Hubert Van Innis

Belgium’s Hubert Van Innis was the supreme Olympic archer, winning a record six gold medals and ten medals at the Games of 1900 and 1920. Although the exceptional number of archery events at these Games clearly helped him towards his record medal total, this advantage was countered by his absence from the 1904 and 1908 Games and by the fact that archery events were not held at the 1912 Games. After his successes in 1920, archery was never again an Olympic sport during his lifetime but, in 1933, at the age of 67, he won a team gold medal at the World Championships and in all probability would have won further Olympic medals had he been given the opportunity. Van Innis was an architect by profession.