United States at the Olympics

United States at the
Olympics
IOC code USA
Medals
Gold
1,127
Silver
905
Bronze
795
Total
2,827
Summer appearances
Winter appearances
Other related appearances
1906 Intercalated Games

The United States of America has sent athletes to every celebration of the modern Olympic Games with the exception of the 1980 Summer Olympics, during which it led a boycott. The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) is the National Olympic Committee for the United States.

From 1896 to 2018 inclusive, U.S. athletes have won a total of 2,522 medals (1,022 of them gold) at the Summer Olympic Games, the most of any nation, and another 305 at the Winter Olympic Games, the second most behind Norway.

Hosted Games

The United States has hosted the Games on eight occasions, more than any other nation, and is planning to host the ninth:

GamesHost cityDatesNationsParticipantsEvents
1904 Summer OlympicsSt. Louis, MissouriJuly 1–November 231265191
1932 Winter OlympicsLake Placid, New YorkFebruary 7–151725214
1932 Summer OlympicsLos Angeles, CaliforniaJuly 30–August 14371,332117
1960 Winter OlympicsSquaw Valley, CaliforniaFebruary 2–203066527
1980 Winter OlympicsLake Placid, New YorkFebruary 13–24371,07238
1984 Summer OlympicsLos Angeles, CaliforniaJuly 28–August 121406,829221
1996 Summer OlympicsAtlanta, GeorgiaJuly 19–August 419710,318271
2002 Winter OlympicsSalt Lake City, UtahFebruary 8–24772,39978
2028 Summer OlympicsLos Angeles, CaliforniaJuly 21–August 6TBATBATBA

Medal tables

Red border color indicates host nation status.

Flagbearers

Amateurism and professionalism

The exclusion of professionals caused several controversies throughout the history of the modern Olympics. The 1912 Olympic pentathlon and decathlon champion Jim Thorpe was stripped of his medals when it was discovered that he had played semi-professional baseball before the Olympics. His medals were posthumously restored by the IOC in 1983 on compassionate grounds.[3]

The advent of the state-sponsored "full-time amateur athlete" of the Eastern Bloc countries eroded the ideology of the pure amateur, as it put the self-financed amateurs of the Western countries at a disadvantage. The Soviet Union entered teams of athletes who were all nominally students, soldiers, or working in a profession, but all of whom were in reality paid by the state to train on a full-time basis.[4][5][5] As a result, the Olympics has shifted away from pure amateurism, as envisioned by Pierre de Coubertin, to allowing participation of professional athletes.

See also

References

  1. Warren Wofford was the flagbearer in the (Equestrian) parade in Stockholm for the Olympics Equestrian Sports Association events held there because a quarantine imposed on horses prevented equestrian events from taking place in Australia
  2. The first female flagbearer for the United States at the Olympics
  3. "Jim Thorpe Biography". Biography.com. Retrieved 9 February 2009.
  4. "The Role of Sports in The Soviet Union - Guided History". blogs.bu.edu.
  5. 1 2 "Info" (PDF). www.cia.gov.
  • "United States of America". International Olympic Committee.
  • "Results and Medalists — United States". Olympic.org. International Olympic Committee.
  • "Olympic Medal Winners". International Olympic Committee.
  • "United States". Sports-Reference.com.


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