When the U.S. Women's Soccer team won the gold medal over Japan, maybe the most impressive aspect was that it took them over ten hours of actually playing time across six matches, including a grueling semifinal match against Canada that went more than 120 minutes.
At the other end of the spectrum, Usain Bolt needed to run three races (prelim, semifinal, final) to win the gold medal in the men's 100 meters. That took a total time of 29.6 seconds of actual competition. And in each case, their respective countries are credited with a single gold medal in the medal standings.
Below we looked at some of the more popular athletes and events at the Olympics and compared the amount of time spent competing was required to win the respective medals...
Each event includes time required for all preliminary rounds leading up to the final. Women's volleyball is estimated based on the beginning and ending times of each of their matches, does not account for time between sets. Women's soccer includes stoppage time for each game.