Rio 2016: Good Olympics with few hurdles

Giving Brazil the Olympics was a controversial decision from the beginning, and there was a lot of discussion as to whether or not the country was ready to host the biggest sporting event in the world. Pollution, crime, the Zika virus and the Russian doping scandal were among the top stories before Rio started. But, in the end, Brazil showed us that they are all about dance, fun, happiness, and did deliver a fantastic spectacle, with record breaking performances.

BIGGEST EVER

Rio saw a record 205 countries participating in the games including, for the first time, Kosovo and South Sudan, as well a Refugee Olympic Team and Independent Olympic Athletes. There were 17,000 athletes (more than 45% women) competing in 306 events in 28 sports, including Golf and Rugby Seven for the first time.

ATHLETES OF ALL KINDS

The diversity of athletes at the Olympics was huge:

• Brazilian gymnast Flavia Saraiva was both the shortest and tiniest, she is only 1.33m and 31kg
• Li Muhao, Chinese basketball player was the tallest, at 2.18m
• Romanian Judo contestant Daniel Natea was the hugest, he is 170kg!
• Nepalese swimmer Gaurika Singh was the youngest, only 13 years old
• The oldest was 62-year old equestrian, Julie Brougham, from New Zealand.

HIS MAJESTY MICHAEL PHELPS

Michael Phelps proved once again that he is one of the best athletes in the history of sport. He became the most successful Olympian of all time by winning 5 gold and 1 silver medal at Rio which gives him total of 28 medals, of which 23 are Gold! If he was a country he would be on 16^th place of all time Olympics medal table!

He was only defeated in the 100m butterfly by Singaporean Joseph Schooling. The story of these two goes back to 2008 when 13 year old Jospeh met his idol for the first time.

USAIN BOLT AND ATHLETICS

Jamaican sprinter completed a ‘triple-triple’ and is the first runner to win 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay on 3 consecutive Olympics. There is no reason to disagree with him when he said “I am the greatest“.

While organisers were fighting to fill venues because of extremely high ticket prices, we were watching incredible performances by Wayde van Nierkerk’s going for gold and breaking a 17 year old world record on 400m, Mo Farah doing a double-double and a ‘lady’ with high testosterone named Caster Semenya

GOLDEN GIRL FROM OHIO

19 year old Simone Biles was one of the biggest surprises, and definitely the biggest star of social media, after dominating the Artistic Gymnastic competition by winning 4 gold and 1 bronze medals. She is already taking lessons from Phelps how to carry so many medals.

TEAM SPORTS

As expected the USA basketball team won another Gold after not giving even a small chance their opponents. Things were looking different at the Football tournament where favourites Brazil, with Neymar in their squad, had very slow start but eventually grabbed the gold by beating Germany in the final.

You can see how much Gold means to Neymar

Neymar set a new world record for the Fastest goal in an Olympic football match (14 seconds)

 FROM USA TO UAE

The USA dominated the Olympics once again by winning 121 medals, however Great Britain surprised everyone and finished second beating China and Russia. Kosovo and Puerto Rico celebrated their first gold medal ever at the Olympics.

Monica Puig with first Gold for Puerto Rico!

WORLD RECORDS

27 World Records were broken at Rio 2016. American swimmer Ledecky claimed two of those on 400m and 800m freestyle. Polish hammer Anita Wlodarczyk was the only one to break her own record, while Ethiopia’s runner Almaz Ayana beat a 23 year old record on 10000m.

SHOW MUST GO ON

Rio showed us that passion and emotions have no limit in sport, but some athletes took this too another level.

Japanese wrestler Risako Kawai slammed her coach after winning gold – hopefully he was ok .

Sometimes you feel that it is too hot in Arena, but the Mongolian coach must have been on fire when he stripped in protest.

BEST MOMENTS

The Olympics are not only about competitiveness, there is a lot more that makes this event one of the best in the world.

And she said YES!

True Olympic spirit

At least was not yellow.

And at last BBC presenter Dan Wilson having an awkward moment on Live TV… Love is in the air.

TOKYO 2022

Rio 2016 was a bigger success than critics expected it to be, however there will be still a lot of discussion as to whether this was a good choice or not.

The Olympic flag was handed to Tokyo which will be hosting the 2022 Olympics. We can definitely expect to see more organisation and better technology and it’s already assumed, by many, to better than Rio 2016, but is it not too soon to make judgments?

Let’s wait and see what Japan has to offer.

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