Dream redeemed
The US dream team redeemed itself on Sunday with a 118-107 against Spain in the basketball final.
Guard Dwyane Wade was the game’s leading scorer with 27 points and Kobe Bryant added 20 as the Americans took their first gold medal in the event since the 2000 Olympics.
Though the team hammered Spain by 37 points in pool play, they found themselves under pressure in the medal match as Spain racked up a shooting percentage of 61 during the first half.
This is the 13th gold for the US basketball team.
Perfect dive breaks sweep
With seven golds already in the bag, it seemed a Chinese diving sweep was inevitable.
But Australia’s Matthew Mitcham broke the host country’s streak after receiving four perfect 10s for his final dive of the men’s 10m platform. Totalling 112.10 points, the highest scoring dive in the Olympic history.
The gold made Mitcham Australia's first male Olympic gold medalist in diving since Dick Eve in 1924.
Going out with a bang
Beijing bid a spectacular good bye to the Olympics in a closing ceremony that raises the bar even higher for future Games.
The two-and-a-half-hour show featured thousands of dances, singers, trapeze artists, bouncing stilt walkers and Olympic athletes filling the Bird’s Nest in song and celebration.
The extravaganza directed by Chen Wei Ya, saw huge Chinese drums being played mid-air, acrobats performing on a massive rotating tower and multiple fireworks displays.
Following a spine-tingling ballad ‘The Flame of Love’ by Song Zuying and tenor-triumphant Placido Domingo the iconic stadium rocked to the voices of China’s celebrities singing ‘Qing Ni Liu Xia Lai’ or ‘Please Come Again’.
Going out with the ultimate bang, the ceremony concluded with a 20-minute firework display over Tiananmen Square.
Billions for Kenyan
Samuel Wanjiru of Kenya was bestowed the final Olympic gold at the Bird’s Nest last night.
Wanjiru received the medal in front of an audience of billions watching the closing events.
The 21-year-old clocked in at 2:06:32, breaking the 1984 Olympic record of Portugal’s Carlos Lopes by nearly three minutes.
Ninety-eight runners competed in the 42-kilometer race, which began in Tiananmen Square at 7.30am and passed cultural landmarks such as the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven before looping back to the square and through Beijing’s financial district toward the stadium.
Wanjiru’s gold helped make Kenya the top African nation of the
Beijing Games by being the country’s fifth gold and 14th medal overall.
Final Medal Tally
The end of the Olympics has left China sitting firmly on top with an astonishing 51 golds, after the weekend saw them complete a clean-sweep of the
