Sports in the United States for the United States. U.S. athletes have won a total of 2,522 medals (1,022 of them being gold) at the Summer Olympic Games and another 305 at the Winter Olympic Games. Most medals have been won in athletics (track and field) (801, 32%) and swimming (553, 22%). American swimmer Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympic athlete of all time, with 28 Olympic medals, 23 of them gold. The United States has sent athletes to every celebration of the modern Olympic Games except the 1980 Summer Olympics hosted by the Soviet Union in Moscow, which it boycotted because of the
Independent Olympians at the Olympic Games Independent Olympic Participants. Macedonian athletes could not appear under their own flag because their National Olympic Committee (NOC) had not been formed. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) was under United Nations sanctions which prevented the country from taking part in the Olympics. However, individual Yugoslav athletes were allowed to take part as Independent Olympic Participants. 58 athletes competed as Independent Olympic Participants, winning three medals. The former Soviet Union competed under the Olympic flag at the 1992 Winter Olympics and 1992 Summer Olympics as a Unified Team. At the 2000 Summer Olympics, four athletes from East Timor