Answer & explanation
The official answer, with Fermi’s reasoning step by step.
Answer & explanation
Official answer
145
gold medals
How to estimate it
Fermi’s official “Napkin math”
South Korea is a country of about 50 million. They own archery and taekwondo and they clean up in short track, but they are not a sports juggernaut. They became a serious contender in the 1980s, so counting summer and winter both, call it 20 Olympics since then. How many golds at each one? Say 7.
- Olympics since the 1980s, summer and winter
- ~20
- Golds each time
- × 7
- 20 × 7
- ≈ 140
Rounded assumptions may give a slightly different estimate. The official answer above is the game’s reference value.
Source calculation & reference
- Summer Games (through Paris 2024)
- 109
- Winter Games (through Milan Cortina 2026)
- + 36
- 109 + 36
- = 145
Reference cited by Fermi: All-time Olympic medal tables for South Korea (109 Summer golds through Paris 2024, 36 Winter golds through Milan Cortina 2026)
How close was your guess?
Your comparison will appear here.
Compare by ratio: divide the larger number by the smaller one. The closer to 1×, the better.