History Awesome / OlympicGames

* Remember Abebe Bikila, who won the previous Olympic marathon barefoot? Well, he did it again--this time wearing shoes--becoming the first Olympic marathon winner to defend his gold. He did this just over a month after receiving emergency surgery for a ''burst appendix''.
* Billy Mills, a little known sprinter who had finished second in the US team heats for the 10,000 meter run, and whose best time was a full minute slower to world record holder Ron Clarke, catching a literal HeroicSecondWind down the final stretch to capture the gold, the only time an American has won that particular event. Here's the finish [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOj0zjPzg-c of the race]].

* Bob Beamon beating the previous long-jump record by 55 cm.[[note]]Nearly two feet[[/note]] (Prior to this, the world record had been broken thirteen times since 1901, with an average increase of 6 cm). His record stood until 1991, and still hasn't been surpassed in the Olympics.

* Bob Beamon beating the previous long-jump record by 55 cm[[note]]Nearly two feet[[/note]]. (Prior to this, the world record had been broken thirteen times since 1901, with an average increase of 6 cm). His record stood until 1991, and still hasn't been surpassed in the Olympics.

* Franz Klammer's spectacular, death-defying gold medal run in men's downhill skiing. The fact that it was in his home country of Austria just made it all the better.

* One of the '''greatest ever''', if not the ''greatest'', ice skating moments would have to go to Torvill and Dean from Great Britain. They have been the ''only'' team to ever get full sixes across the board for artistic merit. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2zbbN4OL98 Well deserved]]. Their dancing interpretation of Music/MauriceRavel's "Bolero" is legendary. (They also were among those to set a precedent for "dying" in their routine, which is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-0B72qzkeQ no longer allowed]].)

* The '''greatest ever''' ice skating moment would have to go to Torvill and Dean from Great Britain. They have been the ''only'' team to ever get full sixes across the board for artistic merit. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2zbbN4OL98 Well deserved]]. Their dancing interpretation of Music/MauriceRavel's "Bolero" is legendary. (They also were among those to set a precedent for "dying" in their routine, which is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-0B72qzkeQ no longer allowed]].)
** In fact it became so iconic that you almost have to pity any other ice dancing pair that even tries to use Bolero as the music to their routine. One couple tried it afterwards - and they got booed.

* When Great Britain's Lizzy Yarnold won Gold in the Women's Skeleton, she not only became the first Brit to defend a Winter Olympics title, but the most decorated British Winter Olympian ever, edging out the legendary Tovril and Dean (Who have one gold and one bronze medal).

* The '''greatest''' ice skating moment would have to go to Torvill and Dean from Great Britain. They have been the ''only'' team to ever get full sixes across the board for artistic merit. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2zbbN4OL98 Well deserved]]. Their dancing interpretation of Music/MauriceRavel's "Bolero" is legendary. (They also were among those to set a precedent for "dying" in their routine, which is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-0B72qzkeQ no longer allowed]].)

* Great Britain's Women's curling team not only winning the nation's first gold medal in the sport since 1924,(though it should be noted that it didn't appear in the Olympics officially from 1936-1998), they also won it with their ''last'' stone.

* Zoi Sadowski-Synnott winning New Zealand's ''first ever'' gold medal in the Winter Olympics when she won the Women's Snowboard Slopestyle.

* When Great Britain's Lizzy Yarnold won Gold in the Women's Skeleton, she not only became the first Brit to defend a Winter Olympics title, but the most decorated British Winter Olympian ever, edging out the legendry Tovril and Dean (Who have one gold and one bronze medal).

[[folder:Salt Lake 2002]]

* Clara Hughes. She had already shown her awesomeness before 2012 in being the ''only'' Olympian in history to ever win multiple medals at both the Summer and Winter Olympics, for cycling and speed skating, respectively. She's tied with fellow speed skater Cindy Klassen for the most decorated Canadian Olympian with 6 medals. However, she qualified for the road race and road time trial for the 2012 London Games, despite previously retiring from cycling 12 years prior. She finished a disappointing 32nd in the road race. Clara later admitted that during a race earlier in the year, she'd fractured a vertebrae. She had been training and competing for the last six weeks before the London Games ''with a broken back''. That makes her 5th place finish in the time trial seem a lot more awesome.

