A Games to remember
What happened
The Rio 2016 Olympic Games ended with a carnival-inspired closing ceremony on Sunday night, bringing to a close 16 days of competition, featuring 11,303 athletes from 206 nations, along with a refugee team. A total of 306 gold medals were doled out in a Games that cost the host nation £8.8bn. Team GB finished second in the medal table, below the US and above China, with 27 golds and 67 medals in all – bettering its haul of 65 at London 2012. In the later stages of the Games, Nick Skelton won a showjumping gold at the age of 58, while brothers Alistair and Jonny Brownlee took the gold and silver in the triathlon. The women’s hockey team beat the favourites Netherlands in a penalty shoot-out in the final, watched by some nine million viewers on the BBC. Nicola Adams became the first woman to successfully defend an Olympic boxing gold, while Jade “Headhunter” Jones also retained her title in taekwondo. Last Saturday, Mo Farah won the 5,000m, completing a “double-double” of 5,000m and 10,000m titles in consecutive Olympics. Mark England, Team GB’S chef de mission, said: “I have no doubt this is our greatest ever Games.”
What the editorials said
“What a great Games!” said The Daily Telegraph. The host city’s performance has been uneven – with empty seats, pools that turned green, and filthy water in Guanabara Bay, where the sailing took place. “But Team GB has truly stolen the show.” Just 20 years ago, at the Atlanta Olympics, Britain won a solitary gold medal, in rowing. “With the help of the Lottery, combined with the added impetus of hosting the 2012 Games in London, it has been possible to identify and train top athletes in sports across the board.” Britain won golds in 15 disciplines, a wider spread than any other country.
British athletes in Rio have covered themselves in glory, said The Observer. But Team GB’S “no compromise” model also “raises difficult questions”. The £347m in Lottery and public money spent since 2012 has been targeted ruthlessly. Sports that were unlikely to reap a medal were denied funding – even if, like basketball and football, they are popular at grass-roots level among the country’s less well-off and less healthy. By contrast, sports such as cycling and rowing, favoured by the better-off, have received massive investment. Meanwhile, across the country, public sports facilities are “decaying”. We “must nurture the shoots as well as the tallest blades”.