United States Medal Wins - A Home Advantage
Olympics Attended: Every games except 1980
The United States of America has sent athletes to every celebration of the modern Olympic Games, except 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.
U.S. athletes have won a total of 2,400 medals at the Summer Olympic Games and another 281 at the Winter Olympic Games. Most medals have been won in athletics (track and field) (767, 32%) and swimming (520, 22%). Thomas Burke was the first athlete to represent the United States at the Olympics. He took first place in both the 100 meters and the 400 meters of the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. U.S. athlete Michael Phelps is the most-decorated Olympic athlete of any nation, with 22 Olympic medals (including 18 golds).
The United States has won more gold and overall medals than any other country in the Summer Games and also has the second-most gold and overall medals at the Winter Games, trailing only Norway. From the mid-20th century to the late 1980s, the United States mainly competed with the Soviet Union at summer Games and with the Soviet Union, Norway, and East Germany at the Winter Games. However, it now primarily contends with China at the summer Games for both the overall medal count and the gold medal count and with Norway at the winter Games for the overall medal count. The United States has topped the total medal count at two winter Olympics: 1932 in Lake Placid and 2010 in Vancouver. At the 2010 games, the United States set a record for most total medals (37) of any country at a single Winter Olympics. [Source]
In 1978, the passage of The Amateur Sports Act (now The Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act – revised in 1998) as federal law appointed the USOC as the coordinating body for all Olympic-related athletic activity in the United States. It specifically named the USOC coordinating body for athletic activity in the United States directly relating to international competition, including the sports on the programs of the Olympic, Paralympic, Pan American and Parapan American Games. The USOC was also tasked with promoting and supporting physical fitness and public participation in athletic activities by encouraging developmental programs in its member organizations.
The act included provisions for recognizing National Governing Bodies for the sports on the Olympic, Paralympic, Pan American and Parapan American Games programs and gave the USOC the general authority, on a continuing basis, to review matters related to the recognition of NGBs in the act. This public law not only protects the trademarks of the IOC and USOC, but also gives the USOC exclusive rights to the words "Olympic," "Olympiad" and "Citius, Altius, Fortius," as well as Olympic-related symbols in the United States. [Source]