The Recap of the Past 14 Days of the Summer Olympics

By carolinianweb on August 24, 2016 • ( 0 )

USArmy/Flickr

Garrison Pulley
Staff Writer

The 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio came out to a strong start with an entertaining opening ceremony on August 5th, 2016 and ended even stronger with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe accepting the 2020 Tokyo Games with an homage to Mario. Four years of anticipation and controversy for these Summer Olympics has been building and it had finally arrived. These 16 days let the people of each nation show their pride for where they live, and allows the athletes to prove that they are the best in the world and have the ability to bring a medal to the nation you are representing.

With the games concluded, the US once again dominated the medal count, winning more gold, silver, bronze, and total medals than any other nation. The 121 medals won by the US was 51 more than the next closest country, China. The U.S. has won an astounding 16 gold medals out of 33 opportunities in the swimming competitions and won a total of 32 medals in all. The US also won a total of 12 medals in artistic gymnastics with only 4 gold medals won. It is safe to say that swimming of any style is by far our best sport in the United States and that can be credited a lot to the Olympic swimming greats Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky.

In the men’s sprinting competitions it is no surprise to anyone that Usain Bolt is dominating once again in the races. For the third time in his career, Bolt had a clean gold sweep in the three competitions he competed in. Jamaica has been dominant in the women’s and men’s 100 m and 200 m competitions by winning all 4 gold medals, 2 won by Usain Bolt and the other 2 being won by Elaine Thompson.

Out of the top 10 medal earners in the games the U.S. has a strong 6 of those 10 athletes along with the top three earners. Michael Phelps (31 years of age) has won 6 total medals and 5 golds adding to his all time total of 28 medals, which easily makes him one of the greatest Olympic athletes of all time. This astounding collection of medals would put him above 90 other countries in the medal count; he would be ranked 59th just above Portugal. He is a whole 10 medals ahead of the 2nd place person for medals all time (Larisa Latynina, Soviet Union). Michael Phelps is easily considered one of the greatest Olympic athletes of all time and out of his 28 medals only 3 have been silver medals and 2 have been bronze, which gives him 23 gold medals.

In second place on the medal count is upcoming swimming star Katie Ledecky, who is said to be the next Michael Phelps as she is only 19 years old and has already won 4 gold medals and 1 silver. In her first Olympic appearance she doesn’t seem to know what stage fright means because she dominated the competition.

In third place on medal count is another young soon to be, if not already, Olympic superstar. Simone Biles who is only 19 years old and is this Olympic appearance she has won a total of 5 medals (4 gold, 1 bronze). She is one of the young phenomenons on the already star studded U.S. gymnastics team and we all expect her to keep soaring in the upcoming Olympic games.

Next is Simone Manuel representing the U.S., with 4 medals (2 gold, 2 silver). Which the Olympics coming to an end there are only a few competitions left, some of the bigger sports being Men’s and Women’s Basketball, Soccer, and Volleyball.

Almost everyone will miss the excitement of the Rio Olympics. Luckily, we can all look forward to the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.