Day 17 and Closing Ceremony

Day 15, 16, 17 and Closing Ceremony

Ok, I am not going to lie guys.  The closing ceremonies always make me super emotional, so I am going to try to get through this without being too gushy.  I have missed the last couple days of posts because one of my good friends got married. So I apologize for that.  Therefore, I am going to recap the last few days of events and awesomeness just for posterity's sake, and they I will recap the Closing Ceremony.

Day 15: Friday

Woman's BMX: Mariana Pajon of Columbia pulled out an upset over the favorites and won the Gold.  New Zealand's Sarah Walker won the Silver and the Netherlands Laura Smulders won the Bronze.  This event was awesome to watch.  Sadly, British favorite Shanaze Reade was only able to pull off a 6th place finish in this final in front of her home country supporters.

Men's BMX: USA's Connor Fields took a spill in this final and came in 7th place.  Latvia's Maris Strombergs won the Gold, Australia's Sam Willoughby won the Silver, and Columbia's Carlos Mario Oquendo Zabala won the Bronze.

Women's Field Hockey Final: The Netherlands won the Gold over Argentina 2-0. The Bronze medal was won by Team GB over New Zealand.

Women's 470 - Two-person Dinghy: New Zealand's Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie won the Gold, Saskia Clark and Hannah Mills of Great Britain won the Silver, and Lisa Westerhof and Lobke Berkhout of the Netherlands won the Bronze.

Men's 470  - Two-person Dinghy:  Belcher and Page of Australia won the Gold, Patience and Bithell of Great Britain won the Silver, and Calabrese and de la Fue of Argentina won the Bronze.

Men's Bronze Medal Match: South Korea beat Japan to win the Bronze.

Men's 10km Marathon: Oussama Mellouli of Tunisia won the Gold, Thomas Lurz of Germany won the Silver, and Richard Weinberger of Canada won the Bronze.

Team Final:  Can I just say how exciting it was for me to be able to watch the full competition online since they refused to show any of it live during the day.  Unsurprisingly, Russia won the Gold medal, because Russia is freaking awesome and totally dominant in synchro.  China won the Silver with a beautiful butterfly themed routine and Spain took the Bronze with a sea monster themed routine.  That one had a few weird moments, but was also really cool and had some of the coolest lifts I have ever seen.

Women's Welterweight: Kyung Seon Hwang of Korea won the Gold over Nur Tatar of Turkey. Paige Mcpherson of the US won one of the Bronze medals and Helena Fromm of Germany won the other. 



Men's Welterweight: Sebastian Eduardo Crismanich of Argentina won the Gold over Nicolas Garcia Hemme of Spain.  The Bronze medals went to Lutalo Muhammad of Great Britain and Mauro Sarmiento of Italy.

Men's Pole Vault: Renaud Lavillenie of France won the competition with an Olympic Record of 19'7".  The Germans came 2-3 with Bjorn Otto winning the Silver and Raphael Holzdeppe winning the Bronze.

Women's Hammer Throw: Tatyana Lysenko of Russia won the Gold with an Olympic Record throw of 256' 6".  Anita Wlodarczyk of Poland won the Silver and Betty Heidler of Germany won the Bronze.

Woman's 5000m: Meseret Defar of Ethiopia won the Gold, Vivian Jepkemoi Cheruiyot of Kenya won the Silver, and Defar's countrymate Tirunesh Dibaba won the Bronze.

Women's 1500m:  This event had one of the saddest moments I have seen in these Olympics as USA's Morgan Uceny was tripped during the last lap of this race and fell to the track.  She stayed on track pounding the surface with her palms in anguish and then sobbing uncontrollably until the race was over.  My heart just broke for her.  In the end, Turkey went 1-2 with Asli Cakir Alptekin winning the Gold and Gamze Bulut winning the Silver, Maryam Yusuf Jamal of Bahrain won the Bronze.






Women's 4x100m Relay:  THIS WAS AWESOME!! The USA women absolutely smashed the World Record with a time of 40.82 and won the Gold medal.  It was amazing to watch.  Tianna Madison, Allyson Felix, Bianca Knight, and Carmelita Jeter made up the winning relay team.  Team Jamaica won the Silver and Team Ukraine won the Bronze.




Men's 4x400m Relay: Team Bahamas picked up the Gold medal in this event, Team USA including Bryshon Nellum who recovered from being shot in a gang related shooting won the Silver, and Team Trinidad and Tobago won the Bronze.  Bryshon Nellum also had the honor of being named as the Team USA flag bearer for the Closing Ceremony.

Men's Freestyle 55kg: Vladimer Khinchegashvili of Georgia won the Gold over Dzhamal Otarsultanov of Russia.  Kyong Il Yang of North Korea and Shinichi Yumoto of Japan won the Bronze Medals.

