Andy Murray and Justin Rose rubbished suggestions their sports have no place on the Olympic programme, with the Scot adding to his Wimbledon title with a thrilling final win over Juan Martin Del Potro, and Rose a worthy victor of a golf tournament stripped of most of its star names due to unfounded health fears.
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Team GB have collected 27 gold, 23 silver and 17 bronze medals, finishing above China in the medals table. The Americans would follow up with 10 medals a day later and break double digits again on August 20, winning medals in track and field, basketball, triathlon, boxing, diving, taekwondo, volleyball and wrestling.
The team entered the Maracana for Sunday night’s closing ceremony riding high on their success, the occasion infused with a relaxed party atmosphere that showed on the faces of the delighted stars.
“Rio 2016 will be remembered as a history-making Olympics for Britain, one where we took more medals than we have ever done at an overseas Games”.
Luckily for the United States, it was mostly good news coming out of Rio.
But Ledecky wasn’t the only woman to dominate the Olympics wearing the red, white and blue.
Whether it was Michael Phelps extending his own Olympic records by winning five golds and six medals overall, Katie Ledecky annihilating the competition with five medals (four golds, one silver), Lilly King making her Russian rival look foolish or Simone Manuel becoming a star with a gold of her own, U.S. swimming was among the most successful teams in Rio.
The medal Brazil wanted the most was men’s soccer.
And Bill Sweeney, chief executive of the British Olympic Association said: “The whole team has worked incredibly hard to give our athletes the best possible platform to perform, from our prep camp in Belo Horizonte and sites around Rio to the work that Mark England and his team did in the village to make that a real home from home for the team”. They surpassed that 2012 tally when the women’s 4x400m relay team won bronze in the penultimate track event of the 2016 Games. The previous 61 American track-and-field sweeps dating from 1904 were all in men’s events.
The success of athletes including Mo Farah, Nicola Adams, Jason Kenny and Laura Trott spurred the team into second place in the official medal table, ahead of China.
These American women earned all three medals in the 100 meter hurdles event, becoming the first USA track and field athletes (men or women) to accomplish the feat in a single event.
Team GB’s most successful sport once again with 12 medals, six of them gold, after domination in the velodrome.
Great Britain’s Mo Farah won his fourth Olympic gold as he became only the second man to retain the 5,000m and 10,000m titles. After receiving his third gold medal following the game, Carmelo Anthony became the most decorated male in Olympic basketball history. He won six in Rio, while Biles and USA swimmer Katie Ledecky each won five to lead to lead a big haul from American women.
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There is no formal cap on the number of honours available for Team GB’s Olympic athletes and coaches, Downing Street has said.
