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Olympic Medals facts

While investigating facts about Olympic Medals By Country and Olympic Medals Per Capita, I found out little known, but curios details like:

Japan is making all of its medals for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics out of discarded electronics

how olympic medals are made?

Michael Phelps has more Summer Olympic gold medals than 80% of countries in history even when taking into account countries that no longer exist.

Who won medals in shooting at the 2012 olympic games?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering players who won medals at olympic games. Here are 50 of the best facts about Olympic Medals By Country By Year and Olympic Medals For India I managed to collect.

players who have won medals at the olympic games?

  1. Wilma Rudolph had polio as an infant and was unable to walk properly until she was 11. For several years, her family had to massage her legs four times a day, and she had to wear a metal brace. In 1960, she became the first American woman to win three gold medals in an Olympic event.

  2. Medals from 2016 Rio Olympic Games are defective and show rusting, chipping

  3. It's estimated that 16% of the world's gold and 22% of the world's silver is contained in Japan's electronics alone- so much that Japan is asking its citizens to donate old electronics to make the Olympic medals.

  4. During the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, McDonalds ran a nationwide promotion offering free products every time a US athlete won a medal. It turned into their most costly promotion ever when the Soviet Union, the powerhouse team of the time, boycotted the event, letting the USA win big.

  5. About Anthony Ervin, a swimmer who won a gold medal at the 2000 Olympics, retired at 22, begun abusing drugs, at one moment being hardly able to raise from a sofa for days on end. In 2011 he got back into swimming, and at the 2016 Olympics became the oldest swimmer to win a gold medal.

  6. Japan aims to power the Tokyo Olympics with 100% renewable energy. They plan to use wind & solar energy to power the stadiums & athletes village. They also want to recycle the small amounts of gold, silver & copper from around 80,000 old phones by using the metals to create 5,000 medals.

  7. After winning the gold at the 1980 Olympics, Polish vaulter Wladyslaw Kozakiewicz, in defiance of the jeering Soviet crowd, flipped "the arm", twice. The Soviets later asked that he be stripped of his medal to which the Polish government replied that it was caused by "involuntary muscle spasms".

  8. Anders Haugen, the only American to ever medal in ski jumping. He finished 4th in the 1924 olympics, but when a historian reviewed the results 50 years later he found a scoring error. Shortly thereafter, Anders went to Norway at 86 years old and was awarded his long overdue bronze medal.

  9. Steven Bradbury, a speedskater and Australia’s first gold medalist in the Salt Lake Winter Olympics, won his medal by purposely going slower than the other 4 skaters and hoping that one or more of them would crash to secure at least a bronze. All four crashed near the finish line.

  10. In 1984 Mcdonalds offered free Big Macs,Fries, or a Coke for each Gold Silver or Bronze in the Olympics. During that year the Soviet Union boycotted the US olympics and therefore the US got many more medals than expected which became a huge failure for Mcdonalds

olympic medals facts
What olympic medals made of?

Olympic Medals data charts

For your convenience take a look at Olympic Medals figures with stats and charts presented as graphic.

olympic medals fact data chart about Medal table of the Olympic Winter games 2018 in Pyeongchang,
Medal table of the Olympic Winter games 2018 in Pyeongchang, ordered by population of the countries (19. Feb. 2018, 13:00 GMT+1)

olympic medals fact data chart about 2018 Winter Olympics medals per billion hours of free time
2018 Winter Olympics medals per billion hours of free time

Why do olympic winners bite medals?

You can easily fact check why olympic winners bite their medals by examining the linked well-known sources.

In South Korea, men who win Olympic medals do not have to participate in the two year long mandatory military service.

During the 2012 London Olympic NBC aired a promo for the Today Show congratulating Missy Franklin on winning the gold medal in the 100-meter backstroke minutes before the network aired the time-delayed footage of the event. - source

A Japanese gymnast, Shun Fujimoto, once broke his knee at the Olympics in 1976 but didn't tell anyone and performed miraculously despite his injury, winning his team the gold medal - source

The USA won the last ever Olympic gold medal for rugby in 1924 and are therefore technically still reigning champions.

The early modern olympics used to feature an art competition, with sections dedicated to literature, graphic art, music and more. The Amsterdam Olympic stadium is actually a gold medal winner for architecture. - source

When did olympic medals originate?

26.5 million Canadians tuned into the gold medal final in men's hockey during the 2010 Winter Olympics. That's 80% of the entire country's population.

How much are olympic gold medals worth?

Spain's basketball team was stripped of their Special Olympic gold medal after it was discovered they organized a team of healthy individuals to pose as mentally handicapped.

Jesse Owens, an African-American track athlete who won a gold medal at the 1936 "Nazi Olympics", said: "Hitler didn't snub me—it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram.”

After a ticker-tape parade to celebrate his Olympic medals, Jesse Owens was not permitted to enter through the main doors of the Waldorf Astoria and instead forced to travel up to the event in a freight elevator to reach the reception honoring him.

