Summer Olympics: medal progression of European countries 1896-2020

Throughout the history of the Summer Olympics, after the United States, European countries tend to have the most success, and dominated the medals tables in earlier years. Italy and Hungary have strong Olympic traditions, and have consistently performed well in the Olympics; while Finland and Sweden dominated many events in earlier years. Romania saw the most success in the 1980s, capitalizing on the boycotts of their competitors, particularly in Gymnastic events. The Netherlands' success at the Olympics has fluctuated over time, although they have performed well in recent years; similar to the Ukraine, who have emerged as a formidable Olympic nation since their first Games as an independent nation in 1996.

The most successful Olympic nations from Europe, however, continue to be Russia, Germany, Great Britain and France.

Total number of medals won by athletes from selected European countries in the Summer Olympics from 1896 to 2020

Year	Italy	Netherlands	Ukraine	Hungary	Sweden	Romania	Finland
2020	40	36	19	20	9	4	2
2016	28	19	18	15	11	4	1
2012	28	20	28	18	8	9	3
2008	27	16	22	10	5	9	4
2004	32	22	22	17	7	19	2
2000	34	25	23	17	12	26	4
1996	35	19	23	21	8	20	4
1992	19	15	-	30	12	18	5
1988	14	9	-	23	11	24	4
1984	32	13	-	-	19	53	12
1980	15	3	-	32	12	25	8
1976	13	5	-	22	5	27	6
1972	18	5	-	35	16	16	8
1968	16	7	-	32	4	15	4
1964	27	10	-	22	8	12	5
1960	36	3	-	21	6	10	5
1956	25	0	-	26	19	13	15
1952	21	5	-	42	35	4	22
1948	27	16	-	27	44	-	20
1936	22	17	-	16	20	1	19
1932	36	7	-	15	23	-	25
1928	19	19	-	9	25	0	25
1924	16	10	-	9	29	1	37
1920	23	11	-	-	64	-	34
1912	6	3	-	8	65	-	26
1908	4	2	-	9	25	-	5
1904	0	-	-	4	-	-	-
1900	5	4	-	5	1	0	-
1896	0	-	-	6	0	-	-

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Release date

2021

More information

Region

Worldwide, Europe

Survey time period

1896 to 2021

Supplementary notes

This data was collected using the official Olympic.org site, as well as a spreadsheet from the Guardian that includes data from 1896-2008 (available here), 2012 and 2016 data was compared with that from Encyclopaedia Britannica, and several news outlets were used to update the table when medals were reassigned (i.e. for doping offenses).

If the number zero is shown for a country, that means athletes from the country did participate, but did not win any medals. If there is no entry for a country in specific years, then they did not participate in those Olympics.

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