* For years, British UsefulNotes/{{Tennis}} player Andy Murray had been constantly bested by Roger Federer, most painfully at {{UsefulNotes/Wimbledon}} 2012. As fate would have it, the men's singles finals turned into a rematch between him and Federer on the very same court the two had faced each other just four weeks before. Murray proceeded to defeat the World No. 1 he was never able to defeat before in ''[[CurbStompBattle straight sets]]'', causing the crowd to go wild and Britain to get its first gold medal in men's singles since 1908.
* The U.S. women's gymnastics squad, aptly dubbed the "Fierce Five," who first qualify as a group for winning the gold. By the end of the competition, they were so far in the lead that Aly Raisman, last to go in the team final, could've face-planted on every single tumbling pass in her routine and they ''still'' would have won.[[note]]Needless to say, Raisman did ''not'' face-plant even one tumbling pass, let alone four of them. Instead, she went on to become the Olympic champion on floor exercise. As you do.[[/note]] Some individual accomplishments of note, however:

*** [=McKayla=] deserves another one just for making fun of the not impressed meme. She owns it, and it culminated in [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Barack_Obama_with_artistic_gymnastic_McKayla_Maroney_2.jpg this picture with U.S. President Barack Obama]].

** How about Megan Rapinoe's Olimpico goal[[note]]scoring directly from a corner kick[[/note]] against Canada, making her the only person in the world to score one in the Olympics. And it wasn't the last time...

* Grenadian Kirani James winning the country's first Olympic medal ever--a gold in the 400m.

* The fact that the aforementioned Oksana Chusovitina not only competed in gymnastics at the age of ''37'', but qualified for the vault final is a [=MoA=] in itself. Most gymnasts' careers are over well before 30, but Mrs. Chusovitina is still competing as she's nearing 40!
* The female Brazilian volleyball team entered the tournament with low expectations due to bad performances earlier in the year. Then they are nearly eliminated in the group round. Following a tense quarter-finals match with Russia and a somewhat easy semi-finals match with Japan, comes a HeroicRematch with the U.S. team. The first set is a [[CurbStompBattle 11-25]] loss, but the following three are won for the second gold in a row!

* Weightlifter Óscar Figueroa Mosquera gets the third gold medal for Colombia, with a total of 318 kg in the men's 62 kg class. In the 2008 Beijing Games he was injured, in the 2012 London Games he lost the gold to the Indonesian Eko Yuli Irawan, and since he had planned to retire after Rio...here he gets it in his last chance. He then left his shoes on the mat to signal his retirement. He went out in style.
* Another one for weightlifting: In the men's 77 kg class, Kazakhstan's Nijat Rahimov not only wins gold but also sets a world record in clean and jerk...of ''214 kg'', with the total being ''379 kg''.
* Lithuanian Aurimas Didžbalis celebrates his weightlifting bronze medal...[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXoRuTef5hw with an incredible backflip]].

* Katie Ledecky accomplishes a mission she set out years ago and claims four gold medals in Rio, in the process becoming only the second female swimmer in history, after Debbie Meyer in the 1968 Mexico City Games, to sweep the distance freestyles--the 200m, 400m, and 800m. And if you thought her performance in London was impressive, in the 400m and 800m, she literally left everyone else in her wake[[note]]The gap between gold and silver was nearly five seconds for the 400m and ''over eleven seconds'' for the 800m[[/note]] and took ''nearly two seconds'' off each race's world record. In the process, she maintained an impressive undefeated streak in individual finals: Starting with that first gold in London 4 years earlier, she was in 15 finals in international competition[[note]]Including the Olympics, the World Championships, and the Pan-Pacific Championships[[/note]]...''and won every one of them''.[[note]]On top of that, many argued that none of the races in which she'd won Olympic gold was her best event! That would be the 1500 m, which didn't make its Olympic debut for women until 2020... [[UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic make that 2021]].[[/note]]

*** And this was the first Olympics in which all figure skaters were allowed to use music with lyrics in competition. (Ice dancers have been allowed to use such music since the 1997–98 season after dealing with in-score classical compositions)

* Brazilian footballer [[https://onherturf.nbcsports.com/2021/07/21/when-7-time-olympian-formiga-was-born-women-in-brazil-were-banned-from-playing-soccer/ Formiga]] is participating in her ''seventh'' Olympics, a record for a player in a team sport.

