With its status as the birthplace of basketball and home to the world’s most prestigious league, the NBA, it’s no surprise that the United States has completely dominated Olympic basketball. Since the first Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936, the U.S. has won 16 championships out of 19 appearances.
The country with the second most championships is the Soviet Union, with two Olympic gold medals in 1972 and 1988. Yugoslavia won the Olympic title in 1980, while Argentina claimed the gold in 2004. In the three Olympics where the U.S. did not win, they finished as runners-up in 1972 and took bronze in 1988 and 2004. In 1980, the U.S. basketball team withdrew from the Moscow Olympics.
The U.S. men’s basketball team has only lost six games in the entire history of Olympic basketball, starting from 1936. Meanwhile, the U.S. women’s basketball team has an even better record, having lost just three games since 1976.
