Actual U.S. haul: 147 Olympic gold medals

The numbers have been much ballyhooed, that the United States won the most medals at the 2012 Summer Games - 46 gold, 29 silver and 29 bronze, for a grand total of 104 hunks of shiny hardware.

But every member of each victorious team sported a personal gleaming medallion, which raises the question: Was each one counted among the oft-reported tally?

Nope, that 46 golds is the number of events won.

The actual medal handout was much higher: 147 gold, 63 silver and 46 bronze, for a total of 256, according to a Team USA list at nbcolympics.com (http://ow.ly/cVyEi).

The United States won 15 team golds in all sorts of sports: women's 4x100 and women's 4x400 track relays, men's and women's basketball, women's beach volleyball, women's soccer, women's team gymnastics, women's eight rowing, men's and women's 4x200 freestyle and 4x100 medley swimming relays, men's and women's doubles tennis, and women's water polo. (To see london2012.com's complete breakdown of U.S. medals, go to http://ow.ly/cVzzf. Click on plus-sign inside red dot at end of each row to expand to see medaling events.)

The biggest haul was 18 for the women's soccer team, followed by 13 for water polo, and a dozen each for the basketball teams. Beach volleyball and doubles team awarded just two apiece.

Pumping up the total were athletes, mostly swimmers, who participated in qualifying heats, but not the finals. They still get medals, even though they didn't take the trip to the podium for the National Anthem.

That leaves 31 golds awarded to Americans for individual performances.