Then & Now: Olympic Superpowers

After two and a half weeks of competitions and more than 1,000 medals given out to athletes from across the globe, it came down to the final event of the Paris 2024 Olympics to determine who would top the official medal table. In the end, the U.S. women’s basketball team’s 67-66 win over host nation France in the gold medal game was enough for Team USA to claim the top spot once again, tying China’s 40 gold medals but leading in silver and bronze medals as well as overall medals (126 to China’s 91).

Having topped the medal table in London 2012, Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, the United States continued to show its sporting prowess in Paris. China was the last country to break the U.S. dominance at the Summer Olympics in Beijing 2008, when the country topped the medal table after rigorous and successful efforts from China’s leadership to make a statement on home turf. In similar fashion, France also impressed in Paris, claiming 16 gold medals and 64 medals overall, compared to 10 gold medals and 33 medals overall at the Tokyo games in 2020.

Looking back 20 and 40 years, to Athens and Los Angeles, respectively, there have been quite some shifts in the gold medal ranking, with the United States in pole position the only real constant.