Why does USATF win so many World Championship medals?
In 2023 USA track and field dominated the World Championship meet. They actually won a grand total of 12 gold medals on both the men’s and women’s sides. Those gold medals by themselves were tied with the most medals of any color, from any other nation in the world. Sha’carri Richardson, Grant Holloway, and Noah Lyles all swept their signature events, and if it wasn’t for the women’s 4x400 meter realy botching a handoff in the qualifying round, America likely could have swept all the relays in the 4x100m, and 4x400m. The truth is that America is the winningest nation in track and field, not just in 2023 but for quite some time now. But although America may win the most medals, they are not really the best track and field team in the world. That’s only because the scales have been heavily weighted in their favor.
How hard is it to make team USA?
The opportunity to wear the red, white, and blue, for team USA is a privilege for any track athlete. Just hitting the Olympic standard in your event is likely not going to get you a spot on the team. The Olympic qualifying standard in the 200 meter dash is 20.16 heading into 2024, and America had 16 men run at least that fast. The fastest was of course Noah Lyles, but the slowest of which was David Dunlap. If you consider that Noah Lyles had a bye into the World Championships this year, there were only 3 remaining spots for those who would make the team. Qualifying for team USA is so hard, that you can even fail to do it and go on to become a World Champion, which is exactly what Keni Harrison did in 2016.
How good is team USA track and field?
America doesn’t just have a bunch of great athletes, but they oftentimes have the best ones. Noah Lyles is officially the greatest sprinter since Usain Bolt, and Grant Holloway is arguably the best hurdler of this generation. But Cordell Tinch was in fact the fastest American this year heading into the World Championships. He didn’t go on to win a medal, but Daniel Roberts did. Sha’carri Richardson won gold in the 100 meter dash to lead a team of women that ran up the medal count even higher. At the end of the World Championship meet, America had tallied up 29 total medals. Jamaica was second in the medal count with only 12. The numbers are undeniable, America wins way more than everybody else.
America has been doing this for a while. At the Olympic games America has won the track and field medal count, every single year since Sydney in 2000. However, there is a legitimate reason America wins so many medals. America has over 330 million people to choose from to build their team! No other nation that takes track and field as seriously as America has that luxury.
In the United States there are well over 5000 high school track teams in the country to develop talent, not including club teams. There are also 1000 track and field programs at the college level. In fact, there are so many teams that colleges often go overseas to fill out their rosters. At the division 1 level half of the NCAA champions are now internationally affiliated. America pours so many resources into track and field that the rest of the world quite literally sends their athletes to us, so they can develop within our system. We spend so much money to create so many opportunities, we can’t even use them all ourselves. After all the international kids come to compete there are still NCAA programs that struggle to fill out their rosters each season.
The World Championships don’t allow all the best Americans to compete. That would be truly unfair. Their attempt to level the playing field is by only allowing 3 athletes per nation to qualify for the event. Unless your nation has the reigning World Champion, granting them an automatic qualifying spot. The goal is to make the championship meet as close to equal opportunity as possible. But you can’t fix the fact that before the meet even starts, the USA championship meet is a formal warmup for international competition, in almost every event. When you see just how imbalanced the resources are, it is clear the team USA is by all estimations supposed to win.
How does the rest of the world compete with America?
In 2023 Jamaica finished second overall in the total medal count at the World Championships with 12 medals. That is a nation with a population size of less than 3 million people. America is over 330 million. That is more than 100 times the size! The only way to make this a fair fight would be to let Jamaica compete against the city of Los Angeles, which is still bigger but roughly the same size. Jamaica won 12 medals, 3 of them gold, and they did it with less than half the population of New York City. Jamaica gave the world Usain Bolt, in addition to the fastest women in the 100 meter dash, and the 200 meter dash for the past 30 years!
Kenya is not be the same size as Jamaica, but they still get the job done on the track with way less to work with. Their population is about 53 million people which is roughly the size of Texas and Florida put together. They tied for third in the total medal count at the World Championship meet with 10 medals. They were led by Faith Kipyegon and Mary Moraa. They are as good in the distance events as Jamaica appears to be in the sprints. They even produced the greatest 800 meter runner ever to touch the track in David Rudisha. If Kenya were the size of America, they likely would blow their medal counts out of the water.
The Bottom line
Team USA is the best in the track and field world. But there is a reason for that. America has invested more resources than any nation in the world to win in track. Which is ironic because no American sports fan would tell you that track and field is what we are known for. The Olympics are coming, and no doubt Team USA will be ready to take on the rest of the world. But it important to remember that the odds have been heavily stacked in their favor. In 2022 team USA swept the 100 and the 200 at worlds, and still lost the 4x100m relay to Canada! That can only happen if the U.S. severely underachieves. Going forward success for team USA should be evaluated not just on winning the medal count, but by how great the margin of victory is. That is the only way to make good on the many investments they have made to win in the first place.
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