Team USA close in on 1,000 summer Olympic gold medals. Or is it only 999?

Sometime in the next few days the United States will win their 1,000th summer Olympic gold medal. It could happen on Friday. It could happen over the weekend. There’s an outside chance the moment will come until early next week. But when it does, US Olympic Committee officials in Rio will celebrate the occasion with a ceremony at USA House.

If only they knew which gold it would be.

The sticking point is that the US has a problem with their 1,000th gold medal. It may not be their 1,000th but rather their 999th or maybe their 1,001st. As with much of history, it’s a matter of interpretation and the primary interpreters cannot agree. Bill Mallon, a former professional golfer, orthopedic surgeon and leading Olympic historian who now works for the USOC, has spent the last four years believing the US had 975 medals. Then he noticed that Gracenote, an international sports statistics conglomerate, had the US at 977.

Mallon was confused. He emailed Gracenote and in an account he reveals on his blog Olympstats.com and the two parties began sharing their data. Mallon found he had forgotten to credit the US for a gold in a previous Olympics, pushing his number to 976. But, by then he was two off of Gracenote which added credit to the US for an archery gold at the 1904 St Louis Olympics, making their total 978. Eventually the two historians found their discrepancy. It was also in 1904 that an Austrian gymnast named Julius Lenhart won two golds while competing for the US.

For Mallon, the Lenhart issue has always been simple. “They were won by a guy who was Austrian and wasn’t American,” he said on Monday in the USOC offices here in Rio.

And yet here is where things get complicated. The St Louis Olympics were essentially a farce, such an outrageous joke that there have been movements to eliminate them from the record completely. They were originally awarded to Chicago, but moved to St Louis because the city was hosting the World’s Fair that year and wanted the Games to be a part of the exhibition. As a result, the events weren’t really an Olympics but rather a series of sporting contests held sporadically over five months.

In those days, the Olympics weren’t a competition between nations but rather a battle between amateur sporting clubs from different countries. Many of the European clubs blanched at the cost and ordeal of traveling to the American midwest. This meant the vast majority of the participants (526 of 651) were from the US. Predictably, the US won 239 of the 280 total medals awarded, with 78 of those gold.

To realize just how ridiculous the St Louis Olympics were, consider that the US swept the water polo competition with the New York Athletic Association, Chicago Athletic Club and Missouri Athletic Club finishing first, second and third respectively.

Lenhart, the Austrian gymnast, was a member of the Philadelphia club Turngemeinde and thus was accepted as an American until the 1970s, when an Austrian researcher clarified Lenhart’s true nationality. Olympic historians transferred his individual gold to Austria and Philadelphia Turngemeinde’s team all-around gold was considered a “mixed gold, meaning it doesn’t count toward any team’s medal count.

“Gracenote said they were US medals because he participated for a US club,” Mallon says.

So now Mallon was stuck. His correspondence with Gracenote’s historians was friendly but the two sides had reached an impasse. Mallon didn’t want to back off his 976 and Gracenote weren’t going to give up on 978. With the Rio Games about to start, USOC officials begged for a resolution. “We didn’t want to have to tell some guy he was the 1,000th gold medal winner and then have everyone come back and say he wasn’t,” one US executive said this week.

Gracenote’s sportsdesk manager Chantal Janssen said in an email on Wednesday they recognize the official records of the IOC site Olympic.org, which still credit Lenhart with two golds in 1904. But even that is complicated. Mallon says the IOC uses three sets of data – two of which come from him. The IOC is expected to streamline their figures to favor Mallon’s records but won’t do so until after the Olympics. That meant it was up to Mallon or Gracenote to end the impasse.

“Until the IOC decides otherwise we will stick with the official data from Olympic.org,” Janssen wrote.

The easy solution would be to go with the IOC’s official count, but Mallon says the IOC uses three sets of data – two of which come from him. The IOC is expected to streamline its records but won’t do so until after the Olympics, meaning it was up to Mallon or Gracenote to end the impasse.

Last week Christy Cahill, the USOC’s associate director of communications, went to Mallon and said: “We have to do something here.”

Mallon thought about what he could do. Finally, he came up with a solution. “I conceded [Lenhart’s] team gold to the US since five of the six members were from the US,” he says with an expression that does not convey a belief he did the right thing.

But on the individual gold Mallon was firm. Lenhart was an Austrian which means he wasn’t an American. He will not count Lenhart’s gold. He had moved to 977 and would go no higher.

And since Mallon is the USOC’s official Olympic historian, the USOC has decided to go with his figure. The 1,000th US summer Olympic gold winner can be certain they will forever have an honor no other American can ever claim.

In fact, the athlete in question will be the only 1,000th summer Olympic gold medal for quite sometime, if ever. Going into these Olympics, the US held an insurmountable 582 gold medal lead over the defunct Soviet Union – a bulge no doubt inflated by 78 golds in 1904. The closes existing nation was Great Britain who came to Rio 742 medals behind.

Or was it 743?

Or 744?

All because of Julius Lenhart, who died in Vienna in 1962, with no idea the trouble he would eventually create.