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!