From Regan Smith, Simone Biles, Katie Ledecky and Torri Huske, the ladies of Staff USA have been the showstoppers on the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Of the 40 gold medals gained by Staff USA, 26 have been clinched by the ladies — an unprecedented feat in Olympic historical past. Compared, Staff USA’s ladies captured 23 of the country’s 39 gold medals three years in the past in Tokyo, which marked their fourth-highest complete and second-highest share (59 p.c).
The 6 p.c uptick in gold-medal share is not stunning by any means. For the reason that 2008 Beijing Video games, Staff USA’s ladies have out-medaled their male counterparts with 308 medals to 251. The identical may be mentioned in regards to the gold-medal disparity, with ladies claiming 40 extra prime podium finishes.
- Beijing 2008: 56-55
- London 2012: 58-45
- Rio 2016: 61-56
- Tokyo 2020: 66-41
- Paris 2024: 67-59
To place issues in perspective, if Staff USA’s ladies have been their very own nation, their Paris Olympic medal rely of 67 would place them above the total groups from Nice Britain (65), France (64), Australia (53) and Japan (45). Their 26 gold medals can be second solely to China’s 40.
Girls hoopers save the day
Coming into the ultimate hours of the Paris Video games on Sunday, Staff USA was tied with China within the gold-medal rely. All of the stress was on the ladies’s basketball staff to assert gold and provides the nation bragging rights within the closing leaderboard.
The possibilities of that taking place appeared slim when Staff USA surrendered a 10-point result in France within the third quarter. Finally, A’ja Wilson and Co. discovered a strategy to prevail, giving U.S. ladies a record eighth consecutive gold medal in basketball.
The win cemented the U.S. ladies’s basketball staff as the best dynasty in sports activities, giving it 62 successive wins (relationship again to 1996 Atlanta) and probably the most consecutive Olympic gold medals in any staff sport, surpassing the earlier document of seven set by its male counterparts between 1936 and 1968.
After making historical past, Breanna Stewart highlighted how ladies left their imprint on the Paris Video games.
“The truth that ladies have dominated these Olympics, we all know” Stewart mentioned, through USA Today Sports. “You bought all ladies up right here, we all know. And we’ll proceed to struggle for equality and proceed to lift the bar and the usual for our sport and out of doors of our sport.”
To Stewart’s level, the sporting world has come a good distance because the 1928 Amsterdam Video games the place Staff USA despatched a 324-strong continent comprising 280 males and simply 44 ladies.
