Man shut the hell up. The US is at the top because we are at least competitive in damn near everything. You take any individual event and there are other countries who can fare better but the fact that we are in everything……..competitively………gives us the edge.
For example we only won 1 more gold medal in swimming than Australia. But Australia is trash in everything except swimming so we destroy them in medals.
Korea is miles better than us in shooting and and archery.
Japan is good in men’s gymnastics.
Etc…….
We also have LOADS of individual wealth compared to those nations. Americans can spend time on sports because we can afford it for the most part.
And our diversity means we have multiple cultures involved in our sporting culture.