The 2016 Rio Olympics have officially come to an end, with the closing ceremony taking place on Sunday evening. The games may be over but what an eventful and exciting couple of weeks it has been for the competitors, spectators and all of the fans watching around the world.
Here are just some of the most memorable moments from the Rio Olympics.
Success for Team GB
The 2016 Rio Olympics proved to be the most successful games ever for Team GB, leaving ourselves here at LifeConnect24, and the entire country, feeling immensely proud of our athletes. The record books have been completely re-written.
Team GB finished in second-place overall, ahead of the super-power that is China, with 67 medals. This included 27 Gold Medals, 23 Silver Medals and 17 Bronze Medals. This is the highest medal-count ever for Team GB – two more than the London Olympics in 2012.
Britain has become the first nation ever to have bettered their medal haul at the games that immedietly follows a home Olympics. In-fact, Team GB only failed to win a medal on two of the 15 days that the Olympics were on!
Triple Triple for Bolt
There is just no stopping Usain Bolt – This man is literally too quick for all of the other athletes out there! In his final-ever Olympic games, the 30-year-old completed the ‘Triple Triple’ as he completed the full swoop of 100m, 200m and 4x100m Relay Gold Medals once again – Making it nine golds from three Olympics.
Such was Bolt’s dominance, he even managed to smile for the cameras as he edged away from his rivals in the 100m semi-final. Even a “bad” start does not stop the Jamaican, as he soon gets back into his rhythm and dominates the track.
Bolt will certainly be missed at the Tokyo Games in four years time. His athletic ability and his personality make him one of a kind on the athletics track.
Mo Time
Whilst Bolt was the king of the ‘short’ distance events, Britain’s Mo Farah once again dominated the long-distance races. Farah became only the second-ever athlete to complete the “double double” after retaining the 5,000m and 10,000m Olympic titles.
It didn’t always go to plan for Farah though, especially in the 10,000m final when he tripped over midway through the race. There were concerns beforehand that some of the other runners could use ‘interesting’ tactics to try and stop Farah – although this was clearly an accident.
He didn’t let it phase him though and with the early race pace being quite slow, Farah was able to pull away from his nearest rival on the final lap to take another Gold Medal.
Olympic Spirit
Who says that sportsmanship is no more? We saw the true Olympic spirit shine through in one of the heats for the women’s 5000m race. In the intensity of the race, New Zealand’s Nikki Hamblin and America’s Abbey D”Agostino collided on the track.
Rather than simply getting up and carrying on Hamblin stopped to help her fellow competitor, who it was later revealed had torn her anterior cruciate knee ligament. Both runners helped each other back up and they both finished the race.
Both were handed places in the final but D”Agostino was understandably unable to compete. The fact that compassion was shown in such a high-profile event shows that sportsmanship is still present in the Olympics.
Green Water
Well that can’t be safe! The colour of the water at the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre turned from the traditional aquatic blue to a murky, and disturbing, green colour. The water became a real concern for the divers, with many questioning whether or not the pool had been treated correctly overnight.
The Rio Olympics organisers eventually blamed the chemical levels in the water but it certainly became a huge talking point during the games and the images will forever be associated with the 2016 games.
Super Mario
The iconic moments from Rio continued right through to the final moments of the closing ceremony. Per tradition in the closing ceremony, the next hosts of the games come forward and ‘take over’ control of the games.
We all remember when David Beckham kicked the football off the top of a London bus in Beijing. The 2020 Olympics will be held in Tokyo so it was the turn of Japan to advertise the beginning of their Olympic adventure.
This included the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, appearing in the closing ceremony dressed as video gaming legend Super Mario!
