South Korean golfer Park In-bee shows her gold medal at Incheon International Airport in Incheon on August 23, 2016, as she returns home from the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
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Brazilians came to the closing ceremony happy, many wearing the canary yellow jersey of the nation’s sports teams, having won two late gold medals in their two favourite sports, men’s soccer and volleyball. The instinctive look of apology that flashed across Danish swimmer Pernille Blume’s face when her gold and bronze medals clanked together and sent a jarring noise across a press conference room – where many others would have felt their achievements gave them a free pass to behave however they liked – was just one such example. The International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, officially closed the Games, saying that “These were marvellous Olympic Games in the marvellous city”. Facebook partnered with NBC Olympics team to bring live videos from the games to its platform. Its economy has been ravaged by a commodities collapse while a sweeping corruption scandal has ensnared the construction companies building infrastructure for the Games and swept Lula’s leftist Workers Party from power.
In a final symbolic act, the Olympic flame, which has been burning since August 5 was then extinguished with an artificial rain and the curtains came down on the 17-day sporting extravaganza, the Greatest Show on Earth.
“Four years later, somehow I became an Olympic medallist, so if I could inspire one person to turn up at the track, or take up sport or try a bit harder at training I’d be over the moon because sport, and the power of us and what we do, relies on national interest”.
But the beauty was betrayed by Brazil’s tough times. And, he said, advertisers are looking at more than just the top line numbers. The American added the 4x200m relay gold as a bonus.
Earlier, the glory belonged to Bolt, 29, who made history when he sealed the sprint “triple triple” in his final Games, reaching a record-equalling nine gold medals with his third consecutive 100m, 200m and 4x100m sweep.
State media labelled the Games as China’s “worst Olympic flop” and cited Britain’s spending as the reason Team GB toppled them on the medal tally.
But Sunday’s party was all about Brazil, created to be more low-key than the opening, which focused heavily on Rio. But Lochte’s story quickly unravelled, enraging Brazilians and Americans alike. Security fears, which prompted the deployment of 85,000 police and security for the Games, were also proved wrong – there was no major attacks of the kind seen recently in Europe.
Hopefully, Tokyo can do even better in 2020.
Cleverley, who plays her football for Eastern Suburbs, said it was honour to be around athletes of such a high calibre to learn from the best.
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The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry also sent a letter to the British sports stars hailing their achievements as they described the team as an “inspiration to us all, young and old”. “Not only have the Games gone well, Brazil is doing well, too”. Many Rio residents could not afford tickets to events, leaving them feeling on the sidelines of the city’s biggest undertaking.
