USA athletes competing in the just-ended 2016 Paralympic Games took home 115 medals – 40 gold, 44 silver, and 31 bronze – but most Americans don’t know about the haul due to scant media coverage of the world’s third-largest sporting event behind the Olympics and the World Cup.
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“I send my good wishes to all those who have contributed to the success of these memorable Games”.
It was the first time an athlete has died during competition in the 56-year history of the Paralympic Games.
In London, Reilly won gold in the marathon, silver in the 5000m and bronze in the 1500m.
Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes handed the Paralympic flag to International Paralympic Committee president Sir Philip Craven, who then handed it to Tokyo governor, Yuriko Koike.
In all, 43 African countries participated in the 15th edition of the Paralympic Games, which had 2,347 medals up for grabs in the games.
Among the first performers was Jonathan Bastos, a Brazilian who was born without arms but has became an accomplished musician, playing instruments with his feet.
The Rio Paralympics were the most successful for Belgium in sixteen years.
The penultimate day of the Rio 2016 Games saw Team SA earn their final three medals, with Dyan Buis emulating fellow South African Wayde van Niekerk by winning gold in the 400m T38 final while setting a new Games record in a time of 49.43 seconds.
Carlos Nuzman, President of the Rio Olympic and Paralympic Organizing Committee, said that the Games had been a success despite the troubled build-up to the event.
Television viewing figures for the Games reached an all-time high, according to paralympic.org, with organizers expecting the cumulative global TV audience for the event to top four billion people. The country won more medals in athletics-33 in total.
And Brazil’s Daniel Dias claimed an historic 24th medal in the pool, sending locals into a frenzy which capped the Games and acted as an antidote to the domestic political, corruption and economic scandals that afflicted the build up. In terms of the total of medals, another best-ever performance: 19, two more than in London 2012.
Paralympics GB finished second overall in the medal table, behind China and ahead of Ukraine.
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One of Turkey’s Rio gold medalists was female weightlifter Nazmiye Muratli who broke a world record by lifting 104 kilograms in the women’s 41-kilogram powerlifting category. The Fourth to tenth positions were taken by the US, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Brazil, Italy and Poland.
