As the world eagerly watched the Paris Olympics 2024 from start to conclusion, I was fascinated by the amazing feats of the athletes from around the world. In this post, I present analysis of the performance of some nations and their athletes. You’ll find a collection of statistics, charts, and visualizations that highlight some key metrics and achievements of this event in a fun, concise form.
From medal counts to record-breaking performances, we’ll dive into the numbers. Whether you’re a sports enthusiast, a data geek, or just curious about the Olympics, you should find it interesting.
A total of total 204 countries participated in the 2024 summer Olympics in Paris. Obviously, I won’t cover all the countries or the sports rather just the most popular events, and a handful of countries that I’ve been following with high stakes and historical rivalry. Some of this information presented here are practically impossible to find in one place anywhere else. I hope you’ll enjoy the read; so, let’s get started!
All images are copyrighted by FlyingSalmon.net | Tony Rahman. It is illegal to reuse or alter them without explicit permission from the owner.
This time, China equaled the Gold medals with USA. However, the total medals difference between USA and China grew larger since Tokyo.
In this list of countries, Japan participated in a greater number of sports than any other. USA had the highest at 19+ athletes participating per sport on average. GB had the lowest at 9 athletes participating per sport on average. Outside of this list, Saint Lucia has just 1.3 athletes per sport securing 2 medals out of just 3 sports.
USA had the highest number of medals earned per sport it participated in (over 4 medals per sport).
The type of the sport affects the number of medals available as some sports have multiple events and therefore more opportunities to earn medals.
More medals were earned by females from USA, China, Australia, and Canada. More males earned medals for Great Britain (GB), France, and Japan. If medals won by male athletes + female athletes do not add up to Total medals won for the country, it is due medals earned by the Mixed teams.
The right Y-axis (blue line) shows the number of athletes from each country in the Olympics.
The bars show the percentage of athletes that medaled.
50% of the athletes from Saint Lucia earned a medal. However, the country sent only 4 athletes securing 2 medals in only 3 sports: Athletics, Swimming, and Sailing.
GB, and China had the next highest number of medals per athlete by percentage (30%, 23.5% respectively).
USA was at 21.3% in Paris 2024.
Saint Lucia had equal number of male and female athletes in their squad (2 each). Except for Japan and Great Britain in this list, all other countries had more female athletes.
Canada had 1.56 times the female athletes that of their number of male athletes (highest in this list).
While China racks up impressive amount of medals consistently, it also has a huge pool of population to choose from. However, only 1 out of 3.6 million citizens of China is an Olympic athlete.
In contrast, Saint Lucia with a small population of about 180,000 discovers an Olympian in every 45,000 people.
Of the larger countries, Australia has a tremendous amount of athletes with an Olympian in every 56,000 of its people.
Considering this known rate, and using China’s population:olympian rate as a base, how many Olympians would we get from each country? We see that for every 4 million people, we would find 81 Olympians in Saint Lucia, 65 in Australia, 6 or 7 in USA, and just 1 in China.
This gives us a view of general population’s athletic prowess per country (population age and fitness are factors). We see beyond the outlier like Saint Lucia, Australia, France, and Canada lead the way (in this list).
Of the larger countries, China had the youngest players on average competing in the Olympics. USA had the ‘oldest’ at 26 years old on average. Figures include male and female athletes.
Detailed age information were not made public by Great Britain, Australia, Japan.
Australia had the highest age differential between their oldest and youngest separating them by 55 years! China and Canada were next at 47 years. Data for France was not available.
Each country has its own approach to supporting and rewarding its athletes (especially the gold medalists), and these differences can be influenced by a variety of factors. The above chart shows how much monetary rewards each country offers to each of the gold medalists (converted to US dollars value).
In addition to the cash prize, gold medalists in the USA receive additional perks such as:
- Healthcare: The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) offers a comprehensive healthcare package to the gold medalists.
- Tax Relief: Gold medalists are often exempt from paying taxes on their prize money.
- Tuition Grants and Education Funding: Athletes can receive grants and funding for their education.
- Sponsorship and Endorsement Opportunities: Winning a gold medal can lead to lucrative sponsorship and endorsement deals, providing additional financial support and career opportunities.
NOTE: No prize information formally announced for: China, Dominica, Grenada. For Great Britain, there’s no direct prize money awarded. However, in many cases, the perks can include national holidays in honor, free housing, car, free transportation for life, etc.
The tallest Olympian in the 2024 Summer Olympics was Victor Wembanyama from France (basketball). He stands at an impressive 7 feet 4 inches (2.24 meters).
The shortest athlete was Flavia Saraiva from Brazil (gymastics), who is 4 feet 4.5 inches (1.33 meters) tall.
The heaviest Olympian in the 2024 Summer Olympics was Behdad Salimi from Iran, competing in weightlifting. He weighs approximately 375 lbs (170 kg).
The lightest Olympian in the 2024 Summer Olympics was Panipak Wongpattanakit from Thailand, competing in Taekwondo. She weighs approximately 101 lbs (46 kg).
The fastest male Olympian in the 2024 Summer Olympics was Noah Lyles from the United States.
