From Regan Smith, Simone Biles, Katie Ledecky and Torri Huske, the women of Team USA were the showstoppers at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Of the 40 gold medals won by Team USA, 26 were clinched by the women — an unprecedented feat in Olympic history. In comparison, Team USA’s women captured 23 of the country’s 39 gold medals three years ago in Tokyo, which marked their fourth-highest total and second-highest share (59 percent).
The 6 percent uptick in gold-medal share isn’t surprising by any means. Since the 2008 Beijing Games, Team USA’s women have out-medaled their male counterparts with 308 medals to 251. The same can be said about the gold-medal disparity, with women claiming 40 more top podium finishes.
- Beijing 2008: 56-55
- London 2012: 58-45
- Rio 2016: 61-56
- Tokyo 2020: 66-41
- Paris 2024: 67-59
To put things in perspective, if Team USA’s women were their own country, their Paris Olympic medal count of 67 would place them above the full teams from Great Britain (65), France (64), Australia (53) and Japan (45). Their 26 gold medals would be second only to China’s 40.
Women hoopers save the day
Entering the final hours of the Paris Games on Sunday, Team USA was tied with China in the gold-medal count. All the pressure was on the women’s basketball team to claim gold and give the country bragging rights in the final leaderboard.
The chances of that happening appeared slim when Team USA surrendered a 10-point lead to France in the third quarter. Ultimately, A’ja Wilson and Co. found a way to prevail, giving U.S. women a record eighth consecutive gold medal in basketball.
The win cemented the U.S. women’s basketball team as the greatest dynasty in sports, giving it 62 successive wins (dating back to 1996 Atlanta) and the most consecutive Olympic gold medals in any team sport, surpassing the previous record of seven set by its male counterparts between 1936 and 1968.
After making history, Breanna Stewart highlighted how women left their imprint on the Paris Games.
“The fact that women have dominated these Olympics, we know” Stewart said, via USA Today Sports. “You got all women up here, we know. And we’re going to continue to fight for equality and continue to raise the bar and the standard for our sport and outside of our sport.”
To Stewart’s point, the sporting world has come a long way since the 1928 Amsterdam Games where Team USA sent a 324-strong continent comprising 280 men and just 44 women.