The Olympics have become dominated by American women

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In a world where sports are still dominated by men, the biggest sporting event of them all was dominated by American women.

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Team USA topped the Rio medal charts with 121 medals overall, 51 more than any other country. Of those, 53% were won by the American women despite female athletes still only making up 45% of the overall competitors. This was the second-straight Summer Olympics in which the women represented a majority of the American medals.

In fact, if the American men and women were their own countries, the 61 medals won by the U.S. women in Rio would have ranked third overall, behind only China (70) and Great Britain (67). The U.S. men (55) would have ranked fifth. The 27 gold medals won by the women would have tied Great Britain for first.

Here is a look at the percentage of U.S. medals won over time by the women (no including mixed-gender sports and events).

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Cork Gaines/Business Insider

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