They have been the games of the pandemic, they have been the games without a public, have been the delayed games a year … they have been games, in short, that they will go down to history for many reasons other than sports.
But, as finally they were played, they have also left moments, images, moments, marks … that will happen to the history of Olimpism.
These are the 10 best.
I was called to be the big star, without Bolt or Phelps.
The Bride of Tokyo Games did not smile at the first appearance of her, the first Sunday of the games.
Something was wrong.
She said she was enough and she retired from the competition, to shock around the world.
She was reclleded with the most intimate of her and gathered strength to return and scratch a bronze in the balance bar.
She put the mental health of athletes on the table.
The pool, orphan for the first time of man with more Olympic medals, from a figure that will pass forever to history.
Michael Phelps needed a successor, and although it was almost impossible to approach him, the compatriot of him Caeleb Dressel stayed with that throne.
There were five golds, nothing bad, the last one with a memorable butterfly relay at the 4×100 styles.
The Queen of Water almost since its debut in London Games, in 2012, saw how the tremendous, and younger, Australian team was taking away those who had been their kingdoms, 200 and 400 free.
As a great champion she is from her, she prolonged her medal harvest at 800 and in the 1,500.
The tears of her after winning the longest test of those disputed in the pool are another images of the games.
Yulimar Rojas, Venezuelan of endless legs, student of Ivan Pedroso, like Ana Peleteiro.
Both are intimate friends and both celebrated with euphoria their triumphs in the same test, triple jump.
In Spain we look at Ana, but the brutal record of the world of Yulimar for gold demanded the planet’s eyes.
An infinite smile to decorate those 15,67 that exceeded a mark of the 90s
If there is an image that will go to history from the Spanish perspective, it is the goodbye of Pau Gasol.
Confirmed is that he will not play again with the selection, but it seems clear that the US played the last match of him as a professional, whether in the selection or in a club.
The photograph of him, marching from the pavilion, is already forever in the retina of the fans.
A figure that transcends sport itself.
If there was an assigned medal in advance – with less known sports permission in Spain – was that of Novak Djokovic on the tennis court.
He was looking for the ‘Golden Slam’, that is, winning the big four (carries three, the US Open is missing) and the Olympic gold.
Until semifinals he had an immaculate path, but first Zverev and then Pablo Carreño took him out of the podium.
And from the boxes of him, that, well thought, is not so difficult either.
The race of the 400 meter fences is, if not the largest, one of the greatest in the history of athletics.
The Norwegian Karsten Warholm flew over the track of the Olympic Stadium to leave the world record in spooky 45.94.
Doing that time on the return to the stadium with fences was an almost unthinkable thing, hence the reaction, also an image for the story, of the athlete himself.
It’s called Laurel Hubbard, before he was a man and now he’s a woman who became the first transgender person who officially competed in Olympic Games.
She did it in halterophilia, and even though she did not even get closer to the fight for the medals (she was eliminated after three null attempts), the figure of her involves triumph for the rights of some minorities, coi’s flag in these
Games.
The speed in the US is no longer what it was.
Now that Usain Bolt had left, the sprinkles of him had an open field to have recovered a throne that was his many times.
Neither 100, nor did they go.
But the most bleeding for the US speed was the tremendous ridiculous of his relay 4×100, sixth in his series of semifinals and eliminated.
A manual of how to ignore the witness.
The last day of games is for the marathon.
And in recent years, talking about the marathon is talking about Eliud Kipchoge, the Kenyan who has run below two hours (in a non-approved test), the world recordman, the guy who racked river and has done it in Tokyo
To earn two Olympic Marathons, in the way, the Ethiopian Adebe Bikila did in Rome 1960 and, precisely, Tokyo 1964.
