The United States won both the first and the last gold medals of Rio – Virginia Thrasher won the women’s 10m rifle shooting event on August 6, and the USA men’s basketball team, featuring NBA All-Stars, blew out Serbia 96-66 Sunday for the gold. Winning medals in Rio still matters, but the Olympics are also about having fun.
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The country came in third place in the gold medal count at the 2016 Summer Games, trailing the United States and Great Britain.
At one end of the age spectrum was 58-year-old Nick Skelton, wining showjumping gold in his seventh Games, and at the other the youngest member of the entire Great Britain delegation, Amy Tinkler, who took an unexpected bronze in the women’s floor final at the age of just 16.
Although China’s performance at the Rio Olympics fell short of expectations, Wang stressed the medal tally only reflects China’s performance in one Olympics but not the country’s sports development.
Brazil also won gold in the women’s 57-kilograms judo event, men’s beach volleyball and women’s 49er FX sailing, among other sports.
Perhaps we all just “overexaggerated” the problems.
The honour of bearing the Indian flag came to Sakshi as silver medalist shuttler P V Sindhu had left yesterday as about 50 Indians, including the men’s and women’s hockey teams, the wrestlers and boxer duo of Shiva Thapa and Manoj Kumar, participated in the athletes’ parade. “And the quote of the American runner when she helped up her competitor, to say ‘Get up, we have to finish, this is the Olympic Games.’ I think you can not better describe Olympic spirit and fair play than with this gesture and these words”.
“The Rio Games were very special and we’re incredibly happy to be where we are from a results standpoint and celebrating the success of our athletes”, said USOC CEO Scott Blackmun. “They really affect how I feel about myself in my daily life and my sports activities”, said Beijing resident Wang Guoyuan.
Claressa Shields became the first American boxer to earn two Olympic titles Sunday when she won a unanimous-decision victory over Nouchka Fontijn of the Netherlands in the women’s middleweight final. But many in China still see winning gold as the most important task for Olympic athletes, because they say the athletes have been trained with huge amounts of taxpayer money.
Mike Tirico, Mary Carillo and Ryan Seacrest will host NBC’s coverage of the Closing Ceremony, with Heather Cox and Lewis Johnson joining them as reporters.
The stated goal was to grab at least 10 golds and finish among the top 10 in the medal race.
When this year’s games began in Rio, state media lamented the lack of golds on the opening day, but Chinese sports fans stayed nonchalant. In London, Chinese athletes still took away 38 gold medals and were second only to U.S. Olympians.
But Sunday’s party was all about Brazil, created to be more low-key than the opening, which focused heavily on Rio.
Some of Brazil’s biggest celebrities and performers were on hand to play a role in the Rio 2016 opening ceremony, with model Gisele Bundchen among them, and the curtain call will aim to put on a show of similar quality.
“These Olympic Games are leaving a unique legacy for generations to come”.
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While the outside world has scrutinized Brazil this month, South America’s largest country has spent the last two years in merciless self-examination, after the boom years of the mid-2000s went bust, financially, politically and morally. Host country Brazil were at 13th position with 7 Gold, 6 Silver and 6 Bronze.