Men's Freestyle 74kg: The man with Twitter handle @alliseeisgold, Jordan Ernest Burroughs, managed to see just that as he won the Gold medal match over Sadegh Saeed Goudarzi of Iran.  The Bronzes went to Denis Tsargush of Russia and Sosian Tigiev of Uzbekistan.



Day 16: Saturday

Women's Final:  The US women were as dominant as ever in their win over France to take the Gold medal.  The Bronze went to Australia.

Ok, here we go....Lots of Boxing!

Men's Light Flyweight: Shiming Zou of China won the Gold over Kaeo Pongprayoon of Thailand. The Bronzes went to Paddy Barnes of Ireland and David Ayrapetyan of Russia.

Men's Bantamweight: Luke Campbell of Great Britain won the Gold over John Joe Nevin of Ireland.
  The Bronzes went to Lazaro Alvarez Estrada of Cuba and Satoshi Shimizu of Japan.

Men's Light Welterweight: Roniel Iglesias Sontolongo of Cuba won the Gold over Denys Berinchyk of Ukraine.  The Bronzes went to Vincenzo Mangiacapre of Italy and Munkh-Erdene Uranchimeg of Mongolia.

Men's Middleweight: Ryota Murata of Japan won Gold over Esquiva Falcao Florentino of Brazil.  The Bronzes went to Anthony Ogogo of Great Britain and Abbos Atoev of Uzbekistan.

Men's Heavyweight: Oleksandr Usyk of Ukraine won the Gold over Clemente Russo of Italy.  The Bronzes went to Tervel Pulev of Bulgaria and Teymur Mammadov of Azerbaijan.

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OK...I just saw how much I had left to cover and realized just how late it is. I am going to recap the rest tomorrow and do my more in depth Closing Ceremony coverage when I am less emotional about the whole thing.  Night all!

Day 14

Day 14

Ok, quick rundown today, because absolutely have to wake up in the morning.

Today's Medal Winning Events

Men's Final: Germany just squeaked out a win in this Gold medal match over the Brazilians to take the medal.  Latvia won over the Netherlands for the Bronze medal.

Women's Flyweight: Nicola Adams of Great Britain won the Gold over Cancan Reri of China.  Reri beat USA's Marlen Esparaza in the semi final (You know, the girl who is on all the McDonald's commericals).  Esparaza picked up a Bronze medal for Team USA and the other Bronze went to Chungneijang Mery Kom Hmangte (Say that five times fast) of India.

Women's Lightweight: Katie Taylor of Ireland won the Gold over Sofya Ochigava of Russia.  The Bronzes went to Mavzuna Chorieva of Tajikistan and Adriana Araujo of Brazil.

Women's Middleweight: Claressa Shields of USA won Gold over Nadezda Torlopova of Russia.  The Bronzes went to Marina Volhova of Kazakhstan and Jinzi Li of China.

Men's Canoe Doubles: Germany's Kurt Kuschela and Peter Kretschmer won the Gold, Aliaksandr and Andrei Bahdanovich of Belarus won the Silver, and Ilya Pervukhin and Alexey Korovashkov of Russia won the Bronze.

Men's Kayak Fours: Team Australia won the Gold, Team Hungary the Silver, and Team Czech Republic came away with the Bronze.

Women's Kayak Singles: Danuta Kozak of Hungary won the Gold, Inna Osypenko-Radomska of Ukraine won the Silver, and Bridgitte Hartley of South Africa won the Bronze.

Women's Kayak Doubles: Germany's Tina Dietze and Franziska Weber won the Gold, Hungary's Natasa Douchev-Janic won the Silver, and Poland's Beate Mikolajczyk and Karolina Naja won the Bronze.

Women's 10m Platform: As expected, China's Ruolin Chen took the Gold and never looked in denger of losing her champion spot on top of the podium.  Brittany Broben of Australia won the Silver, and Pandelela Rinong Pamg of Malaysia won the Bronze.  She is the first women to ever win a medal for Malaysia.

Individual Dressage: Great Britain took the Gold and Bronze in this event with Charlotte Dujardin and Laura Bechtolsheimer taking the medals, respectively.  The Netherland's Adelinde Cornelissen won the Silver.

Women's Final:  TEAM USA WINS THE GOLD OVER JAPAN. FINAL SCORE 2-1.  As much as I dislike Hope Solo, she made some amazing saves today to keep her team on top until the end of the match.  They achieved redemption after losing to Japan in the World Cup last year.  Team Canada won the Bronze medal match....so at least they got a medal.

Women's 10km Marathon: Eva Risztov of Hungary won the Gold, Haley Anderson of the US won the Silver, and Martina Grimaldi of Italy won the Bronze.  I think this would kill me and most of the worlds population in even attempting to do this, so I have crazy respect for them.

