What is the most gold medals one by one country at one Olympic Games?

Question

Just wondering how far away China are...

Answer 1

Right then who's ready for the real answer?

OK the correct answer is as follows:

The USA with 83 Gold Medals at the 1984 Olympics............but the 1984 Olympics was boycotted by 16 nations and many individual athletes in retaliation for the boycotting by 61 nations of the 1980 Olympics (due to USSR invading Afghanistan) which the USSR cleaned up at with 80 Gold Medals.  

Both Olympic's were bascially a white wash by the 2 superpowers in unfair and uncompetitive competitions.

As both Olympics were boycotted by many nations and many high class athletes it is not really a fair comparison.

If you look at the 2 Olympics either side you can see what I mean:

1972: USSR - 50, USA - 33 Gold Medals

1976: USSR - 49, USA - 34 Gold Medals

1988: USSR - 55, USA - 37 Gold Medals

1992: Unified team (basically the USSR) - 45, USA - 37 Gold Medals

As you can see 1980 and 1984 were freak years due to the lack of decent competition.

A fair comparison table would read:

1904: USA - 79 Gold Medals

1908: GBR - 56 Gold Medals

1988: USSR - 55 Gold Medals

1972: USSR - 50 Gold Medals

So the yanks still come out top but now it is alot fairer.

The current trend over the last 20 years has been for around 35-40 Gold Medals for the top country.

China currently (19/08/08 17.30 GMT) have 43 Gold Medals and have plently of time to get into the top table.  Another superpower with a huge country and huge population, just like the yanks and ruskies!

So again the table is fairer but not quite fair, if you take into account population size then the best overall Olympic performance by a country has to be team GBR in 1908 with 56 Gold medals.  An amazing achievement for a country the size of Florida with  a population of 38 million compared with 77 million in USA and the USSR with around 125 million.

So the true fair answer taking all things into consideration is the USA have 79 medals, but the best performance has to be GBR with 56 medals.

If GBR had the population of the yanks or ruskies they would have definately topped the table in 1908 and woudl still be there now!

RULE BRITANNIA!

Answer 2

I think when the Soviet Union boycotted the Los Angeles Games we won the most

Answer 3

Somewhat misleading Brit-Fan-Boi,

The 1908 Olympics were held in London and thus GBR fielded a large contingency and benefitted from home field advantage as is typical.  

Answer 4

USA 83 in 84

Soviet Union 80 in 80

Answer 5

The most gold medals is 83 gold medals by the USA when the Soviets boycotted in 1984, and the second most gold medals is 80 gold medals by the Soviets when the USA boycotted in 1980.

Answer 6

Are myou serious!? USA!  

Answer 7

What?