No one can agree on when Team USA will win their 1000th gold medal

The United States has 10 gold medals so far in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, bringing it ever closer to 1,000 in Olympic history.

According to Olympic historian Bill Mallon, the 10 gold medals gives the U.S. 986 golds. You can do the math to get to 1,000.

But that’s where it gets complicated. The U.S. might need as many as 15 or as few as 13 gold medals to reach 1,000.

That’s because, to Mallon's surprise, no one can agree on how many gold medals the U.S. has won.

Mallon entered the 2016 Games thinking the U.S. had 975 gold medals. But Gracenote, the sports statistics company formerly known as InfoStrada, reported the U.S. had 977.

Mallon contacted the organization, and the two parties worked together to back up their counts. Sure enough, both found an extra gold for the U.S. Mallon detailed the findings on his blog.

Still, Mallon was two short.

The difference — Mallon found — was Julius Lenhart, who won two gold medals at the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis.

Lenhart, it turns out, was Austrian, not American — a point proved in the 1970s.

The Olympics were significantly different in the Games’ early days — they were longer, less organized, and mostly featured athletic clubs, not nations, in team competitions.

(In some ways, the Games haven’t changed at all. The 1904 Games were marred by water quality issues.)

Lenhart was part of an athletic club from Philadelphia that won gold in the team gymnastics competition. Because of that, Mallon determined that medal came from a mixed team and cannot be attributed to the United States.

That, combined with the removal of Lenhart’s individual all-around gold from the U.S. category represents the gap between Mallon and Gracenote. It’s hard to argue with his logic, but the “official” count remains.

The U.S. will almost certainly reach 1,000 gold medals at some point in these games, but when that moment actually comes will be up for debate — all because of an Austrian gymnast who lived in Philadelphia.

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Thanks to the legendary Les Carpenter for bringing this story to our attention.