Women's Featherweight: Great Britain's Jade Jones (Great Name!) won the Gold over Yuzhuo Hou of China. The Bronzes went to Marlene Harnois of France and Li-Cheng Tseng of Taiwan.

Men's Featherweight: Servet Tazegul of Turkey won the Gold over Mohammad Bagheri Motamed of Iran.  The Bronzes went to Terrence Jennings of the USA and Rohullah Nikpah of Afghanistan.

Men's Triple Jump: USA went 1-2 with Christian Taylor picking up the Gold and Will Claye picking up the Silver.  Fabrizio Donato of Italy won the Bronze.


Men's 800m: Kenya's David Lekuts Rudisha won the Gold, Botswana's Nijel Amos won the Silver, and Kenya also picked up the Bronze with Timothy Kitum coming in third.

Men's 200m: Jamaica went 1-2-3. Wow!!! Of course, the King, Usain Bolt, won the race and looked easy doing it.  I wish he would finish strong. I feel like this guy could have some major world records if he would only properly finish his races.  That is something that annoys me about him.  He has so much talent and potential, and he is just wasting it by not leaving everything out on the track every time he runs.  Anyways, rant over.  Johan Blake won the Silver and Warren Weir won the Bronze.


Women's Javelin Throw: Czech Republic's Barbora Spotakova won the Gold and Germany went 2-3 with Christina Obergfoll picking up the Silver and Linda Stahl picking up the Bronze.

Men's Decathlon:  These men, without a doubt, are the most fit men in the entire world.  USA went 1-2 in this event with Ashton Eaton winning the Gold and Trey Hardee winning the Silver.  Leonel Suarez of Cuba won the Bronze.  I think this would also kill me,  well....duh.

Women's Final: USA won Gold again over Spain. Australia won the Bronze.

Women's Freestyle 55kg: Saori Yoshida of Japan won Gold over Tonya Lynn Verbeek of Canada. The Bronzes went to Jackeline Renteria Castillo of Columbia and Yuliya Ratkevich of Azerbaijan.

Women's Freestyle 72kg: Natalia Vorobeva of Russia won Gold over Stanka Zlateva Hristova of Bulgaria.  The Bronzes went to Guzel Manyurova of Kazakhstan and Maider Unda Gonzalez de Audicana of Spain (Wow!)


Tomorrow's Medal Winning Events:

Women and Men's BMX Finals.

WATCH THIS...ITS AWESOME!

Women's Final:

Argentina vs the Netherlands

Bronze:

Great Britain vs. New Zealand

Men's 470 - Two-person Dinghy

Women's 470 - Two-person Dinghy

Men's Bronze Medal Match

Japan vs South Korea

 Men's 10km Marathon

Team Final

I CAN'T WAIT TO WATCH THIS!!! Russia is really really awesome

Women and Men's Welterweight

Men's Pole Vault

Women's Hammer Throw

Women's 5000m: Molly Huddle and Julie Culley compete

Women's 4x100m Relay: WATCH THIS!

Women's 1500m: Shannon Rowbury and Morgan Uceny compete

Men's 4x400m Relay: Oscar Pistorius, the double amputee, will compete here for Team South Africa...a must watch event.

Men's Freestyle 55kg

Men's Freestyle 74 kg

And this is what she wrote folks:

USA                               39                                 25                                26           :          90

China                             37                                 24                                19           :          80

Great Britain                 25                                 13                                14           :          52

Russia                           12                                 21                                23           :          56

Germany                       10                                 16                                11           :          37
Japan                             5                                  14                                14           :          33

France                            8                                   9                                 12           :          29

Australia                         6                                 13                                 10           :          29

I refuse to put GB in fourth place even though they have less total medals than Russia, they have twice as many Golds and deserve to be higher.

Day 13

Day 13:
Caster Semenya, the South African runner who was the subject of a very public gender testing three years ago after her fantastic results in competition, makes her Olympic debut in the 800m prelims.

Sarah Attar ran for Saudi Arabia today in the prelims of the 800m.  She is the first woman to compete in track and field for Saudi Arabia.  She came in 43 seconds behind the heat's winner, but she is a winner anyways for representing the typically repressed female population of her country.

Today's Medal Winning Events:

THEY WON THEY WON THEY WON THEY WON THEY WON!!!!
In case you have no idea what I am talking about (but you should because I have mentioned them quite frequently), Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor won the Gold medal match vs. their Team USA competitors Jennifer Kesey and April Ross.  This was their last Olympic match together and it was a great one.  I am so glad that they won their third Gold.  They are such wonderful, genuine people and it makes me happy every time they win.  I wonder who is going to take their place now.
The Brazilians Juliana Silva and Larissa Franca won their Bronze medal match over Chen Xue and Xi Zhang of China.

Men's Kayak Singles: Eirik Veras Larsen of Norway won Gold, Adam van Koeverden of Canada won Silver, and Max Hoff of Germany won the Bronze.

