2024-08-11 23:10:02
China made history in Paris as the only country, other than the United States and the former Soviet Union, to top the Summer Games gold medal chart away from its home soil.
Team USA’s dramatic, 67-66, win over host France in the women’s basketball final sealed a 40-40 tie for the most gold medals at the Paris 2024 Olympics. The tie between the U.S. and China marks the first tie at the top of the table in Summer Olympics history. The only previous Olympics gold medal tie occurred in the Winter Games in 1948 between Norway and Sweden.
The final gold medal tally for the Paris Games hung in the balance until the final event. A’ja Wilson, Kahleah Cooper and Team USA needed a stalwart second half against France to claim its eighth-straight gold and 61st consecutive Olympics victory.
AFP via GETTY images
While the gold medal count was close throughout in Paris, Team USA ran away with the overall table for the seventh time in the last eight Summer Games. Americans reached the podium 126 times this summer, with China well behind with 91 overall medals. By comparison, Great Britain’s 65 medals are good for third overall. France finished with 64 total medals.
Team USA also improved its overall medal margin in Paris compared to the Tokyo Games. The U.S. won 35 more medals than China in 2024 after claiming 24 more medals than the Chinese in the 2021 Summer Games.
But the gold margin between the U.S. and China was razor-thin in Tokyo in 2021 with the U.S. winning the gold tally, 39-38. Since 2000, China is the only country within 30 gold medals of Team USA. Japan’s 20 gold medals followed well behind Team USA and China in Paris.
The U.S. has topped the gold medal table 18 times since 1896, including four times on its home soil. The former Soviet Union accomplished that feat seven times, including one home Olympics and once as the Unified Team in Barcelona in 1992.
China has now clinched its second, first-place in the Summer Olympics. The country has finished second on three occasions and third twice. Before Paris, China last topped the gold medal table in 2008 when Beijing hosted.
China’s entry into the elite club of Olympic great powers comes as it challenges U.S dominance of the world much as the Soviet Union did during the Cold War. China’s financial, military and diplomatic power now match its status as the world’s second largest economy and world’s second most populous country.
“We are a very rich country, and we are able to invest heavily into sports training. But other countries – like China – are also becoming richer. As that happens, they will also be able to better train their athletes and become increasingly competitive with the U.S.,” David Berri, a professor of economics at Southern Utah University, told Newsweek via email Saturday. “All of this means that in the future – as more and more nations develop and get richer – the Olympics will be increasingly competitive.”
The Chinese Olympic Committee in its current form has only been recognized since 1979. China has made giant strides on the Summer Olympics stage since it won just five gold medals in 1988. By 2008, when Beijing hosted the summer games for the first time, China won 48 gold medals and topped the table.
China’s summer Olympic success is largely derived from six sports: table tennis, shooting, diving, badminton, gymnastics and weightlifting. According to a 2021 New York Times article, more than two-thirds of China’s gold medals have come courtesy of female winners.
In Paris, China won a whopping, eight golds in diving and five apiece in shooting, table tennis and weightlifting. It also claimed three boxing golds and won two golds in five additional sports.
China also won a historic gold medal in the men’s 4×100 medley relay last Sunday, a race the Americans had claimed at every Olympics since 1960—other than the boycotted 1980 Moscow Games.
Meanwhile, U.S. men’s and women’s swimmers typically win at least 10 gold medals during the summer games. Between the 2012 and 2020 summer games, with Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky swimming at their peaks, Team USA won 43 total swimming gold medals.
This year, they won eight — highlighted by Katie Ledecky’s gold in the women’s 1500-meter freestyle and her training partner Bobby Finke’s world-record effort on the final day for swimming in Paris. Finke’s victory was the only U.S. gold medal in men’s swimming.
Team USA’s performance on the track helped it keep pace with China atop the gold table and helped Americans continue to run away with the overall table. The U.S. put together its best medal haul (34) in track events in modern Olympics history.
The 14 U.S. Track golds are the most in a non-boycotted Olympics since 1968 when Bob Beamon and Tommie Smith led the U.S. to 15 victories.
AFP/Getty Images
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Gabby Thomas led the U.S. to wins in the women’s 4×400 and 4×100 relays to put an impressive capper on USA Track’s dominant showing at at the Stade de France.
Berri noted to Newsweek in his email that Team USA continues to be led by it’s women’s athletes and teams. As of Saturday’s tallies, U.S. women won 24 golds compared to 13 by men. American women out-medaled the men in Paris by a 64-51 margin, as of Saturday.
But China’s effort in Paris shows that it is also serious about the development of its women’s programs. China’s women won 18 gold medals compared to 17 by its men, also as of Saturday, according to a table provided by womeninsport.org. The Chinese women claimed 13 more total medals than the men’s program.
“The U.S. medal counts tend to be dominated by women. We have an advantage in women’s sports because we passed Title IX in 1972, and that forced high schools and colleges to offer sports for women,” Berri told Newsweek in an email Sunday. “Going forward, our advantages in women sports will decline as gender equality becomes more prevalent around the world. Other nations are seeing their economies grow, so our advantage in national income will also decline.”
The 2028 Summer Games will be held in Los Angeles as Team USA will look to dominate on its home turf. In 1984, the last time the Summer Olympics were held in L.A., the U.S. won its most total medals with a staggering, 174 top finishes. At the 1984 Games, Team USA won 83 gold, 61 silver and 30 bronze medals.
This is a developing news story and will be updated with more information.
Update: 8/11/2024, 12:45 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with more information.
Update: 8/11/2024, 10:20 a.m. ET: This article has been updated to clarify that China will make history in 2024 as the only country, other than the United States and the former Soviet Union, to top the most gold medals in the Summer Games away from its home soil.
