The nation performed inconsistently in the pre-World War-I period, primarily due to fielding considerably fewer athletes than host countries, with the exception being the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri, where the U.S. achieved its largest medal haul in history, a record that still stands today.

In 1952, the Soviet Union made its Olympic debut, initiating a state-sponsored approach to international sport focused on projecting socio-political superiority.

The rapid rise of the Soviet Union to challenge the United States as a leading Olympic power raised questions and suspicion about the means used to achieve this, including the pretense of professional athletes having amateur status and allegations of state-sponsored doping.

[14][15] A bright spot for the United States was the 1984 games in Los Angeles, where the U.S. set a record for most gold medals won in a single Olympics (83), buoyed by the Soviet-led boycott.

Hosting the games in 2002 boosted the U.S. winter sports program; since then, the country’s athletes have performed consistently well, never placing below fourth in the medal count.

James Connolly became the first modern Olympic champion by winning the triple jump, and Thomas Burke won three gold medals in various track events, assuming the title of the most successful athlete of the 1896 Games.

[18] Robert Garrett won two gold medals in the discus throw and shot put events, demonstrating American strength in athletics.

At the 1900 Paris Olympics, the U.S. team featured 75 athletes, a significant increase compared to 1896, but still considerably less than the French hosts, who fielded 720 competitors.

Controversy surrounding the supposed amateurism of athletes led to Thorpe's medals being rescinded due to his involvement in semi-professional baseball.

Several notable American athletes participated in the 1920 Antwerp Olympics, including future legendary figures like swimmer Duke Kahanamoku.

Johnny Weissmuller, who later gained fame as an actor playing Tarzan, secured two gold medals in swimming at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics.

Throughout these years, track and field remained a cornerstone of Team USA's success, highlighted by standout performances such as Babe Didrikson's achievements.

American swimmers continued their tradition of excellence, with Helene Madison winning three gold medals in the women's freestyle events (100m, 400m, and 4x100m relay).

Lastly, the 1932 Olympics were significant as they were held during the Great Depression, and the success of American athletes provided a morale boost to the nation.

In water polo, the Americans struck bronze, tying the eventual gold medalists, the Soviet Union, in the final round.

The event was held on the last day of the swimming program, and the American women were risking being deprived of gold for the first time in U.S. Olympic history.

The victory was somewhat overlooked at the time, but since the early 1990s, when public revelation of the doping program began, the American gold medal is considered to be one of the sport's most improbable upsets.

However, no threat to Eastern Bloc athletes was ever discovered, and the athletes from the Eastern Bloc country that did attend the 1984 games in Los Angeles—Romania—encountered no problems, and in fact were widely cheered above all other visiting nations at the Opening Ceremonies when they marched into the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (Romania ended up finishing second in the medal table at the Games).

[49] The 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics marked the first time that the Games were broadcast in multiple channels simultaneously, offering viewers a variety of events to watch.

With a silver in the women's team final and bronze in the individual uneven bars Lee left Tokyo with an impressive three Olympic medals.

Recent major champion Nelly Korda followed the winning ways of compatriot Xander Schauffele to take home gold in the women's golf competition.

Notable successes included Jessie Diggins becoming the first American female skier to win individual cross-country medals, figure skater Nathan Chen breaking the short program world record en route to the Olympic gold medal in the men's singles, Erin Jackson becoming the first black female athlete to win speed skating gold, and Chloe Kim defending her title in the snowboarding women's halfpipe.

The Soviet Union entered teams of athletes who were all nominally students, soldiers, or working in a profession, but all of whom were in reality paid by the state to train on a full-time basis.

Following the race, the IOC stripped him of his gold medal[67] after his post-race urinalysis tested positive for traces of the banned substance ephedrine contained in his prescription asthma medication, Marax.

[68][66] In 2003, Wade Exum, the United States Olympic Committee's director of drug control administration from 1991 to 2000, gave copies of documents to Sports Illustrated that revealed that some 100 American athletes failed drug tests from 1988 to 2000, arguing that they should have been prevented from competing in the Olympics but were nevertheless cleared to compete; among those athletes were Carl Lewis, Joe DeLoach and Floyd Heard.

[69][70][71][72] Before showing the documents to Sports Illustrated, Exum tried to use them in a lawsuit against USOC, accusing the organization of racial discrimination and wrongful termination against him and cover-up over the failed tests.

The USOC claimed his case "baseless" as he himself was the one in charge of screening the anti-doping test program of the organization and clarifying that the athletes were cleared according to the rules.

[76] Exum's documents revealed that Carl Lewis had tested positive three times at the 1988 Olympics trials for minimum amounts of pseudoephedrine, ephedrine, and phenylpropanolamine, which were banned stimulants.

[73] Fellow Santa Monica Track Club teammates Joe DeLoach and Floyd Heard were also found to have the same banned stimulants in their systems, and were cleared to compete for the same reason.

"[73] Following Exum's revelations the IAAF acknowledged that at the 1988 Olympic Trials the USOC indeed followed the correct procedures in dealing with eight positive findings for ephedrine and ephedrine-related compounds in low concentration.