What happens if two countries are tied in the Olympic medal table? Tiebreaker rules explained

Things are incredibly tight at the top of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games medal table. Or are they? Going into the penultimate day of action in the French capital, the United States and China were locked on 33 gold medals, although it was Team USA who led the way overall, no matter which ranking system you use.

Is there an ‘official’ Olympic medal table?

Although athletes across all sports are rightly lauded for claiming silver and bronze medals, golds are (almost) all that really matter when it comes to the official Olympic medal table. For most people, at least.

First of all, it has to be noted that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) doesn’t officially recognise any kind of ranking. It does, however, publish the figures for statistical reasons, and these are the ones that are generally considered ‘semi’-official and used by the majority of the media.

In some countries, however, including the United States, it isn’t uncommon to see nations ordered according to the total number of medals won. For the IOC, though, that is actually only the fourth tiebreaker.

The IOC’s ‘unofficial’ Olympic tiebreakers explained

According to the IOC’s ‘unofficial’ rankings, countries in each edition of the Games are first ranked by how many times they have finished on the top spot of the podium, rather than by how many medals they have collected overall.

To put it simply, for many, winning one gold medal is administratively deemed to be a greater achievement than picking up 100 silvers or bronzes.

Related stories

OLYMPIC GAMES

Olympic medal count: live updates

OLYMPIC GAMES

2024 Olympics: full day 15 schedule

Going by these rules, teams who are tied on gold medals are then ranked by how many silver medals they have won. If they remain level, bronzes are then taken into account. If the countries still can’t be separated (they have the same number of bronzes and, therefore, total), they are ordered alphabetically by their IOC code.

Will the United States or China come out on top at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris? According to some US media, Team USA’s overall total means they are almost uncatchable. For many others around the world, the fight will go down to the final day on Sunday.