The United States of America had its best Olympic performance in recent times at the Paris 2024. It took home 126 medals (40 gold, 44 silver, and 42 bronze), the most it has won at an Olympics since the 1984 edition, where it left with 174 medals (81 gold, 61 silver, and 30 bronze).
But how does the USA’s performance compare to other Olympic table toppers, both in recent years and historically?
How does Paris 2024 compare to other Olympic Games?
In absolute terms, the USA’s 126 medals in Paris is the fifth-most medals a nation has ever got in the Olympics.
| No. | Team | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
| 1 | Soviet Union (1980) | 80 | 69 | 46 | 195 |
| 2 | USA (1984) | 83 | 61 | 30 | 174 |
| 3 | Great Britain (1908) | 56 | 51 | 39 | 146 |
| 4 | Soviet Union (1988) | 55 | 31 | 46 | 132 |
| 5 | USA (2024) | 40 | 44 | 42 | 126 |
(table excludes 1900 and 1904)
However, the number of events and medals awarded have also risen over time. Thus, it becomes necessary to compare the number of medals won to the total medals awarded in an Olympics. Table 1 shows the proportion of medals won by the team at the top of the medal table compared to the total medals available.
Table 1 shows us that while Paris 2024 saw a small increase from Tokyo 2020, the USA’s performance in the French capital is a continuation of a downward trend.
Between 1948 (the first Games after the Second World War) and 1988, the proportion of medals won by the top nation lies at an average of slightly above 20%.
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The 1980 Moscow edition and the 1984 Los Angeles games, saw a small uptick in the top-medal country ratio, thanks to USA and Soviet Union boycotting each other’s home Olympics. But even after removing these two, the average ratio from 1948 to 1988 remains close to 20%. The corresponding number from after the 1992 Games has dropped to just above 11%.
So what is responsible for this drop in medals, and where have they gone?
Potential cause 1: The Olympics gets bigger
Over time, the Olympics have fairly consistently grown in size. From Table 2 it is clear that there are more medals on offer, and more nations competing to win them.
With a spread-out playing field, it has become difficult for a country to dominate across the Olympics. There are more events in play, and it is harder to sweep the field. Some of this can also be attributed to the increase in the number of events with two bronze medals on offer (like judo and taekwondo), where it is not possible to sweep all four medals.
Potential cause 2: The winners take it all
It then follows to ask who is winning these medals instead? One potential answer is that other top countries have started winning them. Table 3 shows the proportion of medals won by the top country, the top two countries, and the top three countries in the medals table at each Olympics.
This indicates that there doesn’t appear to be more sharing of medals between the top competitors at the Olympics. In fact, the medal share of all three metrics has shown similar drops over time.
All three proportions follow fairly consistent trends across time. The Cold War period came with the establishment of an Olympic rivalry between the USA and the Soviet Union to dominate the Olympics, and between 1948 and 1988 (the last Olympics before the collapse of the Soviet Union) the countries traded finishing at the top of the medal table. A duopoly on the medals table was established.
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In recent times, China has replaced the Soviet Union as the USA’s primary rival, triggered by the collapse of the Soviet Union, finishing in the top two in five of the last six Games. Therefore, rather than the duopoly on medals being broken, the members of the duopoly have changed instead.
Potential cause 3: The medals are shared
One thing that we have already established is that the number of countries participating in and winning medals at the Olympics has gone over time. Table 4 looks at how the number of countries winning medals at an Olympics has also gone up.
Table 4 shows that the number of countries winning medals has increased along with the number of countries participating.
From 1996 onwards, the number of medal-winning countries increased at a faster rate than the number of countries. The only significant exceptions to this remains the 1976 Olympics, which was boycotted by over 20 African nations over the IOC allowing the New Zealand rugby team who had toured apartheid South African to participate, and the 1980 Olympics, which was boycotted by the USA and other countries in an act of political protest.
In short, the proportion of countries winning a medal from 1996 onwards has risen. More countries are winning medals, and the medals are being shared more. The proportion of countries winning medals has been this high before (and indeed higher), but it was when significantly fewer countries participated in the Olympics.
The post-1996 period reflects a change where a relatively large number of countries are consistently participating in the Olympics and winning medals as well.
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