Men's Canoe Singles: Germany's Sebastian Brendel won the Gold medal, David Cal Figueroa of Spain won Silver, and Canada's Mark Oldershaw.

Men's Kayak Doubles 1000M: Hungary's Roland Kokeny and Rudolf Dombi won Gold, Portugal's Emanuel Silva and Fernando Pimenta won Silver, and Germany's Andreas Ihle and Martin Hollstein.

Women's Kayak Fours: Team Hungary won the Gold, Team Germany won the Silver, and Team Belarus won the Bronze.

Individual Jumping: Switzerland's Steve Guerdat won the Gold medal, ending an 88 year drought for Switzerland in Show Jumping. Gerco Schroder of the Netherlands won the Silver and Cian O'Connor of Ireland won the Bronze, picking up the first medal of these Games for Ireland.

Men's 49er - Skiff: Australia's Iain Jensen and Nathan Outteridge won the Gold, Peter Burling and Blair Tuke of New Zealand won the Silver, and Peter Lang and Allan Norregaard of Denmark won the Bronze

Men's Team Final: China picked up the Gold (we didn't see that one coming), South Korea picked up the Silver, and Germany picked up the Bronze.

 (Taekwondo)

Women's Flyweight: Jingyu Wu of China won the Gold over Brigitte Yague of Spain. The Bronze medals went to Chanatip Sonkham of Thailand and Lucija Zaninovic of Croatia.

Men's Flyweight: Joel Gonzalez Bonilla of Spain won the Gold over Daehoon Lee of Korea.  The Bronzes went to Alexey Denisenko of Russia and Oscar Munoz Oviedo of Columbia.

 Lot's of medals for the US today in Track and Field!

Women's Long Jump: USA's Brittany Reese, who just missed the Gold in Bejing, came away with the Gold this time with a jump of 23' 4 1/4".  Elena Sokolova of Russia won the Silver, and Janay Deloach also of the US won the Bronze.

Women's 400m Hurdles: Lashinda Demus just missed the Gold in this event, coming up 7/100ths of a second slower than the winner Natalya Antyukh of Russia.  She has vowed to come back until she wins the Gold.  The Bronze went to Zizana Hejnova of the Czech Republic.

Women's 200m: Lots of amazing American runners in this event and they didn't disappoint.  Allyson Felix finally got the Gold medal she had been working so hard for. The 100m winner, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica came across the line with the Silver.  USA's Carmelita Jeter came across the line, just beating the defending champ Veronica Campbell-Brown from Jamaica.  Sanya Richards-Ross came 5th.

Men's 110m Hurdles: USA went 1-2 in this event with Aries Merritt taking the Gold and Jason Richardson winning the Silver.  Jamaica's Hansle Parchment won the Bronze.

Women's Freestyle 48 kg: Hitomi Obara of Japan won the Gold, Mariya Stadnyk of Azerbaijan won the Silver, and the two Bronze went to Carol Huynh of Canada and Clarissa Kyoko Mei Ling Chun of the USA.

Women's Freestyle 63 kg: Kaori Icho of Japan won the Gold, Ruixue Jing of China won the Silver, and the Bronzes went to Battsetseg Soronzonbold of Mongolia and Lubov Volosova of Russia.


Tomorrow's Medal Winning Events:

Men's Final: Gold medal match Brazil vs. Germany, and Bronze medal match Latvia vs the Netherlands.

The US men were defeated and will not compete for a medal.

Women's Flyweight

Women's Lightweight

Women's Middleweight

Men's Canoe Doubles

Men's Kayak Fours 1000m

Women's Kayak Singles

Women's Kayak Doubles

Women's 10m Platform

Individual Dressage: Jan Ebeling and Adrienne Lyle compete

Men's 470 - Two-person Dinghy

WOMEN'S GOLD MEDAL MATCH!! 

USA VS JAPAN

REMATCH at 1:45 PM CST

Bronze Medal Match Canada vs France at 7:00AM

Women's 10km Marathon: Haley Anderson competes.

Women and Men's Lightweight

Men's Triple Jump: Christian Taylor and Will Claye compete

Men's 800m: Duane Solomon and Nick Symmonds compete

Men's 200m: Wallace Spearmon goes up against Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake for a medal in this event.

Women's Javelin Throw

Women's Gold Medal Match

USA vs Spain

Bronze Medal Match:

Australia vs. Hungary

Women's Freestyle 55 kg

Women's Freestyle 72 kg

Today's Final Medal Count:

USA                               34                                 22                                25           :          81

China                             36                                 22                                19           :          77

Great Britain                 22                                 13                                13           :          48

Russia                           11                                 19                                22           :          52

Germany                        7                                  15                                10           :          32
Japan                             4                                  13                                14           :          31

France                            8                                   9                                 11           :          28

Australia                         5                                 12                                  9           :           26