Why Does the Olympic Host Country Win So Many Medals?

When French swimmer Léon Marchand raced at the 2024 Paris Olympics, the crowd chanted along with his strokes. Every time he surfaced for breath—instant, deafening noise. When he dipped back under—silence.

It wouldn’t be fair to the 22-year-old phenom to credit French spectators for his four individual gold medals (two won in the same day, which a swimmer hasn’t done since 1976). But it’s hard to witness the clamorous home-field support across the Paris Games without thinking it might be giving the athletes an edge—especially since it seems like France has a higher medal count than usual. (The country is in third place as of August 6, behind the U.S. and China.)

In fact, it always seems like the host country wins big at the Olympics. You might assume that's a false impression based on increased media coverage of those victories, but that's not the case. The host country almost invariably boosts its medal tally from the previous Games.

But the reasons behind the trend go way beyond a loud crowd—and why it’s happened in the past isn’t exactly why it happens now.

Olympics Home Advantage by the Numbers
Why the Host Country Has an Edge

Olympics Home Advantage by the Numbers

The chart below from The Conversation illustrates how the top 12 countries by medal count have fared when hosting the Summer Games versus competing abroad. With the exception of the U.S.’s Atlanta Games in 1996, the host country has always seen a bump.

But there are a couple of notable asterisks in the data. In 1980, the U.S. boycotted the Moscow Olympics to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Some 60 countries followed suit—the largest Olympics boycott ever—leaving the Soviet Union to absolutely dominate the podium. Soviet athletes netted a whopping 195 medals, 70 more than the previous Games. Four years later, the Soviet Union and other communist nations responded by skipping the Los Angeles Games—and the U.S. racked up 174 medals in their absence (compared to 94 at the 1976 Olympics).

Moreover, the early years of the modern Olympic Games, which began in 1896, involved much less global travel; most of the participants hailed from the host country. According to The Washington Post, 84 percent of the athletes at the 1904 St. Louis Games were American, and they won nearly 90 percent of the medals.

To account for this skewing, FiveThirtyEight analyzed the medal tally for Summer Games starting in 1952 (through 2012) and excluded 1980 and 1984. Still, host countries increased their medal tally by an average of 12.2 medals.

Which brings us to the main event: Why?

Why the Host Country Has an Edge

It’s tough to quantify the impact of a supportive crowd at the Olympics, but some athletes have cited it as a factor in their performance. Former Team USA soccer goalie Briana Scurry said the packed stadium during the gold medal match against China in 1996 helped propel the Americans to victory. “We had 76,000 people at the final in Athens, Georgia, all cheering for us. And China had, literally, a little tiny section of red up high in the nosebleed seats,” she told NPR in 2021. Another potential factor is travel: Athletes competing in their home country are less likely to have to adjust to a whole new sleep schedule and climate than those traveling from afar.

The Washington Post points out that host countries often increase their funding for athletes in the run-up to their Olympics in the hopes that it’ll yield more medals. Spain, for example, gave its top athletes a stipend ahead of the 1992 Barcelona Games and ended up nabbing 22 medals, compared to just four in 1988. It’s also possible that more elite athletes decide to compete in Games that happen on their home turf. (Since the Olympics aren’t the most important competition in certain team sports like basketball, superstars sometimes sit them out.)

Speaking of team sports, the host country automatically qualifies for all team events. They’re also given complimentary spots in certain individual events, from sport climbing (one spot per gender) to the triathlon (two per gender). That said, bypassing qualifications doesn’t necessarily land you on the podium—and you still have to compete against all the other athletes who did qualify.

One last notable advantage afforded the host country is the ability to suggest new Olympic events, a rule first implemented at the Tokyo Games held in 2021. Naturally, the organizing committee went heavy on events popular in Japan: karate, skateboarding, surfing, sport climbing, and baseball/softball (men’s baseball, women’s softball). Japan clinched more than one medal in each event, including five of the 12 total karate medals and golds for both baseball and softball. In fact, the International Olympic Committee itself factors an event’s popularity in the host country into its decision about what to add.

No one reason alone can explain the Olympics home advantage, and, as always, correlation does not equal causation. It’s not proven that Spain won so many medals in 1992 because it paid its athletes, and U.S. women’s soccer didn’t necessarily win gold in 1996 due to enthusiastic cheering. The abundance of possible reasons for the medal boost suggests it’s probably a complex combination of factors—unless of course your biggest rival boycotts the competition.

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