2016 RIO OLYMPIC GAMES
- Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Swimming: August 6-13
- Olympic Aquatics Stadium, Barra Olympic Park, Rio de Janeiro
- Prelims – 9:00 a.m/12:00 p.m PST/EST (1:00 p.m local), Finals – 6:00 p.m/9:00 p.m PST/EST (10:00 p.m local)
- SwimSwam previews
- Day 8 Schedule & Results
- Live Stream (NBC)
The USAwomen’s victory in the 4×100 medley relay Saturday night had ramifications beyond the swimming world. According to the United States Olympics Swimming Committee, when Simone Manuel touched the wall ahead of Australia’s Cate Campbell, the victory earned Team USA its 1000th gold medal all-time at the Summer Olympics.
The United States came into Rio with 977 gold medals all-time. The USA added 22 gold medals so far these Games coming into today, with 14 of those coming from the US swim team.
While the medal totals are constantly changing this week, here’s what appears to be the current Top 10 countries for Summer Olympic gold medals:
United States – 1000
Soviet Union – 395
Great Britain – 246
China – 214
France – 207
Italy – 204
Germany – 182
Hungary – 172
East Germany – 153
Sweden – 144
If you remove the Soviet Union and East Germany, as they no longer exist as countries, the next two countries on the list are Russia and Australia.
The USA added to its all-time total with another gold medal (including a world record by Ryan Murphy) in the men’s medley relay just a few minutes after the women secured the 1000th gold medal, and the USA has another week of the Rio Olympic Games to continue to add to its medal count.
Is there a reason why the women’s medley relay is not the last event of the session? Since there are often swimmers on the relay who also swim the 50 free earlier and may need some rest (and almost never men who swim the relay and the 1500 free), it makes more sense to have the men’s medley relay first.
Which means Phelps’ last race was USA’s 1,001st gold medal, LOL!
Woow
I love Swimswam, you guys have done an incredible job covering the Olympics, but c’mon, illustrating this article with a picture of the 4 x 200 relay?