The US got what they wanted from the London Olympics. So did Britain, riding the wave of home-field advantage for their best Olympic showing in more than a century.
Some of that may have come at the expense of China, who failed to match their numbers from Beijing four years ago and finished only five medals ahead of Russia — where the Winter Olympics will be held in February 2014.
The small Caribbean island of Grenada had their first gold medalist and six other nations had athletes reach the Olympic podium for the first time. Meanwhile, Australia took another step back in their Olympic freefall after a scintillating show in Sydney 12 years ago.
When competition ended on Sunday, there was no question who the dominant nation was. However, US athletes were not the only success stories in London.
“I think these Games were absolutely fabulous,” International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said.
The final numbers: 104 medals for the US, 46 of them gold, their highest total at a “road” Olympics. China won 87 medals, 38 gold. Britain won 29 golds, third-most of any nation, and 65 medals overall — good for fourth in that category behind Russia, a winner of 82 medals, 24 of them gold.
In all, 85 nations won something in London, from the US to Tajikistan, and dozens of points in between.
“We are immensely proud of the success that our athletes had in London,” US Olympic Committee (USOC) CEO Scott Blackmun said on Sunday.
With good reason.
Red, white and blue was everywhere in London over the past two-plus weeks, waved proudly and often.
And remember, that is not just the color scheme of the US flag, but the Union Jack of the British, too. The hosts delivered on a promise of greatness this year — and possibly set the stage for continued success down the road.
“What I’ve witnessed in the last couple of weeks has been both uplifting and energizing,” London Games chairman Sebastian Coe said. “I don’t think any country that has staged the Games or any city that staged the Games is ever the same afterwards.”
Neither are the athletes who win them. A boxer from Thailand protested losing a gold-medal fight to a Chinese opponent, and shed tears of disbelief when the decision was announced. He cried again 10 minutes later, holding his silver medal for the first time.
“I’m happy. I’m still really happy that I’ve got this silver medal,” said the Thai fighter, Kaeo Pongprayoon. “I’m really proud. It might not be gold, but it’s a medal I can bring back to the Thai people.”
The US, well, they brought a whole slew of hardware back to the US people. The 46 golds in London were one more than the gold haul from Paris in 1924 and Mexico City in 1968.
LeBron James recognized that winning gold means more than, well, winning gold after he and the US men’s basketball team won the Americans’ final Olympic title in London on Sunday afternoon.
“It means more than myself, it means more than my name on my back. It means everything to the name on the front,” he said.
The final numbers for the Americans in London will not go down as record-setting for all Olympics.
They won 83 golds (174 overall) at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, boycotted by most of the Soviet bloc countries; and 78 golds (a whopping 239 overall) at the 1904 St Louis Games, when US athletes won roughly seven out of every eight medals.
Different eras, different dynamics. By any measure, this year will be considered a booming success for the US. Many thought the Chinese would go home with more medals than the Americans, and that did not come close to happening.
“We’re Americans and we’re human,” said Teresa Edwards, the USOC’s mission chief for London. “When I was competing, when I went up against another country, I felt they wanted the same thing I wanted, but we were given an opportunity to prove it at that moment, and that’s what these Games give us.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but