1988 Summer Olympics medal table
The 1988 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXIV Olympiad, were held in Seoul, South Korea, from September 17 to October 2, 1988. A total of 8,397 athletes from 159 NOCs competed in 237 events across 23 sports and 31 disciplines. Table tennis made its Olympic debut, and tennis returned after being dropped after 1924. In total, athletes from 52 NOCs won medals, and 31 NOCs won at least one gold.
The Soviet Union led the medal standings, with 55 golds and 132 total medals. Individual highlights included Kristin Otto of East Germany, who won six gold medals in swimming—the most by any athlete at these Games. Matt Biondi of the United States won seven medals (five golds, one silver, one bronze), the most ever at a single Olympics, tying a record set by Mark Spitz.
Suriname won its first Olympic gold medal and first Olympic medal of any kind. First medals also went to Costa Rica, Djibouti, Indonesia, the Netherlands Antilles, Senegal, and the United States Virgin Islands.
Medal tables are sorted by the number of gold medals, then silver, then bronze. If still tied, countries are listed alphabetically by their IOC country code.
Some events produced extra bronze medals due to the competition rules: boxing awarded bronze to both semi-final losers, judo used a repechage system with two bronzes, and gymnastics had several ties leading to multiple medals in certain apparatus. There were also ties outside gymnastics in events like the men's high jump and the women's 50-meter freestyle that created additional bronze medals.
Host nation: South Korea.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 23:24 (CET).