Summer Olympics: medal progression by country 1896-2020

In the history of the Summer Olympics, the United States has generally been the most successful nation in each year, appearing at the top of the overall medal table on 16 occasions, second place on eleven occasions and third on just one occasion. Between 1952 and 1992, athletes from the Soviet Union (and Unified Team of 1992) topped the overall medal table on eight occasions, while finishing second in the other two. German teams also performed well, with the East German team of the 1970s and 1980s achieving the most success. France and Great Britain have been represented at all Summer Olympic Games, and have generally been in the top ten or fifteen nations at each Games, with Great Britain achieving renewed success in the past four tournaments. China, which has only competed regularly since 1984 (abstaining due to political disputes with Taiwan), have grown to become one of the most successful Olympic nations of all time in a period of 32 years. In this time, China has won a total of 546 medals, has finished second in the medal tables in the four most recent tournaments, and are now fourth on the all time gold medal list.

Total number of medals won by athletes from the Summer Olympics' most successful countries from 1896 to 2020

Year	United States	China	Great Britain	Russia/Soviet Union*/ROC (2020)	Germany**	East Germany	West Germany	France
2020	113	88	65	71	37	-	-	33
2016	121	70	67	56	42	-	-	42
2012	104	91	65	68	44	-	-	35
2008	112	100	51	60	41	-	-	43
2004	101	63	30	90	49	-	-	33
2000	93	58	28	89	56	-	-	38
1996	101	50	15	63	65	-	-	37
1992	108	54	20	110	82	-	-	29
1988	94	28	24	132	-	102	40	16
1984	174	32	37	-	-	-	59	28
1980	-	-	21	195	-	126	-	14
1976	94	-	13	125	-	90	39	9
1972	94	-	18	99	-	66	40	13
1968	107	-	13	91	-	25	26	15
1964	90	-	18	96	50	-	-	15
1960	71	-	20	103	42	-	-	5
1956	74	-	24	98	26	-	-	14
1952	76	0	11	71	24	-	-	18
1948	84	-	23	-	-	-	-	29
1936	56	-	14	-	89	-	-	19
1932	103	-	16	-	20	-	-	19
1928	56	-	20	-	31	-	-	21
1924	99	-	34	-	-	-	-	38
1920	95	-	43	-	-	-	-	41
1912	63	-	41	5	25	-	-	14
1908	47	-	146	3	13	-	-	19
1904	239	-	2	0	13	-	-	0
1900	47	-	30	0	8	-	-	101
1896	20	-	7	-	13	-	-	11

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Release date

2021

More information

Region

Worldwide

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.

*This includes the Russian Empire (1900-1912), Soviet Union (1952-1988), Unified Team of 1992 (i.e. all athletes from former Soviet countries, excluding the Baltic states), and the Russian Federation (1996-2016). Athletes representing the Russian Olympic Committee in 2020 were also included for context, although they have generally been included separately across related statistics on the platform.

**This includes the United Team of Germany (where East and West Germany competed together) from 1956 to 1964.

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