US’ Jennifer Valente celebrates her gold medal victory on the podium of the women’s track cycling omnium event of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines National Velodrome in Montigny-le-Bretonneux, south-west of Paris, on August 11, 2024. (Photo by Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP) (Photo by EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP via Getty Images)
Medal count, medal count, medal count.
It's all anyone seems to be talking about as the 2024 Olympics come to an end. We know Team USA collected a lot of top prizes in Paris but how about the total number of gold medals won?
The Americans wound up in a tie with China at 40 in the gold medal count — a first for the history of the Summer Games.
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The gold medal wins by China helped boost them into second place in the "weighted total" standings for medals where golds are given a 3-point weight, where as silver nets 2 points and a bronze a single point.
The U.S. walked away with dominant wins in both the total medals (126) and the weighted total (250). It also finished with 17 more silver medals than the next country (also China) and 13 more bronze medals than Britain's second-best, 29 third-place finishes in Paris.
Despite all the positives, the column on the far left — the gold column — does show where the Americans were "most susceptible" in 2024. And that was at the top of the podium.
It must be caveated though as America, China and Japan were the only three nations to leave Paris with more than 20 gold medals.
