By Madeline Folsom on SwimSwam
Recently, two Olympic swimming medalists have made headlines for changing their sporting nationality, Ilya Kharun and Tatjana Smith. Both have expressed their intention to race at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, which brought the question of how many Olympic swimmers have earned medals representing more than one country.
Kharun grew up in the United States, but represented Canada at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where he won the bronze medal in the 100 and 200 butterfly. Earlier this year, he announced he would be changing his sporting nationality to the United States, and a few weeks ago, he qualified for the American SC World Championships roster.
Smith is the former world record holder in the women’s 200 breaststroke and the most decorated Olympian in South African history. She won the gold medal in the 200 breast and the silver medal in the 100 breast at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, and swapped the medals for a gold in the 100 breast and a silver in the 200 breast at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. She initially retired after the 2024 Olympics, but earlier this year, she announced she would be making a comeback and representing the Netherlands internationally.
They are not the only people to change sporting nationalities, but they are both big names in the sport, which makes it more noteworthy. Earning an Olympic medal is something not many people can say they have done. Earning multiple across different Games is even rarer, and earning multiple Olympic medals for different countries is very rare air.
SwimSwam looked back through the Olympic archives to see just how rare this feat would be if Kharun and Smith can accomplish it in Los Angeles. First, we removed athletes who represented “multiple countries” due to “map changes”. This includes things like the reunification of Germany, the fall of the Soviet Union, and Czechoslovakia breaking up.
Once that was done, we could not find any Olympic swimmers who have won multiple Olympic medals for different countries. Paralympic swimmer Bethany Firth is the only swimmer we could find who has.
She started her Paralympic career competing for Ireland, where she won a gold medal in the S14 100 backstroke final. In 2013, Firth announced she would be switching to Team Great Britain moving forward.
At the 2016 Games, Firth won another gold medal in the S14 100 backstroke and picked up two additional golds in the S14 200 free and SM14 200 IM, this time for Great Britain. She also won a silver medal in the SB14 100 breaststroke.
In 2020, Firth won a 3rd straight gold medal in the 100 backstroke for Great Britain, and also picked up a gold in the mixed 4×100 freestyle relay. She also won silver medals in the S14 200 free and the SM14 200 IM
There are also a few swimmers who have won world championship or Olympic medals for multiple countries. Anastasia Kirpichnikova started out her career representing Russia and she won a silver medal at the SC World Championships in the 800 freestyle. Three years later, she won the silver medal in the women’s 1500 freestyle for France at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Santo Condorelli is famous in the world of swimming for representing three different countries internationally. He has only won major international medals for two of them, however. In 2015, he represented Canada at the World Championships, winning a bronze medal in the 4×100 freestyle relay. He switched his nationality to Italy, and at the 2020 Olympics, he won a silver medal as a member of their 4×100 freestyle relay. In 2025, he qualified for the United States World Championships roster, but he did not win any medals for the United States.
There have also been a few South African Olympians to make the same decision as Smith. Darian Townsend started his swimming career representing South Africa, and he won an Olympic gold medal in the 4×100 freestyle relay in 2004. He also swam for South Africa at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. In 2014, he became an American citizen and represented the U.S. at the 2014 SC World Championships, where he won gold medals in the 4×200 free relay and mixed 4×50 freestyle relay.
Sarah Poewe was another South African breaststroker. In 2000, she raced at the Olympics for South Africa, finishing 4th in the 100 breaststroke to just miss an Olympic medal. In 2004, she represented Germany and helped the team win the bronze medal in the 4×100 medley relay. She went on to represent Germany again in 2008 and 2012.
While we couldn’t find any swimmers who have, there have been athletes outside the sport of swimming who have won Olympic medals for different countries. A 2021 article published by Olympstats.com found only 25 examples of Olympic medalists for two distinctly different nations (DDN). Since then, a few athletes have joined the list, including bobsledder Kaillie Humphries (Canada/United States), and taekwondo athlete Kimia Alizadeh (Iran/Bulgaria).
If you think of anyone else, feel free to leave it in the comments! There have been plenty of swimmers who have changed nationalities/won multiple worlds medals, and we did not list them all here.
Read the full story on SwimSwam: How Many Swimmers Have Won Olympic Medals For More Than One Country?
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