China traditionally vie with the United States for top spot in the Games medal table.
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At the colorful closing ceremony, which opened with schoolchildren singing Brazil’s national anthem, Rio will pass the Olympic flame to Tokyo for the 2020 Games.
The Rio Olympics began on 5th with a spectacular rendition of Brazil’s past and ended today with a carnival-inspired Closing ceremony that celebrated the same.
Coached by former top player Lang Ping, China last won the gold in 2004. “They were games in a city where there are social problems and social divisions”. That places Australia ahead of the dominant U.S. team, who won 46 gold at a rate of one gold medal per 6.98million people, but behind our sporting rivals Great Britain (27 gold at 1 per 2.4m) and New Zealand (4 gold at 1 per 1.1m).
Phelps won six medals, five of them gold, to increase his career haul to 23 Olympic titles and 28 medals overall.
Bolt 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. Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky delivered under the burden of enormous expectations.
Eight other nations earned their first Olympic gold medal: Bahrain in the women’s steeplechase, Fiji in the men’s Rugby Sevens, Ivory Coast and Jordan in the men’s taekwondo, Kosovo in women’s judo, Puerto Rico in women’s tennis, Tajikistan in men’s hammer-throwing and Vietnam in men’s shooting.
“Got ’em”, Felix said, smiling.
Mark Cavendish won his first Olympic medal with silver in the omnium despite causing a crash in the final event, the points race. But the significance in Rio were the sheer amounts of hardware.
Or the residents of a notorious Rio slum who watched one of their own win Brazil’s first gold, in the judo arena.
But Blackmun was thrilled by the results, and he wasn’t the only one leaving Rio happy.
After two weeks of awesome moments, the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio will come to and end tonight. “One just hopes the lessons are learned”. Gold, silver, bronze. The atmosphere has been brilliant. “We’ll have a much stronger domestic team than we saw here and for political reasons I think China will want to make a strong statement in Japan”.
The Russians and the Chinese probably didn’t feel the same.
For China, the world’s most populous country, it was the worst Olympics for 20 years – especially sobering after topping the standings at Beijing 2008 and finishing second in 2012. Russian Federation – with its track team told to stay home because of the doping probe and a cloud hovering over its athletes who were in Rio, some of whom got publicly called out by competitors – finished with 19 golds and 56 medals overall, both well below its normal showings.
But the games also were marred by the bad behavior – and concocted stories – of Ryan Lochte and his US swimming teammates.
American teenager Lilly King beat Yulia Efimova to 100m breaststroke gold after calling out the controversial Russian, who has served a doping ban.
“I stand by what I said”, King said.
There were plenty of positives for others, however.
Great Britain have claimed an incredible 27 gold medals this summer – one more than China, who only have one athlete left to compete at the Games.
Team USA won gold in both Men’s & Women’s Basketball.
“My biggest regret in life is that I was not able to spend time with my mother, especially when she was sick”, Lang said.
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“To anybody making the decision going forward, I would just ask them, were you in Rio on Sunday?”, Rose said, after beating Stenson by two strokes in front of a sold-out gallery.
