Paris Olympics 2024: Which sports award bronze medals to both losing semi-finalists?

Winning an Olympic medal is a proud and career-defining moment for any athlete. Standing on the podium is one of the most significant achievements in an athlete's career, representing the culmination of years of hard work, dedication, and sacrifice.

Though the gold and silver medals are straightforward in most Olympics sports, awarding bronze medals varies in different sports. While most sports hand out bronze medals to the third-best athlete, there are a few exceptions to awarding bronze medals to both losing semi-finalists in sports such as martial arts, mainly judo, taekwondo, karate, boxing, and wrestling, at the Summer Games.

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Boxing has been awarding 2 bronze medals to losing semi-finalists since 1952 Olympics

In boxing, both losing semi-finalists are awarded with a bronze medal each. Till the conclusion of the London Olympics in 1948, boxers used to compete in a bronze-medal match to determine the bronze medalist.

However, since the start of the Helsinki Olympics in 1952, the International Boxing Association (IBA) stated that there would be too little time for recovery for the losing semi-finalists between their semi-final and a bronze medal playoff. For the same reason, both losing semi-finalists were awarded a bronze medal.

In karate, there are two forms namely Kumite and Kata. Kumite uses a direct elimination system and both losing semi-finalists are given a bronze medal.

However, in Kata, after the initial elimination round, six athletes advance to a ranking round and are divided into two groups of three athletes each. While the group winners storm into the gold-medal bout, the four remaining athletes fight for two bronze medals.

Meanwhile, a few sports like judo, taekwondo and wrestling use the repechage system to hand out bronze medals for its athletes at the Games.

In wrestling repechage rounds, a separate draw including the losing semi-finalists and the athletes who lost to eventual finalists in the Round of 16 and quarters, are made.

The losing Round-of-16 athletes and quarter-finalists compete against each other and the winner of each draw then competes against the losing semi-finalists to win bronze medals in their respective draws. Taekwondo also follows the same process in repechage rounds.

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