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Olympic medal winners: every one since 1896 as open data
Which countries have won the most Olympic medals? Who has won the most too? Get the full data here
• Data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian
Olympic medal from 1948, the last time London hosted the games. Who won then? Photograph: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images
Of the 26 Summer Olympics since 1896, this will be the third in London - the only city ever to have three games.
And in that time, 29,216 medals have been awarded - and splits roughly, but not equally, in three ways into Gold, Silver and Bronze. In fact, the first two Olympiads awarded silver medals and an olive wreath for the winner. The IOC retrospectively awarded gold, bronze and silver to athletes based on their rankings .
Olympic medals interactive guide Click image to explore it
Of those thousands of medals, the big winner has been the US - a trend that has continued. As some of you spotted, these totals are for medal winners - not winning events. If a team has five members, that counts as six medals (five individuals and one team win). That is how the Olympic database supplies the information. This may inflate the tallies beyond the official medals totals, but it still shows which countries have fared best at previous Olympics.
Sebastian Coe, the former Olympic medallist who is head of the UK games organisers has predicted that this year it will be China .
I think it will be China, US, and then Russia … I just think if you look at it, in its entirety, (it will be) China
This chart shows how China has crept up on the USA over time, and how the USSR ran the USA so close before its collapse at the end of the 1980s. You can also see how important the UK used to be in the Olympics medals ranking, with a high point in 1908.
The medal tables have been dominated by men, with more male sports in each Olympiad - but this chart shows how, based on medals, that gender balance is shifting. Even so, there are still concerns this year about gender inequality and the Olympics, with some countries still refusing to allow women to train and compete .
And some of those men have won a lot of medals - but the top medal winner of all time so far is Larisa Latinya , who won 18 medals for the Soviet Union. She's followed by Michael Phelps of the US, who won 14 golds - and there's a full list below.
Olympic medal winners have come from many countries: this man didn't get one, though. Marathon runner Dorando Pietri, of Italy, had collapsed as he entered the stadium in London, 1908 and, was helped to his feet by officials and guided to the finish line. He was disqualified for receiving assistance but the event, watched by 90,000 people, had such impact that Queen Alexandra of Britain subsequently presented him with a cup to mark his courage and determination. Photograph: IOC