Team GB record lowest gold medal tally in 20 years – but superstars are born in memorable Paris Olympics

Team GB may have picked up their lowest Olympic gold medal haul since Athens 2004 – but it has still been a hugely successful Paris 2024 Games.

British athletes scooped 14 gold medals in the City of Love, which left them seventh in the overall standings – their lowest position in 20 years.

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USA finished top of the standings with 40 gold medals – ahead of China on total medals won – with Japan third after claiming 20 golds.

However in terms of Team GB‘s total medals collected, they amassed a whopping 65 to leave them in third spot.

An incredible 131 British athletes found themselves on the podium in Paris across 18 different sports.

Impressively, it is more than the 64 they managed in Tokyo three years ago.

Their haul of 65 just two fewer than the 67 they picked up at Rio 2016, which was Team GB’s best medal tally since the 146 they scooped in the London 1908 Games.

And they have won the same amount of medals as what Team GB achieved at London 2012 – and 14 more than at Beijing 2008.

Though in contrast, Team GB won more gold medals in each of the last four Olympic Games.

In Japan, British athletes won 22 golds, 27 came at Rio 2016, 29 at London 2012 and 19 at Beijing 2008.

You have to go back two decades at Athens in 2004 for Team GB to have picked up fewer golds than in Paris, having won nine in Greece.

But while there was disappointment in the swimming pool, on the track and at the velodrome, a number of superstars made it a Games to remember.

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Keely Hogdkinson eased to 800m glory to become Britain’s first gold Olympic medallist in athletics in eight years.

Meanwhile track cycling star Emma Finucane won one gold and two bronzes in Paris to become the first Team GB woman to win three medals in a single Games since 1964.

And no-one will forget Alex Yee’s epic triathlon gold, where he overtook New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde in the closing stages, before scooping a bronze in the mixed relay.

He is now the most successful Olympic triathlete in history, having won gold in the mixed relay at Tokyo and silver in the individual event.

For trampoline gymnast Bryony Page, it was third time lucky as the 33-year-old finally ended with gold around her neck after a silver at Rio and bronze at Tokyo.

Yee and Page’s Olympic heroics saw the pair named as Team GB’s flagbearers for the closing ceremony, which took place at Stade de France on Sunday night.

Elsewhere, Tom Pidcock defended his gold medal from Tokyo in the Men’s cross-country mountain biking event, with Nathan Hales and Tony Roberts triumphing in the Trap Men’s Shooting and Men’s combined climbing events respectively.

Team GBs only gold medal in the pool came in the 4x200m Freestyle Relay, while three were won in rowing, two were picked up in equestrian, with Ellie Aldridge coming out on top in the women’s Kite.

Meanwhile British legends Adam Peaty and Katarina Johnson-Thompson – along with opener ceremony flagbearers Tom Daley and Helen Glover – all won silver at Paris 2024.

Legendary decathlete Daley Thomspn, who the gold medal for Team GB at both Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984 – waxed lyrical over Britain’s athletes.

Speaking to talkSPORT, he said: “I really think the performances of the Olympians have been unforgettable.

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“The sportsmen and women, they never let you down, and they always perform incredible feats.”

Meanwhile sprinter Adam Gemili, who represented Team GB at London, Rio and Tokyo, believes more funding in athletics is needed to produce the next set of stars.

He told talkSPORT: “There’s not enough funding for our sport, and publicity and exposure.

“It’s great, every four years we fill a stadium, every morning and evening session and people have the appetite for it.

“The people in charge just need to give us the events that we can sell so we can put someone like a Keely out there to inspire a new generation to come through.”

Attention now turns towards Los Angeles in 2028, where you can be sure Team GB will once again be amongst the mix at the top of the meal table.

And you can expect a number of Team GB’s silver and bronze medals from Paris will be turned into glittering gold in the City of Angels.