On Tuesday, one country at the Olympics had a particularly good day.
Its womens gymnasts won the team event in a rout. The womens rugby team took an unexpected bronze medal and went viral. The swimmers won four of a possible five medals in two individual races and a relay.
Related: Paris Olympics 2024 medal table
Several of the countrys rowers got through their heats and remained in medal contention. Several of the teams tennis players won their matches, and the BMX freestylers strutted their stuff in qualifiers. The mens volleyball team remained unbeaten, the mens water polo team got a bounce-back win, and the mens soccer team stormed into the knockout rounds. The country isnt known for table tennis, but its players improved their record in Paris to 5-1.
For most countries, thats a great day.
At the Olympics though, the US is not most countries.
US fans arent used to looking up at South Korea, France, Australia, China and Japan in the medal table. Though 3×3 basketball is a relatively new Olympic sport, theyre not used to seeing the women and men lose on the same day to Germany and Serbia, respectively. And theyre a little puzzled to see a mens surfing competition in which no US men are into the quarter-finals.
On one hand, the medal count that showed the USA in sixth place at noon Paris time on Wednesday (the sheer number of events means positions may have changed slightly by the time you read this) is the version that sorts the table by gold medals. But, as is the custom in the US, the table is sorted by total medals, the Americans were top by a wide margin, with 26 medals to Frances 18 and Chinas 14, at the start of Wednesdays events.
Out of the 206 Olympic teams in the Games, maybe 200 of them will celebrate any medal as a massive achievement. Its mostly in the United States in which the reaction to a silver or bronze medal is often, oh, thats too bad. And the debate over whether to sort the medal table by gold medals or total medals is a hot topic in much of the world on social media, though most US residents and fans simply shrug.
(To be completely pedantic, the best way to gauge overall strength would be a sliding scale with five points per gold, three per silver and one per bronze. Through Day 4, the USA led with 64 points to Frances 56, Chinas 50, Japans 45, Australias 43 and Great Britains 38. Or someone can rank countries by the top eight in each event in fact, veteran Olympic sports journalist Rich Perelman does that now.)
For the most part, USAs results arent a surprise. Multiple projections before the Olympics had the Americans far ahead in total medals but in a close race in gold medals, with China most likely to be out in front early thanks to diving and shooting. Track and field, where Team USA usually dominated, starts around the halfway point of the Games.
Yes, the US swimmers seem unlikely to repeat their performance from Tokyo, when they claimed 11 gold medals. But theyre only a couple of gold medals behind the most reasonable projections. No one should be surprised that Summer McIntosh, Léon Marchand and Ariarne Titmus are winning gold medals that the USA had claimed in past years.
So far, no US athletes have missed out on gold medals in events they were clearly favored to win. Ryan Murphy was one of the favorites in the 100m backstroke, having won in Rio eight years ago, but his bronze medal wasnt a shock. Carson Foster had good credentials in the mens 400m individual medley, but no one was beating Marchand in that final. Even the mighty Katie Ledecky wasnt the favorite in the womens 400m freestyle.
The gold medals Team USA have won, aside from womens team gymnastics, were mild to moderate surprises. The US mens 4×100m freestyle relay improved from bronze at last years world championships to gold this year. Last year, Torri Huske and Gretchen Walsh were third and eighth in the womens 100m butterfly; this year, they took gold and silver. Lee Kiefer was the defending champion in womens foil fencing, but only two fencers in Olympic history had pulled off back-to-back gold medals in the event. Yet, she delivered.
Related: South Koreas coolest markswoman Kim Yeji shoots to fame after Paris Olympics
Among the USAs 26 medals through Tuesday, many may not have been shocks but were far from certain. Kassidy Cook and Sarah Bacon in synchronized diving. Haley Batten in mountain biking. The mens gymnastics team. The womens rugby sevens team. Lauren Scruggs, the runner-up to Kiefer in fencing.
Other athletes lived up to lofty expectations. Jagger Eaton and Nyjah Huston in mens street skateboarding. Chloé Dygert in the crash-filled womens cycling time trial. In swimming, despite taking only two gold medals, the US team has 15 medals more than every countrys entire Olympic contingents through day four aside from the hosts, France.
None of this is to suggest that US fans should be overjoyed by overachievement across the board. Whatever boxing judges are looking for, the US men arent delivering. US shooters are having a down year. Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula bowed out of womens tennis singles far too soon, though theyve teamed up on one of the five US doubles teams that have posted a combined 6-0 record so far. The heralded, experienced 3×3 basketball teams looked befuddled in their debuts Tuesday. Everyone in the USA is suddenly a surfing expert, dissecting why John John Florence and Griffin Colapinto are out.
But were still not looking at enough data to suggest that the USA will fall far short of expectations in Paris if there are widespread US failures in track and field and in teams sports like basketball then maybe we need to reassess. And most countries would be celebrating both the continued achievement of their veterans (Ledecky, Murphy, Eaton) along with a lot of newly emerging Olympic stars Batten, Scruggs, Cook and Bacon, Stephen Nedoroscik, Fred Richard, Alex Sedrick, Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss. In most countries, the rest of the world wouldnt be eagerly waiting for them to fail by taking only a silver or bronze.
But, in the Olympics, the US is not most countries.