At the 2006 Winter Olympics, a Norwegian coach handed a spare ski pole to a Canadian after she broke hers during a relay race. The Canadian skier went on to win a silver medal. Canadian citizens were so appreciative they collectively gave the coach more than 5 tons of Maple Syrup.

The night before the Olympic final, Michael Jordan apparently spent the night drinking and gambling all night, then he went on a long day of press appearances, plus 18 holes of golf in Barcelona, before he went on to lead Team USA in a gold-medal winning victory over Croatia.

Olympic medals infographics

Beautiful visual representation of Olympic Medals numbers and stats to get perspecive of the whole story.

olympic medals fact infographic about Number of Winter Olympic Medals won per million people

Number of Winter Olympic Medals won per million people


olympic medals fact infographic about Here is a short list of countries with at least 5 medals and

Here is a short list of countries with at least 5 medals and 90% or more of their medals coming from one sport in the Winter Olympics. This really highlights how specialized the Ne


When were olympic medals gold?

Luxembourg's gold medal at the 1952 Olympics was so unexpected that the organisers had neglected to give the band a score for their national anthem. The musicians "hurriedly improvised a tune which bore little resemblance to the Luxembourg anthem".

Usain Bolt ate 100 Chicken McNuggets a day for 10 days before the Beijing Olympics and eventually winning 3 gold medals.

Olympic gold medals are only 1% gold and 92.5% silver. They would be worth over $25k if they were pure gold but instead the medal value is only approximately $600.

Canada won the last ever Olympic Lacrosse Gold Medal, in 1908, and are therefore still the reigning Champions. In fact, they are the ONLY gold medalists ever in the sport.

After Kirani James won Grenada's first-ever Olympic gold medal in 2012, the country was so proud that the government held a giant 3-hour celebratory rally attended by thousands, gave him US$186,000, printed new stamps, named a new stadium after him, and built a museum/gym in his home town.

How many olympic medals has india won?

When Team Canada's Olympic gold medal-winning goalie Shannon Szabados was invited to take practice with the perennial last-place Edmonton Oilers in the spring of 2014, someone asked her if she was worried about getting hit on by the players. Her response: "Nope, they can't score anyways."

Mack Robinson, brother of Jackie Robinson, medaled in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Upon returning home to California, the only work he could find as an African American was sweeping streets, which he did while wearing his Olympic 'USA' sweatshirt.

During 1936 Berlin Olympic games, the Nazis ridiculed the US for relying on "non-human black auxiliaries." American black athlete Jesse Owens went on to win 4 gold medals and beat a German at Long Jump in front of Hitler. Four years after Owens' death, a street in Berlin was renamed after him.

USA has never won Olympic medals in just 3 sports: handball, badminton, and table tennis.

An American gymnast with a wooden leg won six medals, including three gold, in a single day at the 1904 Olympics. He was the only Olympian to have competed with a prosthetic limb for the next 100 years, until 2008.

Finland and Sweden are the only countries in the world that have earned a medal at every Olympic game since 1908.

7 of the first 8 Olympic Gold Medals in The Hammer Throw, were won by Irishmen born within a 30 mile radius of each other

Norway has the won the most gold medals in winter Olympic history and is the only nation to have at least 100 medals of each gold, silver, and bronze

No U.S. Hockey Olympic Men's team has won a gold medal without a player from Warroad, MN on the roster. A town of 1,700.

Max Woosnam, possibly the greatest sportsman of all time. He won gold & silver Olympics medals, a doubles title at Wimbledon, hit a 147 break in snooker, a century at Lords cricket ground and captained Manchester City and England football teams. He also played off a 0 handicap at golf.

Karoly Takacs won 2 Olympic Gold Metals in shooting. He won a gold medal with his right hand, but after it was mutilated by a grenade, he won a gold medal with his left hand instead.

The Spanish Paralympic Basketball Team was forced to return their Gold medals won in the 2000 Australian Olympics after almost all players were found to be NOT disabled.

Muhammad Ali threw his 1960 Olympic Gold Medal into the Ohio River, following is refused service at a "whites-only" restaurant. He would be awarded with an honorary medal in 1996.

Despite the fact that Jesse Owens won four gold medals during the 1936 Berlin Olympics, US President Franklin Roosevelt never congratulated or invited him to the White House. 'Hitler didn't snub me - it was FDR who snubbed me,' Owens said

Michael Phelps holds the world record for most olympic medals ever held but also the longest putt ever televised

This is our collection of basic interesting facts about Olympic Medals. The fact lists are intended for research in school, for college students or just to feed your brain with new realities. Possible use cases are in quizzes, differences, riddles, homework facts legend, cover facts, and many more. Whatever your case, learn the truth of the matter why is Olympic Medals so important!

Editor Veselin Nedev Editor