Gold on the ice in February, silver on a bike in September: the only one-year Olympic double (2026)

Christa Luding-Rothenburger finished second in the women's sprint at the Seoul Olympic Velodrome on 24 September 1988, and took the silver medal for East Germany. Seven months earlier, on 26 February, she had won the 1000 metres in speed skating at the Winter Games in Calgary, in a world record 1:17.65, and finished second in the 500 metres. 1 2 3

She is the only athlete in Olympic history to have won a medal at the Winter Games and the Summer Games inside the same year, and the first woman to have won a medal at both Games in any year. 3 4 The arrangement that allowed it has since been closed off: the two Games stopped sharing a year in 1994. 5

Both of her Calgary races turned on hundredths of a second. In the 500 metres on 22 February, the three medallists finished inside a single session with two hundredths between first and second: Andrea Ehrig skated 40.71, Luding-Rothenburger answered with 39.12, and Bonnie Blair took the gold in 39.10. 6 Four days later she won the 1000 metres in 1:17.65, five hundredths under the world record Karin Kania had set earlier in the same session. 2

The four days of the sprint

Women had raced at the Olympics only on the road before 1988. The Seoul Games put a women's track event on the programme for the first time. 7 The sprint drew 12 riders from 12 nations and ran from 21 to 24 September as a knock-out of match races: two riders at a time, best of three rides. 1

Luding-Rothenburger qualified third fastest, in 11.692 seconds. Erika Salumäe, an Estonian riding for the Soviet Union and the world champion of 1987, led the round with an Olympic record of 11.527, and Isabelle Gautheron of France was second in 11.611. 1 8

She went through the knock-out without losing a ride. She beat Julie Speight of Australia two rides to none in the quarter-final, in 11.80 and 11.63 seconds, and Gautheron by the same score in the semi-final, in 11.92 and 11.89. 1

The final against Salumäe went to all three rides. Luding-Rothenburger won one of them in 11.68 seconds; Salumäe won the other two, and the gold. 1 9 Connie Paraskevin-Young of the United States took the bronze. 1

One other rider in that field had spent the same winter on ice. Seiko Hashimoto of Japan finished fifth in both the 500 and the 1000 metres at Calgary, and finished fifth in the Seoul sprint as well. She went on to compete at seven Olympic Games, four on skates and three on a bicycle, and later presided over the Tokyo 2020 organising committee. 6 10

A bicycle in the off-season

Luding-Rothenburger had been on the ice since 1973. In 1980 her coach, Ernst Luding, pushed her to ride through the speed-skating off-season, on his view that the two sports asked for the same speed and strength. She married him after the 1988 Winter Games. 3 11 The East German sports federation refused her first request to race abroad as a cyclist, then relented. 11

She was world champion in the women's sprint on the track by 1986, having taken the world sprint title in speed skating the year before. That made her the second woman, after the American Sheila Young, to be a world champion in both sports. She won the speed-skating sprint title again in 1988, the same season as Calgary and Seoul. 3

A black-and-white press photograph of a woman in a white short-sleeved jersey and dark leggings standing behind a track bicycle, a large bunch of roses across the handlebars and a medal hanging at her chest — Cottbus, 7 July 1988: Luding after winning the 500 m time trial at the East German track cycling championships. The Federal Archive's own caption for the picture records it as her fifteenth national title on a bicycle and her ninth East German record. Photograph by Rainer Weisflog, German Federal Archive, CC BY-SA 3.0 de via Wikimedia Commons.

How rare it is

A black-and-white press photograph of a woman in a speed-skating suit and cap, leaning low with one arm swung back, skating between marker cones on an ice rink — Dresden, 30 August 1988: Luding on the ice oval she had trained on since 1973, three weeks before the Seoul sprint. The Federal Archive's caption, written that month, lists her skating world records and closes: "Now she hopes for her first Olympic medal in track cycling." Photograph by Klaus Oberst, German Federal Archive, CC BY-SA 3.0 de via Wikimedia Commons.

Athletes who have competed at both the Summer and Winter Games number 139, counted to the end of the 2026 Winter Games. Seven of them won a medal at each. One won both medals inside a single year. 12

What the athlete did	How many have done it	Where the count comes from
Competed at both the Summer and Winter Games	139, to the end of the 2026 Winter Games	Wikipedia's list of athletes who competed at both Games 12
Won a medal at each	7	Wikipedia's list of athletes who competed at both Games 12
Won both medals in the same year	1 — Christa Luding-Rothenburger, 1988	Olympics.com athlete profile 4

The middle count depends on one old case. ESPN's list of the athletes who have medalled at both Games names six, and leaves out Gillis Grafström, the Swedish figure skater who won the 1920 Olympic title at the Summer Games, while figure skating was still on their programme, and then won again at the Winter Games of 1924 and 1928. 12 13

The others who have managed a medal at each Games did it across years rather than within one. Clara Hughes won two cycling bronzes at Atlanta in 1996 and four speed-skating medals at three Winter Games from 2002; Lauryn Williams ran on a gold-medal relay in London in 2012 and won a bobsleigh silver at Sochi in 2014. 13

The window that closed

The Winter and Summer Games were held in the same year from the first Winter edition in 1924 until 1992. At its session in Lausanne in 1986, the IOC decided to separate the two editions after 1992, and the Winter Games moved into the year between Summer Games: Lillehammer in 1994, Nagano in 1998, and every second year since. 5

A timeline chart with two rows of dots on a year axis from 1984 to 2028, a navy row labelled WINTER and a brick-red row labelled SUMMER, a shaded band over 1988 and 1992 marked same year, and the note that the two Games shared a year from 1924 through 1992 — Each dot is a year in which a Games opened. The two editions shared a year from 1924 through 1992; after the IOC's 1986 decision the Winter Games moved into the year between Summer Games. Our own diagram; the calendar follows Wikipedia's list of athletes who competed at both Games and the 1994 Winter Olympics.

That left 1992 as the last year in which the same-year double was on offer, and no athlete took it. 12 An athlete competing now can still win a medal at both Games. Winning them in one year has been impossible since Luding-Rothenburger did it. 11

She won medals at four Olympic Games: 500 m speed skating gold at Sarajevo in 1984, gold in the 1000 m and silver in the 500 m at Calgary in 1988, silver in the Seoul sprint later that year, and bronze in the 500 m at Albertville in 1992. 3 Five medals, one of them won on a bicycle, and that pairing of a Winter medal and a Summer medal inside twelve months has not come round again.