crises.
10:10Taking the number 1 spot is the holy grail of winter sports.
10:13At Lake Placid in 1980, Eric Hyden did the equivalent of Usain Bolt winning the 100-meter dash and the marathon at the same Olympics.
10:21Hyden won the 500-meter sprint, the 10,000-meter endurance race, and everything in between.
10:27Oh, and he set a new Olympic record in every single race.
10:30While much of America was entranced by the U.S. hockey team's miraculous success,
10:35he methodically reduced an entire winter sport to a kind of private game, his game.
10:41Modern skaters specialize in either sprint or distance because the muscle fibers required are completely different.
10:47You just can't be explosive and have endurance at the same time.
10:51But Hyden didn't care.
10:52He remains the only athlete in Winter Olympic history to win five individual gold medals at a single game.
10:58A golden sweep that defies human biology and will stand as long as the Olympics exist.
11:03Eric Hyden is a great American athlete, not simply because of what he did at Lake Placid,
11:08but what he did to get there and how he redirected his life afterwards.
11:12Eric Hyden, an Olympic athlete with a strong sense of time, place, and purpose.
11:18Do you think these records will ever be broken?
11:20Let us know in the comments.
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