He clocked 9.79 seconds in the 100m and 19.70 seconds in the 200m in Paris.
Noah’s Average Speed (100M): 10.215 meters/second
Noah’s Average Speed (200M): 10.152 meters/second
Noah’s peak speed in the 100m race was around 27.84 mph. And his average speed was 22.85 mph
(In a 100m race, sprinters typically reach their peak acceleration within the first 30-40 meters).
To put this in context, Tour de France cyclists go at average of 26.5 mph (42.6 km/h) on a flat terrain!
Usain Bolt’s peak speed in 100m race was around 27.79 mph (44.72 km/h). So Noah’s peak speed is a little higher than Usain’s; however, overall performance during Usain’s career remain unmatched to-date.
The fastest female Olympian in the 2024 Summer Olympics was Sha’Carri Richardson from the United States. She clocked a time of 10.71 seconds in the 100m. Her average Speed (100M) was 9.337 meters/second or, almost 21 mph.
The fastest female swimmer at the Summer Olympics 2024 was Katie Ledecky from the United States. She won the gold medal in the 800m freestyle with a time of 8:14.63. Ledecky’s avg. speed: 3.62 mph.
- Stephen Curry (USA) made a total of 22 three-pointers—highest in the tournament.
- Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece) scored the most points—he averaged 25.8 points per game.
- Most points in a single game was scored by Stephen Curry (USA): 36 points vs Serbia.
- Nikola Jokic (Serbia) had the highest number of assists at 8.7 on average per game.
Unsurprisingly, the tallest athletes in the Olympics overall were the basketball players. While I couldn’t find the exact average heights for all teams, I did find some information on individual players and teams.
The French team might have the tallest average height, with players like Rudy Gobert at 7 ft 1 in (2.16 m) and Victor Wembanyama at 7 ft 4 in (2.24 m).
The Australian team also has several tall players, including Jock Landale and Duop Reath, both standing at 6 ft 11 in (2.11 m). The Canadian team features Dwight Powell, who is 6 ft 11 in (2.12 m). The 2024 Olympic basketball team with the shortest average height was the Philippines, with an average height of 6.5 feet (199 cm).
Who were some of the oldest and youngest medalists at the summer 2024 Olympics?
| Oldest | ||
Steffen Peters (59, Equestrian)  | Team Dressage |  |
| Laura Kraut (58, Equestrian) | Team Jumping |  |
Carl Hester (57, Equestrian)  | Team Dressage | |
| Youngest | ||
Zheng Haohao (11, Skateboarder)  | Women’s Park Skateboarding | |
Arisa Trew (14, Skateboarder)  | Women’s Park Skateboarding |  |
| Hezly Rivera (16, Gymnast) | Team Gymnastics | |
List of selected countries that medaled for the first time in these sports at the Summer 2024 Olympics:
Team USA won the most medals in all of the popular sports of summer: Athletics, Basketball, Gymnastics, and Swimming. China is tied with USA at total of 9 Gymnastics medals (China secured 2 gold, 5 silver, 2 bronze medals). Team USA secured 2 gold medals in Basketball by both men’s and women’s team earning the top position. Below are the gold, silver, medal distributions shown in each ring of the charts below.
Team USA Medals in popular sports
Medal Velocity:
USA earned 7.9 medals per day on average. The day with the most medals was August 3 (day 9) when 18 medals were won (mostly in Athletics) by Team USA.
Fewer new world records were set in Paris Olympics than in Tokyo.
I enjoyed watching the games as well as tracking the stats and building these analyses, charts, metrics, and infographics…I hope you enjoyed reading about it too! For more sports analysis and metrics, search for ‘sports’ or click here.
Athlete-portraits photo credits: nbc, getty images
Data sources: olympics.com, nbcolympics.com, nbcnewyork.com, msn.com, wikipedia.com, fiba.basketball, nbcbayarea.com
Unless otherwise credited, all images (infographics, charts, artwork) are copyrighted by FlyingSalmon.net | Tony Rahman. It is illegal to reuse or alter them without explicit permission from the owner.
Additional Update as per the request of my good friend from Slovenia here are some of the nation’s stats:
Slovenia 
- Total athletes participated: 90
- Athletes:Sports ratio: 5.3 athletes on average per sport (across 17 sports)
- Overall Average Age of athletes: 26
- Oldest athlete: 37 (male: Canoeing)
- Youngest athlete: 19 (female: Athletics)
- Female to male olympians ratio: 44% to 56%
- Total medals: 3 (2 gold, 1 silver)
- Percentage of athletes earning medals: 3.33%
- Medals by female athletes: 2 gold (Andreja Leski in Judo -63 kg and Janja Garnbret in Sport Climbing – Women’s Boulder and Lead)
- Medals by male athletes: 1 silver (Toni Vodisek in Sailing – Kite Masculino)
- Olympians by population: 1 olympian per about 23,500 which is impressively high.
- Most famous player from Slovenia:
One of the most famous athletes from Slovenia is Luka Dončić, a NBA (basketball) player who plays for the Dallas Mavericks. However, he did not participate in the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics as Slovenia was eliminated by Greece in the Olympic qualification tournament.
