Norway wins 18 gold medals at the Winter Olympics, more than any other country in history
Despite its small population, the Scandinavian country has led the medal table at a third consecutive Winter Olympics.
The closing ceremony of Milano Cortina 2026 took place at the Verona Arena on Sunday, bringing an action-packed 16 days of half-pipes, heroic comebacks, and heated rivalries to a close.
But, as the 93 participating countries celebrated one of the most watched and talked about Games ever, the final tallies across a record 116 events saw one nation come out on top for a third consecutive Winter Olympics by total medals, and a fourth in a row by gold medals.
This year’s Games saw Norway notch an impressive 18 gold medals, the highest number achieved by any country in Winter Olympics history, bringing its total medal count to 41. Meanwhile, Team USA came in second place on both measures, with 12 golds and 33 medals in total.
Norway’s victory is all the more impressive considering that the Scandinavian country’s total population is under 5.7 million, which is roughly 2% of the ~342 million people in the US and slightly less than the population of Colorado alone.
This brings Norway’s number of medals per 10 million inhabitants to a massive 73.6 — several orders of magnitudes greater than host country Italy, as well as sporting superpowers like China and Germany. And, even with Norway’s massive oil fund making it one of the wealthiest countries per capita in the world, the country manages a lot of podium positions in relation to its relatively small GDP. Indeed, only Slovenia comes close to the Nordic nation on the economy-adjusted leaderboard.
Boosting Norway’s count considerably was cross-country skier Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, who became the first athlete in history to win six gold medals at a single Winter Olympics... and while another Norwegian athlete, Sturla Holm Lægreid, won five medals in all, he might be better remembered for a more personal loss.
Winter lovin’
The results of Milano Cortina 2026 bring Norway’s total medal count across all Olympic Winter Games to 447, the most of any country, followed by the US at 363. Even so, America still dominates the Summer Olympics, counting 2,765 medals in total at warmer-season events — more the double the Soviet Union’s 1,010 in second place.
