In one of the closest run contests of the entire Tokyo 2020 Games, Team USA pipped fierce rivals China in the gold medal race on Sunday.
China, who had led the medal table for 11 straight days, were pipped at the post by the USA when Chinese athletes failed to win a gold medal on the final day. Team USA finished with 39 gold, 41 silver and 33 bronze medals, against China’s 38 gold, 32 silver and 18 bronze.
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“We are thrilled by the performance of Team USA – and couldn’t be more proud of the way they carried themselves,” said Susanne Lyons, chair of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. “These Games are one for the history books.”
The Chinese delegation hailed the result as the “best achievement in an overseas Olympics”, equalling the 2012 London Olympics.
Three gold medals for the US on the final day of the Games – from the women’s basketball team, the women’s volleyball team and an unlikely victory for track cyclist Jennifer Valente in the omnium – tipped the balance for the USA, which had finished top of the medal table in five of the last six Games.
The only time China reigned supreme was at their home Games in Beijing in 2008 when they fielded a largest ever delegation of 639 athletes.
China had an opportunity to add to its gold count on the final day – women’s middleweight boxer Li Qian was well beaten in the gold medal bout by Great Britain’s Lauren Price – but China will rue falling short in events they were perhaps expected to win.
Despite near total domination in the diving pool, again, China fell short in the synchronised 10-metre platform discipline, the only gold medal they did not take in diving.
China’s Cao Yuan and Chen Aisen were stunned by the British duo of Tom Daley and Matty Lee, who produced the performance of a lifetime to land a blow on the dominant Chinese. Cao later went on to claim 10m platform individual gold, with Daley taking bronze behind another Chinese diver, Yang Jian.
In table tennis, where China had won every available gold since the 2008 Games, the mixed doubles team of Xu Xin and Liu Shiwen fell agonisingly short against the host pairing of Jun Mizutani and Mimi Ito. Xu went on to claim gold in the men’s team event as China finished with four of the five golds.
Rio 2016 gold medallists China were nailed-on favourites to claim gold in women’s volleyball, but failed to advance past the group stage.
Team China may also have expected to net more gold in boxing, judo and taekwondo, events were they traditionally bag some gold.
Still, they can be well pleased when reflecting on its overall effort in Tokyo, where they were not tipped to top the medal table.
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China’s aim going into the delayed Games were to arrest an alarming slide in its overall fortunes since 2008, in which it slipped back to second in 2012, finishing 12 gold medals behind the USA, and then third in the medal table in 2016, behind Great Britain – who took one gold more than China.
The IOC ranks the medal table placings on gold medals as opposed to overall number of medals won, a metric the USA often uses to determine the medal standings. In the event of a gold medal tie, silver medals are counted and then bronze.
China’s haul included some surprise new Olympic champions in sports where it was not predicted to challenge for gold.
Analysts have been hard at work attempting to get to the bottom of the unexpected success. It is thought that a lack of international competition in the past 18 months threw up a series of strange results, which might go some way to explaining some of the triumphs.
There was success on top of the water for China in addition to a great deal of success in it.
In its first Games with legendary British Olympian Steve Redgrave helming its rowing team as the high performance director, China scooped its first rowing gold medal (as well as two bronze medals) in the women’s quadruple skulls, and in world record time.
Upon his appointment in 2019, Redgrave had said he was targeting one gold medal for his charges in Tokyo, a prediction that turned out to be prescient, as part of a “stepping stone” to two golds for China’s rowers at Paris 2024.
China also overperformed at the shooting range delivering four gold medals out of the 10 on offer. Yang Qian’s gold medal triumph on the opening day of the Games set the tone for what was to come from Team China.
Meanwhile, hosts Japan had its best Olympic haul with 27 golds, bagging 58 medals in total.
