The United States took home the most Olympic medals during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, with the majority being won by the country’s female athletes.
The United States won 126 medals, 40 of them being gold, and 67 of them being won by the female athletes.
The Olympics, which took place between July 26 and Aug. 11, was the 30th summer games, as well as the 100th anniversary since Paris last hosted the Olympics.
With 329 medal events and 10,714 athletes from 206 countries, the Olympic Games are the biggest sporting event in the world. This number includes athletes from the AIN (Individual Athlete Neutrals), which comprise athletes from Russia and Belarus, and the EOR (Refuge Teams), which include any athletes who compete individually and not for a specific country.
The U.S. women’s basketball team beat France for their eighth consecutive gold medal. The women’s soccer team also brought home gold, their first since 2012, and the women’s rugby team won bronze for the first time ever.
Many individual women also greatly increased the medal count for the U.S. Swimmers Torri Huske and Regan Smith each brought back five medals, the most of any Team USA athletes. Swimmers Gretchen Walsh and Katie Ledecky also brought back four medals each.
Gymnast Simone Biles won four Olympic medals—three gold and one silver—bringing her total to 11, and becoming the most decorated U.S. Olympic gymnast in history.
The U.S. women’s track and field team were also key contributors to Team USA’s success. Shamier Little, Sydney McLaughlin-Leverone, Gabby Thomas, and Alexis Holmes won the 4×400-meter relay, making it the eighth consecutive gold the U.S. women’s team has won in this event.
Hurdler Syndey McLaughlin-Leverone also beat her own world record in the 400-meter hurdles, becoming the only woman to win the event in consecutive games. Sprinter Gabby Thomas won three gold medals in the 200-meter, 4×100-meter relay, and the 4×400-meter relay.
Along with those consecutive medals, Olivia Reeves also won the first U.S. gold medal in weightlifting since 2000, and Evy Leibfarth won the country’s first medal in canoe slalom since 2004.
In addition, there were a total of 32 Olympic records—four by the U.S.—and 17 world records—five by the U.S.—broken during the 17-day-long games in Paris.
The U.S. men’s 4×400-meter relay team, consisting of Christopher Bailey, Vernon Norwood, Bryce Deadmon, and Rai Benjamin, broke the Olympic record by running a 2:54.43. The previous record was set by the U.S. men’s team during the Beijing 2008 Olympics at 2:55.39.
The U.S. mixed 4×400-meter team—Norwood, Little, Deadmon, and Kaylyn Brown—also broke the world record in qualifying, running a 3:07.41.
In swimming, the U.S. women’s 4×100-meter medley team, consisting of Smith, Lily King, Walsh, and Huske, broke the world record. Previously held by the 2021 U.S. women’s team, this year’s record by the women swam the relay in 3:49.63. The U.S. mixed 4×100-meter relay team, including Ryan Murphy, Nic Fink, Walsh, and Huske, also broke the world record, previously held by Great Britain in the 2021 games, by swimming 3:37.43.
Ledecky swam the women’s 1500-meter freestyle in 15:30.02, breaking her previous Olympic record of 15:35.35 set in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Additionally, Walsh broke an Olympic record in the 100-meter butterfly, swimming a 55.37 and breaking the previous record of 55.48, held by Swedish swimmer Sarah Sjöström.
Many athletes also made history for their countries by winning their first medals in their respective sports. Algerian gymnast Kaylia Nemour won gold on the uneven bars, making her the first African athlete to win an Olympic medal in gymnastics. Cape Verdean boxer David de Pina also won his country a bronze medal, their first ever.
Saint Lucian runner Julien Alfred also made history by running the women’s 100-meter in 10.72 seconds, winning not only the country’s first Olympic gold medal but also their first medal in any Olympic Games.
Botswana’s track and field athlete Letsile Tebogo won his nation’s first gold medal in the men’s 200-meter, running a 19.46. Pakistani javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem also won his nation’s first individual gold medal with a 92.97-meter throw, setting a new Olympic record.
Canadian swimmer Summer McIntosh made history as the first Canadian to win three gold medals in a single Olympic Games. McIntosh won a total of four medals—three gold, and one silver. She earned gold in the 400-meter individual medley, 200-meter butterfly, and 200-meter IM, with a silver in the 400-meter freestyle.
Lèon Marchand of France swam the 200-meter individual medley in 1:54.06 for his fourth gold medal in Paris, breaking U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps’s Olympic record of 1:54.23.
The 2024 Paris Games also included four new, non-traditional Olympic events, breaking, skateboarding, sport climbing, and surfing. Breaking, more commonly known as break dancing, is not set to return to the 2028 Los Angeles games.
Outside of the games, athletes like U.S. women’s rugby player, Ilona Maher, took her influence to social media, specifically TikTok. Maher gained popularity on TikTok during the games by making jokes with her teammates and talking about positive body images.
The Olympic closing ceremony took place on Aug. 11, with performances from Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Billie Eilish, and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers in Los Angeles promoting the next summer Olympic Games, as well as the national anthem sung by H.E.R. Tom Cruise also made grand entrance into the ceremony from the rooftop to take the Olympic Flag from Paris to Los Angeles, leaving on a motorcycle and then an airplane modeled after his movies “Mission Impossible” and “Top Gun Maverick.”
The next Olympics will be the Winter Games hosted in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy between Feb. 6-22, 2026, with the following Summer Games hosted in Los Angeles from July 14-30, 2028.
