[[File:1972 Summer Olympics medal map.svg|thumb|right|400px|World map showing the medal achievements of each country during the 1972 Summer Olympics<br /> Legend:<br />
represents countries that won at least one gold medal.<br />
represents countries that won at least one silver medal but no gold medals.<br />
represents countries that won at least one bronze medal (no gold or silver).<br />
represents participating countries that did not win medals.<br />
represents entities that did not participate at the 1972 Summer Olympics.]]
The 1972 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad, were a summer multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from 26 August through 11 September 1972. 7,134 athletes representing 121 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) participated, which included 11 teams making their debut at the Summer Olympics: Albania, Dahomey (now Benin), Gabon, North Korea, Lesotho, Malawi, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Swaziland (now Eswatini), Togo, and Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso). The games featured 195 events in 21 sports across 27 disciplines. Kayaking, the canoe slalom, and indoor handball all made their Olympic debuts, while archery returned to the Olympic program after a 52-year hiatus. Athletes from other African nations protested this invitation and again threatened to boycott the games over those policies. Four days before the opening ceremonies, the IOC voted to rescind their invitation and exclude the Rhodesian athletes.
Athletes representing 48 NOCs received at least one medal, with 25 NOCs winning at least one gold medal. Colombia and Niger also won their nations' first Olympic medals of any kind.
Among individual participants, American swimmer Mark Spitz won the most medals at the games with seven, all of which were gold. Spitz also became the record holder for most gold medals at a single Olympic Games, a record that stood for 36 years until American swimmer Michael Phelps surpassed that mark with eight gold medals at the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Medal table
The medal table is based on information provided by the IOC and is consistent with IOC conventional sorting in its published medal tables. The table uses the Olympic medal table sorting method. By default, the table is ordered by the number of gold medals the athletes from a nation have won, where a nation is an entity represented by a NOC. The number of silver medals is taken into consideration next and then the number of bronze medals. If teams are still tied, equal ranking is given and they are listed alphabetically by their IOC country code.
At the 1972 Games, events in boxing resulted in bronze medals being awarded to each of the competitors who lost their semi-final matches, as opposed to them taking part in a third place tiebreaker. Events in judo used a repechage system, which also resulted in two bronze medals being awarded.
In the women's uneven bars, there was a two-way tie for second, resulting in two silver medals being issued and no bronze medal being awarded. In men's football, the third-place match ended in a tie, resulting in both teams receiving bronze medals.
;Key
Changes in medal standings (see below)
Changes in medal standings
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|+ List of official changes in medal standings
|-
! scope="col" | Event
! scope="col" | Athlete ()
! scope="col" |
! scope="col" |
! scope="col" |
! scope="col" | Net change
! scope="col" style="width:50%" | Comment
|-
! scope="row" | Cycling, men's individual road race
| align="left" |
|
|
|–1
|–1
| align="left" | Jaime Huélamo was disqualified for doping violations. New Zealand's Bruce Biddle finished fourth, but was not awarded the bronze due to stipulations that medal winners had to be drug tested. Biddle had tried to get tested following the race on the advice of his team's manager, in the event of a disqualification, but he was turned away. The Belgian team finished fourth, but did not receive the bronze medals because they had not been subjected to drug testing, a requirement for medal winners at the time. Neither athlete who finished third was awarded the silver, which is considered vacant.
|-
! scope="rowgroup" rowspan="4" | Swimming, men's 400 metre freestyle
| align="left" |
|–1
|
|
|–1
| rowspan="4" align="left" | Rick DeMont was disqualified after testing positive for ephedrine, a substance which was found in DeMont's asthma medication. DeMont had declared his asthma medication to the team, but the team had failed to clear it with the IOC, leading to his gold medal being stripped from him.
|-
| align="left" |
| +1
| –1
|
| 0
|-
| align="left" |
|
| +1
| –1
| 0
|-
| align="left" |
|
|
| +1
| +1
|}
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders sortable" style="text-align:center"
|+ List of official changes by country
|-
! scope="col" |
! scope="col" style="background-color:gold" | Gold
! scope="col" style="background-color:silver" | Silver
! scope="col" style="background-color:#c96" | Bronze
! scope="col" | Net change
|-
! scope="row" style="text-align:left" |
| +1
| –1
|
| 0
|-
! scope="row" style="text-align:left" |
|
| –1
|
| –1
|-
! scope="row" style="text-align:left" |
|
|
| –1
| –1
|-
! scope="row" style="text-align:left" |
|
|
| –1
| –1
|-
! scope="row" style="text-align:left" |
| –1
| +1
|
| 0
|}
See also
- List of 1972 Summer Olympics medal winners
- All-time Olympic Games medal table
- 1972 Winter Olympics medal table
- 1972 Summer Paralympics medal table