Photo Credit Christian Hartmann/Reuters – image credit)
Kelsey began her career as a cyclist at age 23, shortly after graduating from the University of Alberta playing varsity soccer after starting her cycling career at the age of 17.
Sherwood Park’s Kelsey Mitchell (27) proudly showed the world what hard work means if you follow your Olympic dream as she proudly displayed her Gold medal becoming the last athlete to hear “O Canada” played at the Tokyo Olympics.
She cycled to Olympic Gold winning the women’s sprint defeating the reigning world champion on the way to the finals, then went on to won two straight races in a best-of-three showdown.
The win gives Canada 24 overall medals – seven gold, six silver, and 11 bronze as the Olympic’s officially come to a close in Tokyo.
Strangely enough this becomes a record for Canadian for any non-boycotted summer Olympics.
Closing Ceremony
The games went on following the world became shutdown and then postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that stopped the world.
The Olympic cauldron was finally extinguished to signal the completion of the Games remembering that athlete’s once again prepare for the summer Olympics as athletes prepare for Paris 2024.
London Ontario’s Damian Warner (31) Canadian decathlete and gold medallist carried the Canadian flag into the Olympic Stadium for the closing ceremony becoming the first Canadian to win the decathlon at the same venue earlier this week.
Medal count
The United States won the most medals with 113 podium finishes, 39 of which were gold which is the third-consecutive time the US has topped the medal count standings at the Summer Olympic games.
China came second with 88 medals (38 Gold), while the host nation Japan won a total of 58 medals, which is a new record for Japan, surpassing the 41 medals won in London 2012 and also includes the most Olympic gold medals (27) ever won by the country.
Canada sat outside of the top 10 countries taking the 11th most medals in which 18 or 75 percent were captured in women’s events.
Men’s marathon
Canada’s Katie Vincent and Laurence Vincent-Lapointe won Bronze in the Women’s doubles 500-metre canoe sprint which is the first medal for Vincent and the second for Vincent-Lapointe, who took silver in the C-1 200 on Thursday.
They crossed the finish line with a time of one minute 59.041 seconds, 3 ½ seconds behind China the Gold medallists, while Ukraine took silver with a time of 1:57.499.
The win gives Canada 23 medals at the Tokyo Olympics, its most ever in a non-boycotted Summer Games.
As is tradition, the men’s marathon wrapped up athletics events in Tokyo earlier on Sunday. Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge raced to a second-consecutive gold medal. Only two other men have ever done the same.
Canadian Ben Preisner finished 46th in his Olympic debut, running across the 42.195-kilometres in two hours 19 minutes and 27 seconds. He completed the course just over 10 minutes after the victor.
Fellow Canadians Trevor Hofbauer placed 48th and Cam Levins placed 72nd.
Shake up in rhythmic gymnastics
For the first time since 1996, a country other than Russia has won the rhythmic gymnastics group all-around gold medal.
Team Bulgaria came out in first place, while the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) came in second.
The ROC was coming off an upset in the individual all-around, where it also didn’t win gold for the first time in 25 years. Linoy Ashram of Israel defeated identical twins and gold-medal threats Dina and Arina Averina of the ROC.
Dina came in second place, while Arina ended in fourth.
Olympic basketball record
The United States defeated Japan for its seventh-straight women’s basketball gold.
Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi have now won five Olympic gold medals — the most-ever by any Olympic basketball player.
The U.S. came in first in three basketball tournaments in Tokyo. The Americans claimed victory in the men’s tournament, plus the women’s 3×3 basketball event — the country didn’t have a team qualify for the men’s 3×3 competition.
Final gold medals
France and Serbia earned the last two gold medals of the Olympics.
It was a close match between France and the ROC for women’s handball gold, but the former pulled out the win. France will take home both handball gold medals, as the men’s team also emerged victorious in Tokyo.
Then Serbia beat Greece in men’s water polo, winning for the second-consecutive time as these Tokyo Olympic Games cross the finish line.
