With 12 medals and eight gold medals, Jenny Thompson has won more swimming medals and gold medals than any woman in Olympic history. But all eight of her gold medals came in relays, and this immensely talented swimmer was frustrated in her attempt to win an individual Olympic gold medal. Her only individual medals were a silver in the 1992 100 freestyle and a bronze in the same event in 2000. While attending Columbia Medical School, Thompson came out of retirement and made the 2004 Olympic team, and won two relay silver medals in Athens. Twenty-three times a national champion, she was more successful individually at the World Championships, winning the 100 free and 100 fly at the 1998 worlds. At the other major international event, the Pan-Pacifics, Thompson also won the 50 free four times (1989, 1991, 1993, 1999), the 100 free four times (1993-99), and the 100 fly three times (1993, 1997-1999). Among all female Olympians, Thompson's eight gold medals are surpassed only by Larysa Latynina's nine in gymnastics, and equaled by Birgit Fischer-Schmidt in canoeing.

Thompson has since become a physician, specializing as a pediatric anaesthesiologist. She did her internship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, followed by anaesthesia residency at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston, and then a pediatric anaesthesia fellowship at Boston Children's Hospital. Thompson practiced anaesthesia in Portland, Maine.