Jordyn Poulter (on left) and Haleigh Washington of the U.S.A. women’s volleyball team celebrate their 3-0 victory over Brazil which helped U.S.A. edge China in the medal count in the final hours of Tokyo 2020 Olympics on Sunday (8)[/caption]
In a final-day sprint to the finish, U.S.A. overtook China by a whisker to end with the most number of gold medals, 39, at the Tokyo Olympics on Sunday (8).
Incidentally, U.S.A. surpassed China less than an hour before the end of sporting action at the 32nd Summer Olympics in Tokyo yesterday when their women’s volleyball team beat Brazil 3-0 to win the gold medal.
It was the last medal event where U.S.A. took part in, and had Brazil won that match, the gold medal tally of Tokyo 2020 would have been equal by 38-all between U.S.A. and China, who held the lead in the gold tally until the last day Sunday, since the Games began on 23 July.
The winner of an Olympics is traditionally decided by the highest number of gold medals a country or team wins, which is also named ‘the individual medals’ system. But U.S.A. alone follows the practice of deciding the winner via the total number of overall medals, named ‘the overall method’, where the total of gold, silver, and bronze medals are used in deciding the final ranking.
Just in penultimate gold-medal match
U.S.A. had to wait until its penultimate gold-medal match to surpass China on Sunday, and after a win in the women’s volleyball final, they could clinch the gold-medal count for the third-straight Summer Olympics. U.S.A. had anyway been leading in the ‘overall tally’ as China maintained the lead in ‘the individual medal tally’ until the very last hour of the 16-day Tokyo Olympics.
U.S.A.’s tally of 39 gold medals doesn’t quite match its last two Olympic performances, though, where it won 46 golds in Rio de Janeiro and London, respectively. But it was enough to finish just one ahead of China’s 38 in Tokyo this time.
In London in 2012, U.S.A. took 46 golds and a total of 104 whilst China was the second with 38 golds and an over count of 91. Then in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, U.S.A. got 46 golds and an overall of 121 as China finished third behind Great Britain, with 26 golds and an overall tally of 70. Great Britain got 27 golds and 67 overall to clinch second place in Rio.
A little before 3 p.m. in Tokyo
The last time that U.S.A. didn’t win the gold-medal count in a Summer Olypics was at the 2008 Beijing Games. China won 48 gold medals that time although U.S.A. won the overall count with 112 total medals.
“Team USA, whose 600-plus athletes competed in hundreds of events over 19 whirlwind days in Tokyo, staged a thrilling comeback in the final hours of the 2020 Olympics to top the gold medal table for the third Summer Games in a row,” wrote Yahoo Sports.
The U.S. entered Sunday trailing China 38-36 in that vaunted gold medal column. But U.S. women’s basketball team beat Japan in their final and American cyclist Jennifer Valente won gold in her ‘omnium points race’ to pull the U.S. level at around 1 p.m., the above report remarked.
“And then, a little before 3 p.m. (in Tokyo) at the Ariake Arena, U.S. women’s volleyball won their first-ever Olympic title to clinch the nation’s spot atop the gold medal table for good,” noted Yahoo Sports.
The Tokyo 2020 final day’s schedule was over by 4.30 p.m. with men’s water polo, yet neither China nor U.S.A. fought for a medal in it.
‘Hodgepodge of disappointing results’
“The final U.S. medal total of 113 was by far the most of any nation. But it paled in comparison to the American haul five years ago - 121 total, 46 of them gold, in roughly 30 fewer events in Rio. The gold medal tally in particular, prior to this weekend, had been relatively underwhelming, and lagged behind China’s for much of the Games,” added Yahoo Sports based in U.S.A.
“Of course, assessing ‘Team USA’ as one single entity is always a bit foolish. Medals are won by athletes and their individual support systems, or in some cases by teams, not by a country. Sporting infrastructure across the U.S. contributes to those support systems, but no broad trends explain quadrennial fluctuations in the medal count. Success, or a lack thereof, in track and field isn’t connected to success in wrestling, or archery, or swimming, or really any other sport,” stressed the above report.
“The reasons, instead, were a hodgepodge of disappointing results across two and a half weeks and dozens of sports. Among them: No American man won an individual gold in track events. It’s the first time they’ve been shut out in modern Olympic history.”
Yet it should be noted that the U.S.A. has now topped BOTH the overall medal table and the gold medal table at every Summer Olympics, excluding host countries, since it hosted the Games in Atlanta in 1996.