Team GB secured its 1,000th ever medal in sporting competition at the Olympic Games today as Ethan Hayter, Daniel Bigham, Charlie Tanfield and Ethan Vernon secured a silver medal in the cycling men’s team pursuit at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Of the 1,000 medals, 360 of them have been won since the advent of National Lottery funding and the Nagano 1998 Olympic Winter Games.
British and Northern Irish athletes have competed at every single Olympic Games since 1896, when the modern Olympic Games first took place in Athens. The country’s first Olympic champion in 1896 was Launceston Elliott, who won the one-handed lift in weightlifting.
The Great Britain and Northern Ireland team still have the distinction of being the only nation to have won a gold medal at every edition of the summer Games since.
Coming into the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the team had competed in 29 summer editions of the Olympic Games – as well as the 1956 Equestrian Olympics – and 24 winter editions of the Olympic Games.
The nation’s Olympians have now won 313 gold medals, 339 silver and 348 bronze across all summer and winter editions of the Olympic Games.
Of the 1,000 total medals, 34 of them have been won at the winter editions of the Olympic Games. The number doesn’t include medals won in arts competitions in Games between 1920-1948.
Skateboarder Sky Brown – who is representing Team GB at Paris 2024 – became Team GB's youngest-ever summer Olympian, as well as Team GB's youngest ever Olympic medallist at the age of just 13 years and 28 days when she won bronze at Tokyo 2020.
Jerry Millner is the oldest Briton ever to have won an Olympic gold medal at 61-years-of-age, a distinction he achieved at Bisley in 1908, when he won the free rifle event with a score of 98 points out of a possible 100.
Jason Kenny remains Team GB’s most successful Olympian with nine medals to his name, including seven gold medals and two bronze.
However, swimmer Duncan Scott, competing at the Paris 2024 Games, is closing in on Kenny. Glasgow-born Scott secured a gold and silver medal in swimming at La Defense Arena, taking his overall tally to eight medals, and making him Scotland’s most decorated athlete.
Mark England, Team GB’s Chef de Mission at Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024, said: “Watching the men’s team pursuit win silver to secure Team GB’s 1,000th medal this evening was incredibly special. I have been lucky enough to witness a number of Team GB medal moments and I hope there are many more to come in Paris over the coming days.”