Countries without Olympic medals – Article on Culture Archive
There are 206 National Olympic Committees that are recognized for participation in the Olympics. Did you know that over 70 of them have never won a single medal? I could not believe it. When I can’t believe some fact, I make a video about it because it’s just a reflex for me at this point. So let’s count down the 10 most surprising countries without Olympic medals.
10: Bolivia
Bolivia. Let’s start this one with a bang. Are you as shocked as I am that Bolivia has never won a single medal at the Olympics? It’s a country of over 12 million people. They have the unfortunate distinction of being the only South American country to never medal. It’s so sad and it’s made even more surprising by the fact that, other than the 1980 boycott of the Olympics in Moscow, Bolivia has sent athletes to every Summer Olympics since 1964. And if we’re really being honest here, they’ve never actually been close. The most successful Bolivian at the Olympics, the one who came closest, was named Angela Castro. She finished 18th out of 74 athletes in the 20 km race walk in 2016. So I guess congratulations Angela, but I hope you get beaten in the near future.
9: El Salvador
Similar to Bolivia, El Salvador has been at just about every Summer Olympics for the last 60 years or so, yet somehow the podium has eluded them. I guess it’s a little less surprising when you realize they’ve never been in the Winter Olympics. That’s not surprising, but this still seems odd. They’ve never medalled. That being said, I think El Salvador is going to get this monkey off their back because they have been very close before. They had one athlete come in fifth at one of the cycling events in 96 in Atlanta and another athlete finished 8th in a shooting event in the 2008 games in Beijing. Plus, they’ve had some other meaningful athletes compete in things like track and field, swimming, and wrestling. So I think it’s just a matter of when, not if, they bring home the hardware.
8: Cayman Islands
Since 1976, the Cayman Islands have been represented at the Summer Olympics and, heck, they were even in the Winter Olympics, if you can believe it, in 2010 in Vancouver. For those curious, it was an athlete in Alpine skiing, which is wild because if you’ve ever been to Cayman, you know that not only do they not have snow, they don’t have mountains.
So I don’t get this. However, despite all of those games and all of those times, they are still sitting on a goose egg for medals—a big fat zero. You might think this makes sense given that they’re a small island in the Caribbean with a small population, but lots of other small Caribbean islands have won medals at this point. Cayman is relatively too. So it’s not money that’s the problem. I personally think that Winter Olympic stuff is a distraction. So, player strength guys, let’s stick to the summer stuff.
7: Malta
Interestingly, Malta has competed at most of the Summer Olympics since 1928. Unlike some others on this list, they have been very, very close multiple times to winning a medal. Perhaps the most agonizing is the case of trap shooter William Chikudi, who’s good enough to win World Championship events in this sport. However, he missed the Olympic finals in 2004, 2008, and 2012 by a super slim margin. He was really that close. Like Cayman, it’s a fairly small island with a fairly small population, but it’s also a well-off nation. So you would have expected some athlete to have enough resources to break through by now. But alas, not yet. Hope springs eternal though.
6: Brunei
Athletes to win medals, it was Brunei. Heck, this country is rich enough that they could just have bribed their way to the podium by now, but unfortunately, they still have zero medals to their national name. It’s clear that the Olympics are not a national priority for Brunei. They’ve only ever sent a few athletes to the Olympics, and they didn’t even send a female participant until 2010. Unreal. Most of their athletes who did get in had to be granted special status by the IOC. It’s basically a kind gesture for inclusion, as the athletes didn’t even qualify individually based on their times and scores. So while there are a few countries on this list that will probably win medals in the not-so-distant future, Brunei seems a long way off from that.
5: Cambodia
that this is a country of over 17 million people, I thought they’d have gotten one on the board by now. They’ve participated in 10 Summer Olympics, going all the way back to 1956, but unfortunately, they are still sitting on zero. In fairness to the athletes of Cambodia, it is not all their fault. The country did not send a single athlete to the Olympics from 1972 until 1996 because of the absolutely horrific regime of the Khmer Rouge.
However, they’ve been at the games ever since. Good to have you back, Cambodians. However, as far as Olympic medals are concerned, the future is not looking so great. In 2020, in Tokyo, for the most recent Summer Olympics, they only sent three athletes: two swimmers who placed 52nd and 65th in their events, and a men’s 100-meter runner who finished sixth in his heat and did not advance. So a medal for Cambodia may be a long wait indeed.
4: Aruba
Now, in fairness to Aruba, some of this is explained by the fact that until 1988, they competed with the much larger Netherlands Antilles. But even with that larger group, there wasn’t exactly a lot of success. Ever since sending their own athletes for nearly 30 years, Aruba still has zero medals. I’m actually surprised that there haven’t been some sailing medals won by Aruba by now, since Aruba is known for an amazing tradition of sailing. For some reason, sailing is still an Olympic event. This is a small side, but it is so dumb that sailing is an event. I even did a whole video on Olympic events that shouldn’t be in the games, and obviously sailing is on that list. But hey, it might be Aruba’s best shot at a medal, so I won’t criticize it too hard.
3: Oman
Eight Summer Olympics for Oman, zero medals at the Summer Olympics for Oman. A little surprising, to say the least. The main reason that this one surprised me is that pretty much all of the other Gulf countries have won medals at this point. It’s not like it’s a regional issue or anything. Even though all of the other Gulf nations are small countries with small populations, they have still won medals. Sadly, not Oman.
2: Madagascar
Population of more than 42 million people, so this has surely got to be just a matter of time, right? Right. Number two: Madagascar. The current population of Madagascar is over 28 million people. I didn’t even realize it was that big. But you know what? No one in Madagascar has an Olympic medal. They’ve been at all but two of the Summer Olympic Games since 1964, but they have yet to receive any hardware. Sadly, they haven’t really gotten close in recent years.
They had a couple of brothers who were weightlifters, and they each came 11th in their events. So, not totally far off, but not really close either. The best performance by a Madagascar athlete has got to be from the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City when they actually had an athlete make the finals of the men’s 100 meters, which is one of the marquee events in not just track and field but the whole Olympic Games. Unfortunately, this guy finished eighth. I wonder if on that fateful day anyone in Madagascar could have imagined that that was the closest they would ever come to an Olympic medal.
1: Bangladesh
It is the eighth most populated country in the world. It has 170 million people and yet it has zero Olympic medals. They’ve competed at every Summer Olympic Games since 1984 in Los Angeles, and the number of athletes they’ve sent has stayed relatively constant. But alas, no one has cracked through. While it’s surprising that with so many people and athletes Bangladesh is yet to medal, it’s actually really easy to explain. The country is unbelievably poor.
It lacks even basic infrastructure for life, let alone Olympians, and its institutions are plagued by chronic corruption. Just imagine; there’s probably a world-class athlete that we’ll never see perform all because that athlete is from Bangladesh. So, to my friends in Bangladesh, I hope this changes soon. Well, Outro. There it is. What a list. As I said at the outset, there are more than 70 countries that have never won an Olympic medal, and I only covered 10 of them. One-third of the competing countries have never won any medals.
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