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Which countries have won the most Olympic gold medals and overall medals?

There’s America, and there’s everyone else when it comes to Olympic medals all-time, and that’s even without government-funded systemic cheating.

By Collin Sherwin
Members of the USA Women’s National Team help honor the gold-medal-winning 1996 U.S. Olympic Women’s Basketball Team during the 2021 WNBA All-Star Game at Michelob ULTRA Arena on July 14, 2021 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images

No country pays more time, attention, and money when it comes to the Olympics than the United States. And even though there is no zero direct government support for the Games or athletes unlike in most of the western world, the USA has dominated since 1896 like no one else.

And it’s likely the USA keeps their significant lead

There are still 71 National Olympic Committees of the current 206 that have yet to take home a medal in any sport.

Keep in mind the numbers below combines the medals for Russia, the Russian Federation, the USSR, the Unified Team, and the Olympic Athletes from Russia. Some of those teams no longer exist due to geopolitical unification, and some are due to Russian athletes not being able to compete under the nation’s flag due to systematic doping over different parts of different decades.

The 333 Russian athletes will be known as members of Team “ROC” for the 2020 Tokyo Games, and will hear the Olympic Hymm if they win a gold medal instead of their national anthem. It’s a banger.

The same applies to Germany where the old East Germany doping scheme led to lots of winning, but also not being a country anymore. Therefore Germany takes over the medal count from the previous GDR below.

These medal counts include both the Summer and Winter Games:

Total Olympic Medals

  1. United States, 2828
  2. Russia, 1911
  3. Germany, 1754
  4. Great Britain, 883
  5. France, 840
  6. Italy, 701
  7. Sweden, 652
  8. China, 608
  9. Norway, 520
  10. Australia, 512

Total Gold Medals

  1. United States, 1127
  2. Russia, 726
  3. Germany, 578
  4. Great Britain, 274
  5. France, 252
  6. Italy, 247
  7. China, 237
  8. Sweden, 202
  9. Norway, 188
  10. Hungary, 176

Most gold medals in a single Olympic Games

USA: 83 gold medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics
* Was boycotted by 14 Eastern Bloc nations

USSR: 80 gold medals at the 1980 Moscow Olympics
* Was boycotted by 65 western nations

Most overall medals in a single Olympic Games

USA: 239 medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics

USSR: 195 medals at the 1980 Moscow Olympics

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