In the US sporting media much is being made of the USA women’s basketball team, which could win its 7th consecutive gold medal in Tokyo (1996-2020), equalling the record of the USA men from 1936-68, when they won 7 straight Olympic basketball titles. However, there are a number of other national winning streaks on the line in Tokyo in team events, as opposed to just team sports, which I discussed yesterday in relation to Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi and women’s basketball, and several of them involve USA winning streaks.
The longest streak is by the USA men in swimming medley relay. They have now won the event at 9 straight Olympics, going back to 1984. This is an absolute Olympic record for the longest streak by any nation in a team event in any sport, and they will be going for 10 in Tokyo.
Korea (South) also has a long ongoing streak, with their women having won the team archery gold medal at each Olympics from 1988-2016 – 8 straight. They share this mark with three others although none of the streaks are ongoing. The USA won the men’s 4×100 metre relay in athletics at each Olympics from 1920 to 1956. United States’ rowers also won the men’s coxed eights at the same Olympics – 1920-56, for 8 straight. And finally, the Soviet Union women gymnasts won the team title consecutively from 1952-80. A case could be made for adding the USA again to this list with their men’s swimming short freestyle relay team, which won every year from 1904 to 1996 – 8 consecutive golds. The event was not raced from 1908-60, was not contested in 1976 or 1980, and in 1904 it was swim at 4×50 yards, rather than the traditional 4×100 metres.
There are several other long national streaks on the line in Tokyo. The USA women have won 6 consecutive gold medals in the 4×400 relay in athletics. There are 5 team events in which nations have a 5-gold winning streak coming into Tokyo, all won from 2000-16: Russia in artistic swimming in both duet and team, Russia again in rhythmic gymnastics group competition, China in women’s synchronized platform diving, and Great Britain in men’s fours rowing. One could argue that Russia cannot extend their streak technically, as they will not be competing in Tokyo as the Russian Federation, but rather the Russian Olympic Committee.