Olympic Basketball Tournament

[Andrew]

Is there a sport that's been dominated this much by one country, though? There are countries that are weak in various sports, but the US was 133-5 or something like that in Olympic history before this tournament.

By the numbers, not quite to the same extent. A quick Wikipedia search reveals that the Soviet Union still holds the record for gold and total medals in artistic gymnastics, despite having fallen over two decades ago and not competing since 1988. Japan has dominated judo, Hungary and Sweden are way out in front in the modern pentathlon; Hungary also leads in water polo. France has a significant lead in cycling, South Korea in Taekwondo, Russia in rhythmic gymnastics and synchronised swimming. It should also be noted that the USA has, by and large, dominated the athletics events: 335 gold medals, and 799 in total. Great Britain is second with 201 total, while the Soviet Union is still in third place with 193. After that, it's Finland with 114. As a nation, the US has ended up on top in most of the Olympic Games so far.

[koberulz]

the Soviet Union still holds the record for gold and total medals in artistic gymnastics

I said sport.

[Andrew]

Fair enough, shots fired.

[ThePointForward]

International ice hockey is pretty much dominated by Canada, Russia, Czech republic, Finland, Sweden and USA.

There are no talks to make it more competitive for teams like Spain, United Arab Emirates, North Korea or Australia.

[koberulz]

That's six countries. That's a lot.

How many times has the US failed to win gold? Three? One of those was an absolute screwjob, and only one has occurred in the professional era. I don't think there are any other sports with that level of domination by a single country over that long a period of time. 17 gold, one silver, two bronze in 20 Olympic tournaments.

[[Q]]

It would be like if they made American Football an Olympic sport. We would dominate because no one else really plays the game

[koberulz]

Plenty of other countries play basketball, I'm not sure that's quite a fair statement.

But I doubt there's any event where one country has won gold 85% of the time since the mid-30s.

[koberulz]

Anyone happen to know who did the commentary for the France-Serbia game on USA?