Following the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, the President of the European Commission Romano Prodi issued a press release congratulating EU athletes for their success, and stating that he hoped to see teams in the 2008 Beijing games carrying the EU flag as well as their own national flags. His chief spokesman, Reijo Kemppinen , commented that the EU had "swept the floor in the Olympic Games", with nearly three times as many medals as the United States, which topped the medals table. These comments caused some controversy, being ridiculed by some Eurosceptic newspapers.

The following tables illustrate the comments.

Medal counts

Medals won by athletes of EU member states

Rank	NOC Name	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Germany	14	16	18	48
2	France	11	9	13	33
3	Italy	10	11	11	32
4	Great Britain	9	9	12	30
5	Hungary	8	6	3	17
6	Greece	6	6	4	16
7	Netherlands	4	9	9	22
8	Sweden	4	1	2	7
9	Spain	3	11	5	19
10	Poland	3	2	5	10
11	Austria	2	4	1	7
12	Slovakia	2	2	2	6
13	Denmark	2		6	8
14	Czech Republic	1	3	4	8
15	Lithuania	1	2		3
16	Belgium	1		2	3
17	Ireland	1			1
18	Latvia		4		4
19	Portugal		2	1	3
20	Finland		2		2
21	Slovenia		1	3	4
22	Estonia		1	2	3
	Cyprus
	Luxembourg
	Malta
	Total	82	101	103	286

At the conclusion of the Athens games, European Union President Romano Prodi commended the work of European athletes at the Games, and stated he believed the Union would compare favourably against frontrunners like the United States if the EU instead competed as a unified team.

Analysing the result of combining teams

Comparing the EU's aggregate count to that of any single National Olympic Committee (NOC) needs to be done carefully, because athletes and teams qualify for the Olympics on a per-NOC basis. Certainly, simulations that might be made in the future would add to the picture. But at the moment, it can be noted that:

• EU states may "sweep the medals" in men's handball, while such a result would be impossible if only one pan-EU team participated; similarly, Australia may only qualify three swimmers per event no matter how many in its top-class national training programme meet the Olympic qualifying time standard, while the EU can qualify that number of swimmers per country per event (theoretically up to 75; realistically perhaps 20 — still therefore offering a better medal chance for the EU state swimmers). This applies more to the overall total of medals than to the gold medals which can in general be obtained only by the best athletes or teams.

• Conversely, if there only was one EU nation, since each nation can qualify three athletes per event, there would be trials like in the US. Therefore only the three best EU athletes would compete, and the final result would be about the same: if the top three spots are now won by three different European nations, they would be won by the same three athletes. Other reasons are: the EU could put together competitive teams in, for example, Kabaddi where individual states may not; a smaller number of participating athletes, in the hypothesis of a single NOC, is no certainty for many less medals, as there is, as in other fields, a law of decreasing return between the volume of inputs (number of participants) and the volume of outputs (medals obtained); thirdly, the smaller combined team would have access to more resources for training, equipment, diet, facilities and support staff.

See also

• Sports in the European Union
• 2004 Summer Olympics medals count by International Organization
• 2000 Summer Olympics medal productivity, giving a different view of the most successful nations

External links

• EU Medals table
• Calcutta Telegraph story on EU 'victory'