# 1972 Summer Olympics medal table

The 1972 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad, were a summer multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from 26 August through 11 September 1972. 7,134 athletes representing 121 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) participated, which included 11 teams making their Olympic debut at the Summer Games: Albania, Dahomey (now Benin), Gabon, North Korea, Lesotho, Malawi, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Swaziland (now Eswatini), Togo, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso). The games featured 195 events in 21 sports across 27 disciplines. Kayaking, the canoe slalom, and indoor handball all made their Olympic debuts, while archery returned to the Olympic program after a 52-year hiatus.
Rhodesia had been barred from participating at the 1968 Games due to racial policies and threats by athletes to boycott the event, but in 1971, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) ruled that Rhodesia would be invited to compete at the 1972 Olympic Games. In response, athletes from other African nations protested this invitation and again threatened to boycott the games over those policies. Four days before the opening ceremonies the IOC voted to rescind their invitation and exclude the Rhodesian athletes.
Athletes representing 48 NOCs received at least one medal, with 25 NOCs winning at least one gold medal. The Soviet Union won the most gold medals, with 50, and the most overall medals, with 99. North Korea and Uganda won their nations' first Summer Olympic gold medals, which was the first medal of any kind for North Korea. Colombia and Niger also won their nations' first Olympic medals of any kind.
Among individual participants, American swimmer Mark Spitz won the most medals at the game with seven, all of which were gold. Spitz also became the record holder for most gold medals at a single Olympic Games, a record that stood for 36 years until swimmer Michael Phelps surpassed that mark with eight gold medals at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

## Medal table

The medal table is based on information provided by the IOC and is consistent with IOC conventional sorting in its published medal tables. The table uses the Olympic medal table sorting method. By default, the table is ordered by the number of gold medals the athletes from a nation have won, where a nation is an entity represented by a NOC. The number of silver medals is taken into consideration next and then the number of bronze medals. If teams are still tied, equal ranking is given and they are listed alphabetically by their IOC country code.
Events in boxing resulted in bronze medals being awarded to each of the competitors who lost their semi-final matches, as opposed to them taking part in a third place tiebreaker. Events in judo used a repechage system which also resulted in two bronze medals being awarded.
In women's uneven bars, there was a two-way tie for second, resulting in two silver medals being issued and no bronze medal being awarded. In men's football, the third-place match ended in a tie, resulting in both teams receiving bronze medals.

### Key

‡ Changes in medal standings (see below)
* Host nation (West Germany)
1972 Summer Olympics medal table :
| Rank | NOC | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
| 1 | Soviet Union | 50 | 27 | 22 | 99 |
| 2 | United States‡ | 33 | 31 | 30 | 94 |
| 3 | East Germany | 20 | 23 | 23 | 66 |
| 4 | West Germany* | 13 | 11 | 16 | 40 |
| 5 | Japan | 13 | 8 | 8 | 29 |
| 6 | Australia‡ | 8 | 7 | 2 | 17 |
| 7 | Poland | 7 | 5 | 9 | 21 |
| 8 | Hungary | 6 | 13 | 16 | 35 |
| 9 | Bulgaria | 6 | 10 | 5 | 21 |
| 10 | Italy | 5 | 3 | 10 | 18 |
| 11 | Sweden | 4 | 6 | 6 | 16 |
| 12 | Great Britain | 4 | 5 | 9 | 18 |
| 13 | Romania | 3 | 6 | 7 | 16 |
| 14 | Cuba | 3 | 1 | 4 | 8 |
| 14 | Finland | 3 | 1 | 4 | 8 |
| 16 | Netherlands‡ | 3 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| 17 | France | 2 | 4 | 7 | 13 |
| 18 | Czechoslovakia | 2 | 4 | 2 | 8 |
| 19 | Kenya | 2 | 3 | 4 | 9 |
| 20 | Yugoslavia | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| 21 | Norway | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| 22 | North Korea | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 |
| 23 | New Zealand | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| 24 | Uganda | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 25 | Denmark | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 26 | Switzerland | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 27 | Canada | 0 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| 28 | Iran | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| 29 | Belgium | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 29 | Greece | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 31 | Austria | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 31 | Colombia | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 33 | Argentina | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 33 | Lebanon | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 33 | Mexico | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 33 | Mongolia‡ | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 33 | Pakistan | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 33 | South Korea | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 33 | Tunisia | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 33 | Turkey | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 41 | Brazil | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| 41 | Ethiopia | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| 43 | Ghana | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 43 | India | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 43 | Jamaica | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 43 | Niger | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 43 | Nigeria | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 43 | Spain‡ | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Totals (48 entries) | Totals (48 entries) | 195 | 195 | 210 | 600 |

