Day 16 - Games Draw To A Close As London Awaits

Major Highlight - Men's Basketball Gold Medal Match

The United States redeem team achieved their dream on the final day of competition, taking the gold medal and avenging their bronze in Athens with a 118-107 victory over Spain in a highly entertaining final. Although they led reasonably comfortably at every change, that doesn't do credit to the competitive game Spain put up. Halfway through the last quarter the margin was down to just 4, but some late magic and clutch shooting from Kobe Bryant saw the US get over the line in the end. Dwyane Wade (United States) led the scoring with a game high 27 points, most of them in the first half. While Rudy Fernandez was sensational for the Spaniards scoring 22 points, including 5 buckets from down-town. But the credit must go to the US and coach Mike Krzyzewski, who picked a team that seemingly played for the name on the front of the jersey rather than the one on their back, and enabled the US to return to the top of Olympic basketball after their Men's and Women's teams ensured a clean sweep of the gold in Beijing.

Gold - United States
Silver - Spain
Bronze - Argentina

Athletics
Samuel Kamau Wansiru (Kenya) produced the greatest marathon performance in Olympic history to take gold in the final track and field event in Beijing. Wansiru set a blistering pace for the entirety of the event to win in an Olympic record time of 2:06:32. Jaouad Gharib (Morocco) took the silver, while Tsegay Kebede (Ethiopia) took the bronze.

Water Polo
Hungary became the first nation to win three consecutive Men's Water Polo gold medals by defeating the United States 14-10 in the gold medal game.

Boxing
Ulaan Baatar will be in party mode again after Badar-Uugan Enkhbat doubled Mongolia's all time gold medal tally after taking Gold in the Men's Bantamweight (54kg) division. Both of Mongolia's 2 Olympic gold medals have been won at these games.

Taekwondo
In one of the most remarkable scenes at the games of the 29th Olympiad, Angel Valodia Matos (Cuba) was disqualified from his bronze medal match after kicking the referee in the face and attempting to strike another official. He has been banned from the sport for life.

Final Medal Tally:

1 - China - 51-21-28 (100)
2 - United States - 36-38-36 (110)
3 - Russian - 23-21-28 (72)

6 - Australia - 14-15-17 (46)

Channel 7 Bullshitmetre - Channel 7 completed their disgraceful coverage of the 2008 games by cutting off the last 8 minutes of the gold medal game in the Men's basketball, clearly the most entertaining match of the entire tournament. Instead we got to see Channel 7 news in all its brilliance, which mostly involved scenes of Australian athletes partying in night clubs. We then returned to see selected highlights of the last 8 minutes. What a way to go out!