Gold medal winners among the flag bearers from other nations included 4ft 9in gymnastics superstar Simone Biles from the US, and South African runner Caster Semenya.
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The ceremonies closed with IOC President Thomas Bach calling on all athletes to meet in four years in Tokyo and the symbolic handing over of the Olympic flag to Tokyo’s governor Yurio Koike.
Arriving in Brazil to political crisis, economic strife and fears over Zika virus, Team GB smashed the target of 48 medals to make Rio 2016 its best “away” Games.
The Olympic flame was extinguished, symbolising the official end to the Games. They finished with 46 Gold followed by Great Britain on second spot with 27 Gold and China on third, with a tally of 26 Gold.
Brazil and the world bid farewell Sunday to the first Olympic Games in South America, a 16-day spectacle that combined numerous highlight reel moments with ugly and even weird episodes that sometimes overshadowed the competitions.
Fireworks explode above the Maracana stadium during the closing ceremony for the Summer Olympics, seen from the Mangueira slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2016.
The Olympic Games were held in 33 different places of Brazil where more than eleven thousand athletes of 205 countries participated in the event.
A showcase of the Japanese capital included Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, dressed as computer game character Super Mario, popping out of a green pipe that he allegedly used as a shortcut to get from Tokyo to Rio.
Theresa May, who said she had been watching the Games when she could, paid tribute to the “determination, dignity and true sportsmanship” of Team GB.
In doing so he became one of the faces of Rio 2016 – as did U.S. gymnast Simone Biles, the 19-year-old winning four gold medals. He charmed Brazil and its people, and when he said “I’m the greatest” it was impossible to disagree.
Overall, the return of ten medals from the swimming pool was the same as it was in London four years ago, but this was a much better effort when you consider there were two more gold medals as well as a first individual male champion in any discipline since Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett in Athens in 2004.
The previous record for US medals at a fully attended Olympics was 110, set at Beijing eight years ago.
“These Olympic Games are leaving a unique legacy for generations to come”. On the men’s side, Kohei Uchimura lived up to his “Supermura” moniker by guiding Japan to team gold and then becoming the first gymnast in 44 years to win back-to back Olympic all-around titles.
The hosts finished 13th in the medal table with 19 medals, seven of which were gold.
India ended the Games at 67th position with one silver and a bronze. It allowed him to avenge his London 2012 defeat by Chad le Clos, who had since said he would break Phelps’s world records in Rio, and Phelps’s celebrations afterwards suggested he had enjoyed putting the younger man in his place.
Swathes of empty seats caused disquiet but the Games also witnessed the last hurrahs of both Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps, who both lived up to their billing. Now, 80 years on, Biles made history when she was given the opportunity.
A low point for Rio came when Ryan Lochte, one of America’s most decorated swimmers, said he was robbed at gunpoint.
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A bit of melancholy and unbridled joy converged at the closing ceremony of the 2016 Olympics on Sunday as Brazil breathed a collective sigh of relief for having pulled off South America’s first Games. “We compete like human beings, like the others”.