## Changes in medal standings

List of official changes in medal standings :
| Event | Athlete (NOC) | | | | Net change | Comment |
| Cycling, men's individual road race | Jaime Huélamo (ESP) DSQ | | | –1 | –1 | Jaime Huélamo was disqualified for doping violations. New Zealand's Bruce Biddle finished fourth, but was not awarded the bronze due to stipulations that medal winners had to be drug tested. Biddle had tried to get tested following the race, at the advice of the team's manager, just in case of a disqualification, but he was turned away. |
| Cycling, men's team time trial | Fedor den Hertog (NED) | | | –1 | –1 | Aad van den Hoek was disqualified for doping violations, causing the entire Dutch cycling team to lose their medals, as it was a team event. The Belgian team finished fourth, but did not receive the bronze medal because they had not been subjected to drug testing, a requirement for medal winners at the time. |
| Cycling, men's team time trial | Hennie Kuiper (NED) | | | –1 | –1 | Aad van den Hoek was disqualified for doping violations, causing the entire Dutch cycling team to lose their medals, as it was a team event. The Belgian team finished fourth, but did not receive the bronze medal because they had not been subjected to drug testing, a requirement for medal winners at the time. |
| Cycling, men's team time trial | Cees Priem (NED) | | | –1 | –1 | Aad van den Hoek was disqualified for doping violations, causing the entire Dutch cycling team to lose their medals, as it was a team event. The Belgian team finished fourth, but did not receive the bronze medal because they had not been subjected to drug testing, a requirement for medal winners at the time. |
| Cycling, men's team time trial | Aad van den Hoek (NED) DSQ | | | –1 | –1 | Aad van den Hoek was disqualified for doping violations, causing the entire Dutch cycling team to lose their medals, as it was a team event. The Belgian team finished fourth, but did not receive the bronze medal because they had not been subjected to drug testing, a requirement for medal winners at the time. |
| Judo, men's 63 kg | Bakhvain Buyadaa (MGL) DSQ | | –1 | | –1 | Bakhvain Buyadaa was disqualified for doping violations. Neither athlete who finished third was awarded the silver, which is considered vacant. |
| Swimming, men's 400 metre freestyle | Rick DeMont (USA) DSQ | –1 | | | –1 | Rick DeMont was disqualified after testing positive for ephedrine, a substance which was found in DeMont's asthma medication. DeMont had declared his asthma medication to the team, but the team had failed to clear it with the IOC, leading to the situation which resulted in his gold medal being stripped. |
| Swimming, men's 400 metre freestyle | Brad Cooper (AUS) | +1 | –1 | | 0 | Rick DeMont was disqualified after testing positive for ephedrine, a substance which was found in DeMont's asthma medication. DeMont had declared his asthma medication to the team, but the team had failed to clear it with the IOC, leading to the situation which resulted in his gold medal being stripped. |
| Swimming, men's 400 metre freestyle | Steve Genter (USA) | | +1 | –1 | 0 | Rick DeMont was disqualified after testing positive for ephedrine, a substance which was found in DeMont's asthma medication. DeMont had declared his asthma medication to the team, but the team had failed to clear it with the IOC, leading to the situation which resulted in his gold medal being stripped. |
| Swimming, men's 400 metre freestyle | Tom McBreen (USA) | | | +1 | +1 | Rick DeMont was disqualified after testing positive for ephedrine, a substance which was found in DeMont's asthma medication. DeMont had declared his asthma medication to the team, but the team had failed to clear it with the IOC, leading to the situation which resulted in his gold medal being stripped. |
List of official changes by country :
| NOC | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Net change |
| Australia (AUS) | +1 | –1 | | 0 |
| Mongolia (MGL) | | –1 | | –1 |
| Netherlands (NED) | | | –1 | –1 |
| Spain (ESP) | | | –1 | –1 |
| United States (USA) | –1 | +1 | | 0 |