Curtain comes Down on Rio 2016 Olympic Games
That’s it for another 4 years having been glued to my TV for last 16 days flicking from one sport to another next week I can begin to get back to some normality and trading – for the next few weeks at least!
As a big cycling fan it was great although no huge surprise to see the GB track cycling team perform so well at Rio 2016 and bring the largest haul of medals home – with the same number of Gold and Silver medals than all 13 other teams combined.
This was just one part of an all-round fantastic and much better performance than expected by the whole GB team who collectively have won more medals in total than at any other previous Olympic games also becoming the first nation to ever improve its medal tally in the following games after hosing!
Even our gold medal count only fell two short of what was achieved on home soil in London 2012.
Outside of the accomplishments in the velodrome I had several favourite moments the most recent coming on the last evening of the track and field which saw the last Gold medal awarded to Mo Farrah for winning the 5000m which completed his double double (5000m & 10’000m in 2012 & 2016) and apart from a large group of hardcore GB supporters who gathered in the area of the stadium near the podium the rest of the stadium had by now emptied for the last time before the closing ceremony.
Other stand out moments for me include seeing Adam Peaty winning our first gold medal and also breaking the WR in doing so, Jade Jones complete her own double double in Judo and Matt Whitlock winning not one but two golds on the same day and of course the golden couple of Jason Kenny and Laura Trott picking up 5 golds between them and seeing Laura become the most successful GB female athlete of all time and Jason becoming joint top male alongside former team mate Sir Chris Hoy.
This chart that shows the top seven gold medal winning countries at the summer Olympic of all-time and how they have each performed since 2000-2016
It’s not hard to spot the most improved country largely due to the reason outlined in a recent video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x6dw3LHaNw
It was mentioned in this video at Atlanta in 1996 team GB won just one gold medal, only 12 years ago GB where still bottom of these seven countries but in Rio 2016 have just achieved their highest ever finishing position of 2nd. So the big question is – How long before team GB can take over the US and claim the top spot on the Olympic table?
In all the games themselves where toughly enjoyable and if I now had to pick any one drawback it will have been the lack of supporters at each of the events, with at a lot of venue’s especially in the early days seeing as few as 20% of the capacity being filled and even on the final night of the track and field events on Saturday evening they struggled to fill the stadium despite practically giving the tickets away by this point. So unless major steps are undertaken and very quickly when the para-Olympics starts in a few weeks the level of support is going to go back to being practically non-existent which will be a shame for both the games and for all those athletes taking part in what will be the biggest moments of their careers.
I really enjoyed the Para-Olympics especially in 2012 every bit if not more in some events than the regular games and had high hopes for this continuing into Rio. Let’s just hope that even if the crowds aren’t there we are still treat to the same delights by the athletes as we have gotten used to during the previous few games.
All that remains now is to wish all these athletes the best of luck especially the members of team GB and hope they can replicate their counter parts again just as they did in 2012.
