30 Olympic athletes who dominated their events

14. Edoardo Mangiarotti

Like fellow fencer Aladár Gerevich, Edoardo Mangiarotti’s family members were all swordsmen as well. His older brother Dario Mangiarotti won a world championship in 1949 along with three career Olympic medals, and his father Giuseppe Mangiarotti was a 17-time national épée champion in Italy.

Edoardo Mangiarotti was the most talented and successful of them all, however. Born right-handed, Edoardo learned to fight with the sword in his left hand because his father believed it would make him a more difficult, unpredictable fencer to his opponents.

The strategy paid early dividends right off the bat for Mangiarotti. Competing with the Italian senior team at the tender age of 17, he won his first Olympic gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Summer Games. While Gerevich was the master of the sabre, Magiarotti’s weapons of choice were the foil and the épée – he dominated in both categories during a prolific career that lasted 25 years.

Over that timespan, the Italian took home 13 Olympic medals (six gold, five silver, two bronze) and won 13 World Championships. In 2003, the International Olympic Committee commemorated Mangiarotti and labeled him with “the distinction of being the greatest Fencer in that sport’s history.” His 13 Olympic medals ties him with Boris Shakhlin and Ole Einar Bjørndalen for fourth place on the all-time list of multiple Olympic medalists.

Next: 13. Boris Shakhlin