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Published August 11, This article is more than 2 years old. Year Event China Japan Singapore. Sign me up. Update your browser for the best experience. Commonwealth countries also tend to do better than expected compared to their size and wealth. Mr Forrest believes that's because Britain was a pioneer in developing sport as we know it today, and brought that enthusiasm for athletic competition with them around the world.
Australia, which often cracks the top for total medal count, is a prime example. In India, cricket is the de facto national sport but is not played at the Olympics. India also does tend to excel at hockey, which is played at the Olympics, but that only yields a maximum of two medals, one for men and one for women. Whereas sports competed by an individual, such as gymnastics, swimming and athletics, can yield several per athlete.
But using variables like population and GDP are not true indicators of performance either, says Simon Gleave, head of sport analysis at data company Nielsen Gracenote, because they don't show which countries are doing better or worse than before. Past performance, he says, is a much better predictor of who will do well - and it allows you to set expectations against achievement. To better gauge the Olympic winners, Gracenote takes into account how each country has done at other international sporting competitions since the last Olympic games.
And since , they have won all but one gold in the individual event. While Korea remains the undisputed dominant force when it comes to archery, there are a number of other Olympic sports that have been similarly dominated by a single nation over decades. Heading into Tokyo , China had won a staggering 28 out of the 32 gold medals on offer at the Olympics. Such is its dominance in the sport that it often exports table tennis players to other countries but their hold loosened a little after they lost the mixed doubles title a newly-introduced event to Japan on Monday.
Basketball was added to the Summer Olympics in for men and in for women. And since then, the United States of America has owned the sport in all but one campaign. Apart from the I Moscow Games, which the USA decided to boycott, they have won a medal in basketball at the Olympics each and every time. The NBA is, of course, a big reason for that, but the most popular basketball league in the world is also slowly helping bring up other countries in this sport.
Dressage, on the other hand, has been a closed shop for decades. Not since Moscow has a nation other than the Netherlands or Germany won either the individual or team dressage Olympic titles. However, the British team for London looks strong enough to threaten that hegemony. Between them, Italy, France and Hungary account for more than half of the near fencing medals awarded since the dawning of the modern Olympic era.
Fencing has provided each of those three nations with more gold medals than any other sport. Italy has 45, France 41 and Hungary However, while the Hungarians' glory days came largely in men's sabre fencing during the first half of the 20th Century, the Italians and French are still leaders in the sport, occupying the top two places at both Athens and Beijing At the World Championships, held in Sicily, the Italians won four titles in Olympic events while Russia, increasingly a fencing force, won three.
An impressive spell in the s and s saw Hungary win three Olympic men's football gold medals, enough for them to remain the most-decorated men's Olympic football team to this day. Uruguay, by dint of back-to-back successes in the s, has two titles and lies joint-second on the all-time men's list alongside the Soviet Union and Argentina.
Argentina won the men's title at Beijing but the team failed to qualify for the London Olympics. It is hence difficult to say with any certainty who the favourites for the men's title in London are, particularly with the reintroduction of a British team for the first time since Spain and Brazil are among the strongest teams to have qualified.
The United States has dominated the women's event since its introduction at the Americans' home Games of in Atlanta, winning three of the four Olympic titles the other going to Norway, who beat the US in Sydney.
It is hard to see past them for gold at London Gymnastics has traditionally had a strong association with Romania and, up until the Beijing Games, that remained the case: Romania topped the medal table for gymnastics at Athens and had been prominent at most Games since the s, off the back of Nadia Comaneci's famous successes in Montreal and Moscow.
However, saw host nation China burst onto the scene, rocketing from one gold medal in Athens to 11 in Beijing, nine more than either the United States or Russia. Do not expect a repeat of that stunning margin of victory at London While China still topped the medal table with four golds at the artistic gymnastics' World Championships in Tokyo, the US won as many titles and hosts Japan, led by men's superstar Kohei Uchimura, weighed in with two.
The Japanese look to be a nation on the rise in the men's sport. Russia is the unquestioned star of rhythmic gymnastics, and look out for Canada in the trampoline events. Though the Canadians have yet to win an Olympic gold medal, they have won more medals - five - in the sport than any other nation and have a strong team for London As holders of the Olympic, world and European titles, Norway's women are the clear favourites for the handball gold medal at London Handball is popular throughout Scandinavia and continental Europe, with Denmark winning women's Olympic gold three times in a row prior to Norway's victory at Beijing The men's Olympic champions are France who, having won both of the intervening world titles, are - like Norway's women - on track to successfully defend their title.
Field hockey proved India's only source of Olympic gold medals for many years, but modern-day hockey has been the playground of Germany , Australia and the Netherlands. Every hockey gold medal has gone to one of those three nations since Barcelona , when hosts Spain dislodged the Germans after extra time in the women's final.
Britain's men and women are both dark horses for gold in but Argentina may be overdue an Olympic title. Women's hockey is hugely popular in Argentina and the World Cup winners, who beat Britain to the Champions Trophy title in January, are favourites to win gold this summer. As you might expect, Japan is the leading judo nation in the world.
You have to go back to Seoul to find the last occasion on which Japan did not top the judo medal table - in Seoul, hosts South Korea won two gold medals to Japan's one. Japan has won more gold medals in judo 35 than in any other sport, a figure comfortably higher than that won by the second most successful nation in the sport's history, France.
China has recently emerged as a growing force in judo while Cuba often bubbles under at the Olympics. Cubans won six medals at both Athens and Sydney , but failed to come home with a single gold medal from either. Combining fencing, swimming, riding, running and shooting into one sport, men's pentathlon has been the province of Russia in recent times. Russians won the men's Olympic title in Sydney, Athens and Beijing, only missing out to Kazakhstan in On the women's side, Britain has proved a world power since a women's event was introduced to the Games at Sydney Four of the subsequent nine women's medals have been won by Britons, including gold for Steph Cook in Sydney.
However, Hungary is without doubt the world's biggest pentathlon nation. Pentathlons staged in Hungary draw huge crowds, local pentathletes gain celebrity status, and Beijing marked the first Olympics since Los Angeles - boycotted by Hungary, among others - in which no Hungarians won a pentathlon medal.
The peerless medal-winning efforts of Sirs Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent, among others, have established Great Britain as a great among rowing nations. But outsiders may be surprised to learn of Romania's proud recent tradition in the sport.
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