TOKYO (KXAN) — Over the course of the 2020 Olympic Games, at least 1,017 medals* will be awarded in 339 different events (*at least, because multiple medals may be awarded in the case of a tie, and of course some events are team-based).
The team at KXAN.com is help us keep track of the medal count in the table below. The convention used by the International Olympic Committee is to sort by the number of gold medals, then silver, then bronze. This means the country that wins the most medals overall may not necessarily be at the top of the table.
The first gold medal of the 2020 Olympic Games was won by Yang Qian (People’s Republic of China) in the women’s 10m air rifle final. Anastasiia Galashina (Russian Olympic Committee) won silver, and Nina Christen (Switzerland) took bronze.
The chart below will show how the number of medals awarded to each country changes throughout the competition.
This year, the medals are all made from recycled small electronics, like cell phones, collected from all over Japan. According to the IOC, the Tokyo 2020 Medal Project makes this year’s Olympic Games the first in history to involve citizens in the production of medals — and the first games to feature medals made of recycled materials.
When it comes to the all-time medal count, the United States leads — by a lot. Between Athens in 1896 and Rio de Janeiro in 2016, the U.S. has racked up more than 2,500 medals in the Summer Olympics. Second place goes to the Soviet Union, with just over 1,000 medals in total. Great Britain takes the third spot, with around 850 medals.
