My God, Mary, you have come very far answering my questions, and I have learned a couple of things I didn't know!

My responses:

Easy warmup (1): Mark Spitz of course, winning 7 swimming golds in 1972 (he might be surpassed these games by another American swimmer)
(2) Steven Redgrave (UK, rowing), fourth athlete worldwide and first British who has won gold at five different games
(3) I don't know the name, but when an Irishman got the 4th place in skeleton, in 2002, and came very close to the bronze, it was mentioned that this would have been the first ever Irish winter medal (it was mean to call this question easy)
(4) 2500 m steeplechase (1900), George Orton (I found this at an obscure place and I only remembered it for the today funny distance; not, it isn't easy too)
(5) don't know myself yet

difficult:
(1) Gigolo (rider: Isabell Werth), 4 gold, 2 silver, in altogether three games, dressage, team and single; the only horse so far to win three successive golds in the same event (dressage team)
(2) My response is Alfred and Oscar Swahn (Sweden) who both won a gold together 1908 and 1912 in the single shot, running deer, team event: There are more correct responses as I have learned
(3) Aladar Gerevich (sabre), personal hero. The guy was 22 when he went to his first Olympics (1932) and came back with a gold. He was 50 when he went to his last Olympics (1960) and came back with a gold for 6 uninterrupted (except by the war) golds (your guess how many golds he would have taken without missing the 1940 and 1944 Olympics). It is said that the Hungarians didn't want to take a 50 year old fencer to the 1960 games and that Gerevich challenged the Hungarian national team (the best in the world) and did beat all of them, one after the other.No other athlete yet has won gold at six different Games. German rider H.-G. Winkler is the only other athlete also to have won a medal at six different games, but at 'only' four games he won gold.
German canoer Birgit Fischer, now 42, could equal that in Athens by winning at least one gold. She is so far the only female to have brought home at least one gold from each of her up to now five games. If the GDR hadn't boykotted the 1984 games she already would be on par with Gerevich. Why can I be so sure of that? She was in her prime then and was triple world champion in 1981, 1982, 1983, (no world championship in the Olympic year 1984), 1985, 1987 (she paused in 1986 for a child birth). She is the best ever German athlete by far.
(4) Liechtenstein. If you look for the highest number of medals per inhabitants you can look for countries with many medals (these usually are large countries). But you can also look for countries with a small denominator (few inhabitants). Liechtenstein has 20,000 inhabitants. They are good in skiing and nothing else. Hanni and her brother Andreas Wenzel once were world class skiers and won 8 medals together. If the Wenzel family had not moved from Germany to Liechtenstein when the kids were small, Liechtenstein would only have one single bronze, putting it just in the middle class of that particular count.
(5) Poul and his daughter Trine Elvstrom (Denmark) nearly won the Tornado (sailing) bronze in 1984
(6) Dr. Reiner Klimke (from my home town) won gold with Liselott Linsenhoff in the dressage team event in 1968 and with her daughter Ann Kathrin Linsenhoff in 1988. He is one of only five athletes winning gold at five different games.
(7) Christa Rothenburger (GDR) in 1988 won gold in the speed skating 1000m and silver in the same year in the sprint of cycling. There may be more (bobsled in winter, track and fields in summer, but I don't know them)
(8) Erwin Keller (Germany) won silver in 1936 with the German hockey team, his son Carsten won gold in hockey in 1972, his grandson Andreas won gold in 1992, again in hockey. There are several more three generation competitors, but these are the most successful I have found.
(9) Harry Kirvesniemi, (Finland) won 6 bronze medals in cross country skiing and never another medal: (Savolainen won also gold and silver)
(10) This should have been the easiest I thought and was completely wrong: Emil Zatopek and his wife Dana Zatopekova in 1952 won within the same hour in the same stadium, she the javelin, and he one of his three golds (I'd say 10,000m) of these games. They had married early that year.
(11) Bangladesh
(12) Crown Prince, later King Constantine of Greece, gold in the Dragon (sailing) in 1960. (the other response was new to me)
(13) Hubert Raudaschl, Austrian sailor, competed without interruption in 10 games, from 1964 to 2000. He never won a gold in 10 attempts which is mentionable since he was world champion in his sport. His 36 years Olympic carreer by the way is not a record, for several athletes have a 40 year career (one fencer, three sailors, though all of them with interruptions. One of my candidates for the longest interruption is British shooter Cyril Mackworth-Praed who competed only twice, in 1924 and 1952.


cooling down exercise: That should be easy but it isn't. It is actually difficult to find out who has won more medals than anybody else: Larissa Latynina (USSR, gymnastics) has won 9 gold, 5 silver and 4 bronze, 18 medals altogether (comparison: Carl Lewis, 9 gold, one silver, 10 medals; Andrianov: 15, 7 gold, 5 silver, 3 bronze; of the Athens competitors the best is: Birgit Fischer, 10, 7 gold, three silver).
The question who has most golds (disregarding other medals) has more than one response: If the Olympic intermediate games of 1906 are counted then it is US-American Raymond Ewry who won 10 golds between 1900 and 1908 (standing long and high and triple jump) and never any other medal, poor guy. If the 1906 games are not counted (as most books do) then Carl Lewis and Mark Spitz tie with 9 golds each. Lewis has an additional silver, but Spitz has a silver and a bronze.

That's it. Happy watching if you do. And have a look at female canoeing to see whether Birgit Fischer at now 42 will be able to equal Gerevich's record. If British rower Steven Redgrave would compete he could do the same, but I think this time he doesn't (though he is one month younger than Fischer).

Wolfgang