This year’s Olympics were memorable, for many reasons. Michael Phelps added even more medals to his count, Katie Ledecky dominated in all her competitions and Usain Bolt won gold in the 4x100m race (while also providing us with hilarious memes). We also can’t talk about the Olympics without acknowledging how fantastic the Final Five were in their respective competitions. As a country, the U.S. racked up an impressive 121 medals over the course of the games—46 gold, 37 silver an 38 bronze. Even though America clearly dominated the Olympics, the female athletes performed so well that they would have come in third place overall—you know, if the U.S. women competed as their own nation sans the male athletes.
As pointed out by the NYT, the American women contributed to 27 of Team USA’s gold medals. Overall, Team USA has to thank the females for bringing in 61 total medals. In theory, if the women competed alone, they still would rank quite well in relation to the other nations. With 61 medals, they would have landed in third place, right behind China and Great Britain. If this doesn’t convince you that women are incredible athletes, we don’t know what will.
Keep on slaying, ladies.