Sir Steven Geoffrey Redgrave, CBE, DL is a retired British rower who won gold medals at five consecutive Olympic Games from 1984 to 2000 as well as a bronze medal at the 1988 Summer Games, totalling six Olympic Medals. He has also won three Commonwealth Games gold medals and nine World Rowing Championships golds. With five gold medals and one bronze, Redgrave is the most successful male rower in Olympic history, and his achievement of being the only Olympian to have won gold medals at five different Olympic Games in an endurance sport has led to him being hailed as Britain's greatest-ever Olympian.
In 2002, Redgrave was ranked number 36 in the BBC poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. He was the first British athlete to have won five Olympic gold medals, a feat surpassed only by Chris Hoy at the 2012 Summer Olympics, and is the third most decorated British Olympian with six medals, after the seven of Hoy and the seven of cyclist Bradley Wiggins. He has carried the British flag at the opening of the Olympic Games on two occasions. In 2011 Redgrave received the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award.
|