U.S. and China in Race for Most Gold Medals in Final Days of Olympics

The USWNT has a chance to add to the total in the match against Brazil, while men’s basketball faces host country France for the Olympic title.

U.S. women's soccer seeks to bring home a gold medal for the first time since 2012 in Saturday's final against Brazil. / Reuters-USA TODAY Sports

It’s Day 15 of the Olympics, and we are down to almost exclusively medal events. This is the time every four years when fans start taking an even closer look at the overall medal table, so I figured I’d make note of that here in the intro to my daily viewing guide.

The United States has a comfortable lead in total medals with 111, a total of 28 ahead of China. But the U.S. and China are deadlocked at 33 gold medals with just two days left.

The U.S. has a few gold opportunities Saturday, with both the men’s basketball and women’s soccer teams playing in the finals. American Nevin Harrison is also the defending champ in her canoe sprint event, and the U.S. could pick up more medals on the track. Not to mention, Rose Zhang is playing in the final group of the golf tournament (with Nelly Korda not too far behind), and three wrestlers could set up opportunities to win medals Sunday. 

But China has opportunities of its own, of course, including the women’s team table tennis finals, diving and artistic swimming.

Whatever happens, I’ll be breaking it down on Sports Illustrated’s Daily Rings, my daily podcast with Dan Gartland. We will have two more daily recaps and then one final episode to wrap up the whole Olympics, so it’s not too late to join us.

Here’s what I’ll be watching Saturday, August 10.

This is not a comprehensive list; visit Olympics.com for a full schedule. All events will stream live on Peacock. I’ll also be tweeting out a schedule of medal events, Team USA games and other favorites each day.

My Day 15 Olympics viewing guide!

Almost all medal events, so I tweaked the format and broke out USA medal chances #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/KTlxH82km9

— Mitch Goldich 🐙 (@mitchgoldich) August 10, 2024

Basketball

The U.S. men’s basketball team is coming off a dramatic comeback win against Serbia, earning a spot in the gold medal game against France. This is a rematch of the gold medal game from Tokyo, which the U.S. won (though remember France did beat the U.S. in group play three years ago).

This time around, France will have the home crowd on its side— and Victor Wembanyama. The game will start at 3:30 p.m. ET.

Soccer

As mentioned above, the other U.S. squad playing for gold Saturday is the U.S. women’s soccer team. The U.S. has won gold four out of eight times since women’s soccer became an Olympic sport, but the Americans have not brought one home since 2012. They won bronze in Tokyo. 

The USWNT’s opponent in the final will be Brazil, and the game starts at 11 a.m. ET.

Golf

Saturday is the fourth and final round of the women’s golf competition. All eyes coming into the event were on American star Nelly Korda. The No. 1 in the world shot two under par Saturday to pull within five shots of the lead.

Zhang is in the mix for a medal entering to the fourth round of the women's individual stroke play in Paris. / Katie Goodale-USA TODAY Sports

But it’s another American, Rose Zhang, who had an eagle on the 18th hole to get to 7-under. She is two shots off the leaders, Lydia Ko and Morgane Metraux, and will play with them in the final group, which tees off at 6:39 a.m. ET.

Lightning round

Saturday is the final day of track and field (before they get the stadium ready for the closing ceremony). There are eight more medals to hand out at the 1 p.m. ET session, in this order: men’s high jump, men’s 800 meters, women’s javelin, women’s 100-meter hurdles, men’s 5,000 meters, women’s 1,500 meters, men’s 4X400-meter relay and women’s 4X400-meter relay.

While we’re on the topic of running: The men’s marathon started at 2 a.m. ET, which was a bit too early for this column, but you can catch the women’s race at 2 a.m. ET Sunday.

The U.S. women’s water polo team saw its streak of three straight Olympic gold medals come to an end in the semifinals. But the team will play for a bronze (and a seventh straight Olympic medal) at 4:35 a.m. ET against the Netherlands.

As I mentioned in the intro, Nevin Harrison is the defending Olympic champion in the 200-meter canoe single. Medal races start at 6:40 a.m. ET, and her race is at 7:40.

If you missed the debut of breaking Friday, you can catch the B-Boys Saturday. The first round starts at 10 a.m. ET and runs through the finals at 3:19.

Handball finals! Two medal games will finish out the women’s competition: Denmark–Sweden for bronze at 4 a.m. ET and Norway–France for gold at 9 a.m. ET. 

It’s a big day for U.S. wrestling. Kyle Dake will have a match for bronze in the afternoon session. Zain Retherford, Kyle Snyder and Kennedy Blades all have chances to progress through their brackets Saturday for a shot at medals Sunday.

And finally, teams from Sweden and Germany will meet in the men’s beach volleyball finals at 4:30 p.m. ET, which should be the final event of the second-to-last day.