The All-Time Olympic Medal Table And Statistics

The Olympics, or as they are officially called, The Olympic Games, gather the best athletes around the globe to compete in a variety of disciplines. Each of the athletes represents his country and the National Olympic Committee.

Modern Olympics, on the other hand, is how we refer to all tournaments organized from 1986 Athens to 2022 Beijing. Rather than another multi-sport event on an international level, the Olympics rely on principles. They show a great understanding of history, geopolitics, and power dynamics. They stand for values such as non-discrimination and women’s empowerment.

We’ll talk more about the Olympics in this article, but first, let’s see the all-time Olympic medal table, after the summer and winter Olympics ones.

Summer Olympic Games Medals per Country

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Winter Olympic Games Medals per Country

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All-time Olympic medal table per Country

After seeing the summer Olympic medal table and the winter one, the top of the all-time Olympic medal table isn’t going to be a surprise.

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Which is the most successful country ever?

When it comes to Summer Olympics, the United States is the absolute leader. They have a total of 2959 medals won. Most of these medals are gold, while the nation can also brag with approximately 900 silver medals and 800 bronze medals.

The second place in the Summer Olympics is still held by the Soviet Union. Their united team won more than 1204 medals in the period 1952-1992, even 473 of them gold.

If we combine the Summer Olympics accomplishments of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and Russia as it is today, the US remains in the lead. It does so with a difference of even 1,00 medals won.

The third position belongs to Great Britain. The country its united team brought home 950 medals. 296 of them were gold.

The Summer Olympics have changed a lot since the beginning, especially if we consider that many countries don’t exist anymore. The first example that comes to mind is the fall apart of the Soviet Union.

Instead of them, we now have multiple participants such as Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Estonia, and Lithuania. It is up to the International Olympic Committee to decide whether the medals won belong to the Union or the state this athlete comes from.

Which of the countries has the highest winning rate at a single Summer Olympics?

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The winner is once again the US, with a total of 239 medals won in the 1904 St. Louis Olympics. These were the third summer games and the very first location outside Europe. It was also the very first tournament when bronze medals were introduced.

The table looks similar as we move forward. The second best was again the USSR, this time with 195 medals won at the Moscow Olympics in 1980. Still, it is questionable to which extent these medals won were recognized.

Even 66 countries (the US among them) boycotted the tournament as a protest against the political turmoil going on in the USSR. This was the first and only time when Olympic Games were organized in a communist country, up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Which of the countries has the most gold medals won at a single Summer Olympics?

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Who won the Summer Olympics medals the oftest?

This doesn’t come as a surprise, but it is the US that has the most medals won. They set this record during the 1984 Los Angeles games. The athletes kept 83 gold medals in the state. The very same year, Carl Lewis won 4 golds and matched Jesse Owen’s record at the time. A further record was set by Valerie Brisco-Hooks who won three golds.

The second place belongs once again to the USSR. Despite the controversy surrounding the 1980 Moscow Olympics, USSR kept 80 golds home.

Place 3 is also reserved for the US, thanks to the 73 gold medals won at the Olympics in 1904.

Which countries joined the Olympics recently?

Not much changed in this aspect. The International Olympic Committee didn’t admit any new nations until the 2018 Olympics in Pyeong Chang. There were two official name changes in Tokyo in 2020, but nothing else.

With this in mind, the newest representative among the Olympic Nations was Kosovo. The breakaway state with disputed history joined Rio in 2016. Before that, the International Olympic Committee welcomed South Sudan as they joined the UN in 2011.

The 2008 Summer Olympics welcomed even three new members: Montenegro, Marshall Islands, and Tuvalu.

Are there countries that never participate in the Olympic Games?

Only one UN member never participated in the Olympic Games. We are talking about Vatican City, which is an independent country despite being located in Rome. The headquarters of the Catholic Church never applied to be a part of the Olympic Games.

Other countries in the world were not granted access because of specific reasons. For instance, Scotland or Wales do have their athletes there, but as part of the GB united team. The same goes for Northern Ireland.

Some lands were not recognized by the UN, such as Somaliland.

Which was the smallest country to win a medal at the Olympics?

San Marino had their share of wins in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. This country is also located in Italy but represents an independent and sovereign nation with 35,000 citizens. The year was very successful for them, as they won both silver and bronze medals in wrestling and women’s trap shooting.

Bermuda is another microstate that surprised us in Tokyo. Their athlete Flora Duffy won the gold medal in triathlon. Due to their small population of only 62,034 Bermuda sent only two athletes to compete at the Olympics. The second one was wrestler Dara Alizadeh.

The smallest state to have produced an Olympic Champion is Liechtenstein. Their skier Hanni Wenzel was an absolute favorite at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics.

Liechtenstein has only 3,800 citizens, but also 10 medals were won. An interesting fact is that 7 of these medals were won by the same family, namely the Wenzels. Andreas Wenzel is another proud member of this family with remarkable success. He shined during the Lake Placid and the Sarajevo Olympics. He competed in the giant slalom.

The average number of medals won

The ranking so far is not all that accurate, given that some countries only made an appearance once or twice. The following list shows us what is the average number of medals won in each tournament. As such, it enables us to compare the countries more realistically.

With these calculations in mind, the winner position shifts towards the USSR, which has won an average of 112 medals per appearance. The rate of the US would be only 94. Still, take into account that the USSR had representatives from many different countries.

The ranking you are about to see compiles the medals won per tournament. It also compares the number of gold medals won to the total number.

If you liked this article about the all-time Olympic medal table, you should also check out these about the Beijing Olympics medal table and 1992 Olympics medal table.