Did the US win the Olympics?
Depends how you count!
The US topped the medals table in Paris with 126 medals. But, does that mean they won the Olympics? If we look at other metrics like the most gold medals, the most medals per capita or the most medals relative to GDP we end up with a new Olympic champion. Let’s dive in!
Total Medals: The US
Team USA topped the medals table in 2024 (and in eight of the last ten Summer Olympics!). That’s quite the winning streak. Even though they also sent the most number of athletes of any other nation with 594, it wasn’t just sheer numbers that got them the top spot. Their athletes still won more often then France’s 572 athletes and Australia’s 460.
Most Gold Medals: US and China tie
Ok, so the US won the most total medals, but should we care about Silver and Bronze? After all, the phrase is “Go for Gold” not “Bust it for Bronze”. Plus, most leagues and sports only honor one winner. By that metric the United States tied with China.
Most Medals Per Capita: Grenada (or maybe New Zealand)
It’s not surprising that a country with more people would win more medals. Perhaps it’s more fair to judge a nation by the number of medals they win per person. If that’s the metric, then the best country at the Paris Games was Grenada whose athletes brought home 2 medals to their 114,000 neighbors. Grenada is the nation you are most likely to run into an Olympian. But Grenada is so small, this might be a trick of statistics. If we limit this metric to nations with populations over 1 million, then New Zealand comes out on top. The nation of 5 million brought home 20 medals, or one for every 258k people. In contrast, the US brought home one medal for every 2.7 million people.
“Cost Per Medal”: Grenada
It stands to reasons that athletes from wealthy countries are better positioned to have the time and resources to devote to excelling in their sport. Let’s look at how many medals each country has won relative to it’s GDP. With a GDP of $2 billion, each of Grenada’s two medals “cost” $1 billion. Even if we consider population and look at GDP per capita, Grenada still wins. In comparison, the “price per medal” in the United States is $196 billion. Is this a weird metric that I just mad up? Yeah! But I’d still like to congratulate the people of Grenada for an impressive showing in Paris.
Explore all of the data
Sources
GDP capita: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/
Population: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/population/country-comparison/
Medals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Summer_Olympics_medal_table
GDP: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/real-gdp-purchasing-power-parity/country-comparison/
