After 16 days of adrenalin and delight of contest fought and won of teary triumphs and devastating defeat, the games of London 2012 finally came to a close.
Ten thousand athletes have headed home, the crowds dispersed, the Cauldron extinguished. In their place, along with the unforgettable memories, is a sadness too that something so full of fun is now consigned to the past.
Denny Boyle’s opening ceremony spoke of “Isles of wonder”, in the days that followed his spectacular, the stars of 26 sports and 302 events made that promise real.
Established icons like Usain Bolt and Micheal phelps dominated the headline sports. Olympic greats like Chinese diver Wu Minxia and Italian fencer Valantha Vezzali lit up the under card.
Great names known previously only to aficianadoes stepped into the limelight to dominate and amaze the world.
Young talents destined to dominate broke through and stood tall: the future of 400m running Kirani James also added Olympic gold to his world title, aged just 19.
United Statesstormed back on top of the medal table beatingChinato the second position whileGreat Britain.
The host nation achieved their slogan “Our Great team” by placing third on the final medal table, their best ever.
However Africa’s pride rest on the few medals of South Africa 24th on the medal table with 3 gold along with Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, while Nigeria had a non – surprising outing, having won no medal of any kind after attending the games with about 50 athletes, and lots of officials.
The final Top ten medal table looks like this:
Teams Gold Silver Bronze Total
- USA 46 29 29 =104
- China 38 27 22 =87
- GBR 29 17 19 =65
- Russia 24 25 33 =82
- S/Korea 13 8 7 =28
- Germany11 19 14 =44
- France 11 11 12 =34
- Italy 8 9 11 =28
- Hungary 8 4 5 =17
10.Australia7 16 12 =35
African Nations
24. S/Africa 3 2 1 =6
25.Ethiopia3 1 3 =7
28.Kenya 2 4 3 =11
