Looking back at the 2016 Rio Olympics from a world perspective

After 16 days of exciting, heartbreaking and emotional moments ranging from the swimming pool to the athletics track, the Games of the XXXI Olympiad have been declared closed, and the Olympic flame extinguished.

When Rio was awarded the rights to hold the Olympic Games in 2009, there were doubts as to whether they would be able to do so without any major controversies.

Some of the issues faced by Games organisers included health concerns surrounding the Zika virus, the instability of the country’s federal government and pollution issues in Guanabara Bay, among many others.

In addition, Russia were in the centre of a major doping scandal which saw the country’s track and field athletes banned from participating in Rio, as well as five athletes stripped of the medals they won in London four years ago.

It has since been announced that the country would be banned from participating at next month’s Paralympic Games altogether as a result of the doping scandal.

Despite the concerns and controversies encountered in the lead-up to the first Olympic Games to be held in South America (and the third to be held south of the equator, after Melbourne in 1956 and Sydney in 2000), the Rio Olympics ended up being one of the most spectacular and successful ever held in modern history.

It was best highlighted by the performances of Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt and the Dream Team (a.k.a. the United States’ men’s basketball team), who between them bagged a total of nine gold medals.

Phelps, in his final Olympic Games, won five gold medals to add to the 18 he had already won in Athens (six), Beijing (eight) and London (four). In doing so he became arguably the greatest swimmer mankind has ever produced.

In addition, he finished second in the 100m butterfly, behind Singapore’s Joseph Schooling, who became the first man or woman from his country to win an Olympic gold medal.

Puerto Rico, Vietnam, Fiji and Kosovo also produced first-time gold medallists in Rio.

Monica Puig created history for the Puerto Ricans when she upset reigning Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber in the women’s final of the tennis tournament to become her country’s first ever gold medallist.

In addition she became the first female medallist from her country, and is the lowest-ranked female tennis player to top the Olympic dais.

Her run to the medal also included the scalps of French Open champion Garbine Muguruza and two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova.

Earlier, on the first day of competition, Hoang Xuan Vinh broke Vietnam’s gold medal duck when he won the men’s 10m air pistol in the shooting tournament. He also won a silver medal in the 50m pistol.

By reaching the final of the men’s rugby sevens, Fiji were already assured of their first ever medal – but whichever colour it would be depended on the outcome of their match against Great Britain.

It ended up being a historic gold after they thrashed the Brits 43-7 in the championship match. They also defeated traditional rugby heavyweights New Zealand 12-7 in the quarter-finals.

The lure of becoming an Olympic gold medallist was what had driven Jarryd Hayne, who has since returned to the NRL with the Gold Coast Titans, to quit American football and try his hand at rugby sevens.

Ultimately he did not make the final squad but there’s no doubt his influence inspired the country to its first ever Olympic medal of any colour.

And last but not least, Majlinda Kelmendi broke through for Kosovo, which gained membership by the International Olympic Committee in order to compete as a sole entity, by winning the women’s 52kg in the judo.

In the athletics, all eyes were on Usain Bolt, who turned 30 on the day of the closing ceremony, as he sought the “triple-triple” – the Lightning Bolt having won the 100m, 200m and 4 x 100m at both the Beijing and London Games.

The question was whether anyone was going to stop him – and the answer was no.

Bolt ultimately completed the trifecta of trifectas, finishing first once again in each of the aforementioned three events to further enhance his reputation as “the fastest man on earth”.

Sadly, that was to be his last act as an Olympic athlete, but it can only mean three things – the events which Bolt participated in will very likely produce new champions in Tokyo in four years’ time.

Another question that was to be asked in the basketball was whether anyone could stop the Dream Team, the nickname for the United States’ men’s basketball team, from claiming a 15th gold medal from their 18 modern games appearances.

Again, the answer to that was no, and for the third consecutive Games the Dream Team compiled an undefeated run to the gold medal, which included a win over Australia in the pool stage and Serbia in the final.

Other highlights included Mo Farah successfully retaining the gold medals he won in the 5,000m and 10,000m races in London four years ago, and Brazil burying some past demons to win the gold medal in association football.

Just over two years after being famously embarrassed 7-1 by Germany in the semi-finals of their home FIFA World Cup, the home side exacted some revenge on the reigning World Cup champions, winning via a penalty shootout 5-4 after it had finished 1-all at the end of regulation time.

The win by the Brazilians denied the Germans a dream double after their women’s side won by beating Sweden 2-1 in the final. The Swedes had beaten reigning gold medallists the United States in the quarter-finals and Brazil in the semis.

In the tennis, Andy Murray successfully defended his gold medal from London and thus became the first man or woman to win two Olympic singles gold medals, a fear not even Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic have achieved.

Murray defeated Juan Martin del Potro in the final; the Argentine, whose career had been stalled by two serious wrist injuries, defeated Djokovic in the first round, shattering the Serb’s bid to complete the Golden Career Slam in the process.

As already stated above, Puerto Rico’s Monica Puig became an unexpected gold medallist when she defeated Germany’s Angelique Kerber in the final. Defending gold medallist Serena Williams had crashed out in the third round.

And last but finally not least, Eliud Kipchoge won the most famous and enduring event on the Olympic program, taking out the gold medal in the men’s marathon on the final day of competition for Rio 2016.

As is tradition, the men’s marathon had its medal presentation about halfway through the Closing Ceremony, which once again was a celebration of Brazil’s culture and the exhibition they put on for the world over the past fortnight.

The Olympic keys have now been handed over to Tokyo, which will host the next Summer Games in 2020.

If the exhibition promoting their Games, during which their Prime Minister Shinzo Abe entered the arena in a large, green pipe dressed as Super Mario, is anything to go by, then we all simply cannot wait for what the Japanese capital will serve up in four years’ time.

But for now, the world leaves Rio in a much better state than ever before and focus will return to the Brazilian capital when the Paralympics get underway in just over two weeks’ time, on September 7.