It is rare for American basketball players to leave the Olympics without winning a gold medal. In the last four Games and numerous times before that, the men’s team has won gold. The women’s squad is aiming for its eighth gold medal in a row.Both teams aim to carry on a long and illustrious legacy of dominating the sport worldwide when they travel to the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
Let’s take a look at just how dominant the teams have been by looking at some Olympic basketball records:
Which country has the most gold medals in basketball?
The country where basketball first gained popularity. Ever since basketball was added to the Olympic program in 1936, the United States has dominated the sport at the Games. Out of a potential twenty gold medals, the U.S. men’s basketball team has won sixteen, including the last four. With the exception of 1980, which the US boycotted, it has also won medals in every Olympic Games, giving the US men’s team the most medals ever at 19 in Olympic history.
The Soviet Union is the only other country to win multiple gold medals with two (1972 and 1988). Yugoslavia (1980) and Argentina (2004) have also captured the gold in men’s basketball.
The U.S. women’s basketball team has been equally as dominant, winning nine of a possible 12 gold medals since being added to the Olympics in 1976. It has also medaled in each Olympic Games it has competed in, winning silver in 1976 and bronze in 1992. The women will look to win an eighth straight gold at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
The Soviet Union women’s basketball team won the first two gold medals in 1976 and 1980, and the Unified Team captured gold in 1992.
Which basketball player has the most gold medals?
Carmelo Anthony not only has more gold medals than any other men’s basketball player — he has more than every nation besides the United States.
Anthony, the only four-time Olympian in men’s basketball, won gold in 2008, 2012 and 2016. Melo was also on the bronze-medal winning team in 2004 after his rookie season in the NBA, combining to make him the all-time leader in men’s basketball Olympic medals with four.
By 2024, that might have changed. Phoenix Suns player Kevin Durant will represent Team USA in the Olympics in Paris in an attempt to win a gold medal for the fourth time in a row. Durant will overtake Anthony as the men’s basketball gold medal leader at the Olympics if he and the United States win the gold. Durant will match Anthony’s record for the most medals won in the sport as long as Team USA makes it to the podium.
However, Anthony is one gold short of some female basketball players in the Olympics. At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi each took home their fifth gold medal with Team USA. They became the all-time gold-medal leaders in Olympic basketball history as a result.
