Stanford-affiliated athletes have won more medals at the Summer Olympics than many countries and any other U.S. school – 335, including 162 golds, and counting.
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Medals won by Stanford athletes (and counting)
Gold medals won by Stanford athletes
Year Stanford athletes outperformed all but three countries in the Summer Games
For more than 100 years, the United States has dominated the Olympic Games. Stanford athletes have been responsible for a significant part of that success.
The Cardinal has produced at least one medalist in every Olympics in which the U.S. has competed since 1912. Stanford has won at least 20 medals at the Olympics six times (2024, 2020, 2016, 2008, 1996, 1924).
Occasionally, Stanford has outperformed entire continents. In the 1996 Games in Atlanta, Cardinal athletes won more gold medals (18) than all but three countries that competed.
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For the first time, four undergraduates from the Farm will be competing in the games. Learn how they balance athletics and academics and what to expect in Milano-Cortina.
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Stanford concluded the 2024 Paris Olympic Games with a school-record 39 medals, shattering its previous best.
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The United States Women’s National Team, featuring Tierna Davidson, Naomi Girma, and Sophia Smith, secured a record fifth gold medal in women’s soccer on Saturday.
In 2024, a school-record 59 Stanford Olympians competed at the Paris Games, winning 39 medals.
Stanford’s haul of 39 medals at the 2024 Olympics was the most by any school in history. If Stanford were a country, it would have finished tied with Canada for 11th place.
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Stanford’s swimmers led the charge. Katie Ledecky took gold in the 800-meter and 1,500-meter freestyle, and Torri Huske and Regan Smith each claimed two golds across relay and individual events. Discus thrower Valarie Allman, fencer Vivian Kong, and three members of the U.S. women’s soccer team rounded out a brilliant haul.
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The United States Women’s National Team, featuring former Cardinal Tierna Davidson, Naomi Girma, and Sophia Smith, secured a record fifth gold medal in women’s soccer.
Trees in Paris w/ Katie Ledecky! 🔊🌲 #GoStanford
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Stanford junior Torri Huske claimed her first career Olympic gold in the 100-meter butterfly on Sunday, bringing the total number of medals earned by Cardinal athletes on opening weekend to six.
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Former Stanford fencer Vivian Kong captures the women’s epee gold medal in overtime.
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Stanford alumna Valarie Allman won her second consecutive Olympic gold medal in the discus on Monday, becoming the second two-time track and field gold medalist in school history.
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Stanford’s silver medals spanned five sports, with Regan Smith earning three in backstroke and butterfly. Swimming relays, artistic swimming, diving, women’s water polo, and women’s volleyball completed the tally.
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Stanford alumna Kassidy Cook gets the medal count started with a silver medal in the synchronized 3m springboard dive.
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Former Cardinal standout Dani Jackovich made program history by becoming Stanford’s first international medalist after helping guide Australia to silver at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
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Megumi Field, Audrey Kwon, and Jacklyn Luu led Team USA to its first artistic swimming Olympic medal in 20 years.
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Men’s water polo anchored the bronze count, sending four to the podium. Grant Fisher took two in distance running – the 5,000-meter and 10,000-meter – while men’s gymnastics, rowing, and volleyball; sailing, women’s basketball, and women’s swimming claimed one apiece.
Brody Malone and @dastanfordtree chopping it up in Paris! 🥉🌲🇺🇸
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Alanna Smith became the third Stanford women’s basketball alumna to medal at an Olympic Games when she led Australia to bronze in Paris.
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Asher Hong and Brody Malone help secure Team USA’s first team medal since 2008.
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Stanford alumni Erik Shoji, ’12, and assistant coach Matt Fuerbringer, ’97, swept Italy to win the bronze medal in Paris.
Stanford has sent athletes to the Olympics since 1908, when pole vaulter Sam Bellah, a sophomore at the time, placed sixth at the London Games. They’ve notched a range of history-making performances.
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In 1932, Stanford sprinter Ben Eastman took silver in the 400 meters at the Summer Games in Los Angeles and appeared on the cover of Time magazine.
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In 1936, in Berlin, Marjorie Gestring Bowman became the first Stanford female athlete to win a medal, earning gold in springboard diving. (Credit: Getty Images)
Bob Mathias was an unknown 17-year-old when he represented the United States in the decathlon in the 1948 London Games. He was considered a long shot even to finish the competition, let alone win a medal. But on the final day, Mathias placed first in the javelin to take the overall lead and staggered through the 1500-meter run in a time just good enough to secure the gold. At the Helsinki Games four years later, Mathias, then a Stanford senior, won the decathlon again, setting a new world record of 7,887 points. (Credit: Getty Images)
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One of the greatest Olympic performers among Stanford students and alumni made her mark before ever setting foot on the Farm. Chris von Saltza (later Olmstead) was a superstar as a teenager, proclaimed in 1958 by Sports Illustrated magazine as America’s best swimmer at the age of 14. Two years after that cover story appeared, von Saltza earned three gold medals and a silver at the Rome Olympics. (Credit: Getty Images)
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Payton Jordan coached Stanford track and field from 1957 to 1979 and helped develop seven Stanford Olympians over that time. In 1968, Jordan coached the U.S. Olympic track and field team to a then-record 24 medals in Mexico City, including the legendary world record long jump by Bob Beamon, which still stands. A stellar athlete in his own right, Jordan was still competing in his 80s and set a world record for his age group in the 200 meters in 1997.
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Misty Hyman was a strong swimmer with considerable success in college and international competition. But her best event, the butterfly, happened to also be the best event of superstar and world record holder Susie O’Neill of Australia. O’Neill had beaten Hyman several times in previous meetings, but something magical happened when they faced off in the finals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Hyman swam the race of her life, shaving two seconds off her personal best and touching ahead of O’Neill in what is considered one of the biggest upsets in Olympic swimming history. Hyman not only set a new Olympic record, she also engraved her name in Stanford lore.
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“It’s been 16 years and people still say, ‘How’s your ankle?’”
Kerri Strug, ’01, MA ’02, in 2012
Strug famously overcame two torn ligaments in her ankle to score a 9.7 on her final attempt on the vault to secure a gold medal for the U.S. women’s gymnastics team at the Atlanta Games in 1996. (Credit: Getty Images)
For obvious reasons, Stanford athletes are more prominent in the Summer Olympics than in the Winter Olympics – the university does not have ski slopes, hockey rinks, or luge runs. (Or snow.) But from time to time, a star emerges in winter sports as well.
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In a span of nine days at the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Games, Heiden won an unprecedented five gold medals, sweeping the entire men’s speed skating slate and setting Olympic records in every event. He returned to Stanford to earn his medical degree, in 1991, and moved on to a career as an orthopedic surgeon. (Credit: Getty Images)
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In her sophomore year at Stanford, in 1988, Thomas became the first African American to win a medal in the Winter Olympics, taking the bronze in figure skating. After retiring from the sport, she earned an MD at Northwestern Medical School and moved into a career as an orthopedic surgeon.
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Representing China, the freeskiing phenom won halfpipe gold, big air gold, and slopestyle silver at the 2022 Beijing Olympics and then added another three medals at the 2026 Milano Cortina Games. Gu left Italy as the single-most-decorated freestyle skier in Games history and, soon after, graduated from Stanford with a degree in international relations. (Credit: Getty Images)
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The freestyle skier made her Olympic debut in the 2022 Beijing Olympics, representing Great Britain. After a disappointing finish, she enrolled at Stanford, where she majored in symbolic systems and leaned into building an identity outside the sport. She returned to Milano Cortina in 2026, where she won bronze in the freeski halfpipe. (Credit: Getty Images)
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