** Laura Kenny's husband, and fellow track cyclist, Jason, then got his own moment of awesome when he won the men's Keirin. That then made him the most successful British Olympian ever with 7 golds and two silvers. That's means that overall, the Kennys have a very impressive 15 medals, with 12 of them being gold, between them.

* Great Britain have won a medal in practically every discipline of cycling throughout the years apart from one: BMX. That all changed when Kye Whyte finished second in his race, giving Britain their first ever medal in the sport. Twenty minutes later they had two, when Bethany Shriever won her race, beating the two-time Olympic champion in the process. Shriever's win is even more remarkable when you realise that she had take to a job as a teaching assistant and crowdfund her way to the Olympics when UK Sport stopped the funding to the women's BMX team, saying that they weren't medal prospects. The fact that Whyte was hanging around at the finish line, cheering her on, and [[BridalCarry picked]] her up after the race when she collapsed from exhaustion, not only doubled down on the awesome, but made it a [[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming]] as well.

* Not only did the Fiji men's team repeat their gold medal run in rugby sevens, but the women too did well enough to get bronze. It should be noted that the women's rugby union program in Fiji only has a few hundred members in total, and cannot possibly hope to compete with the funding and talent pool of Canada, Australia and Great Britain, all of which they have beaten in the tournament. And at an Oceanian sevens tournament just before the Olympics, a couple of their star players had to be replaced through injury.
* Great Britain having their most successful games in the pool in a century:

* While not as overwhelming as they have been in the past, the United States still demonstrated both expected and unexpected dominance in the pool.

* Great Britain winning the Eventing team gold for the first time in 49 years with an inexperienced team all competing in their first Olympics. Incredibly, one of of the team, Laura Collet, is lucky to even be alive, let alone still be riding a horse. In 2013, she was placed in a coma for six days after she had a heavy fall from her mount and suffered a broken spine, shoulder and ribs, along with a punctured lung and a lacerated liver. She also lost most of her vision in one eye and had to be resurrected in the ambulance on the way to hospital ''five times''.

** Men: As background, going into July 2021, the world record of 46.79 s had been set by Kevin Young... at the ''Barcelona Olympics''. However, two contenders for the record emerged: Norway's Karsten Warholm, whose best time was 46.87 in August 2020, and American Rai Benjamin, who ran a 46.83 in the US Olympic trials near the end of June 2021. Then on July 1 in Oslo, Warholm set a new world record of 46.70. Now, fast-forward to the Tokyo final. Warholm took the event to a completely new level, running a ''45.94'', making him the first man ever to break the 46-second barrier. Benjamin also obliterated Warholm's previous world record, running 46.17. And, the bronze medalist, Brazil's Alison dos Santos, ran 46.72, meaning that the medalists had just recorded ''three of the four fastest times in history''. On top of that, the remaining five finalists recorded the best times ever for their specific placements.

** Men: As background, going into July 2021, the world record of 46.79 s had been set by Kevin Young... at the ''Barcelona Olympics''. However, two contenders for the record emerged: Norway's Karsten Warholm, whose best time was 46.87 in August 2020, and American Rai Benjamin, who ran a 46.83 in the US Olympic trials near the end of June 2021. Then on July 1 in Oslo, Warholm set a new world record of 46.70. Now, fast-forward to the Tokyo final. Warholm took the event to a completely new level, running a ''45.94'', making him the first man ever to break the 46-second barrier. Benjamin also obliterated Warholm's previous world record, running 46.17. And, the bronze medalist, Brazil's Alison dos Santos, ran 46.72, meaning that the medalists had just recorded ''three of the four fastest times in history''.

* Speaking of gymnastics, Carly Patterson's gold medal win in the women's all-around--the first since Mary Lou Retton twenty years earlier, and the first for an American at a fully attended Olympics[[note]]Retton won her gold at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, which was boycotted by the Soviet Union, who were extremely dominant in gymnastics during that era; it's generally believed that had their team been present, she couldn't have won[[/note]]. Patterson began what is currently a five-peat all-around women's gold streak for the Americans, followed by Nastia Liukin in the 2008 Beijing Games, Gabby Douglas in the 2012 London Games, Simone Biles in the 2016 Rio Games, and Sunisa Lee in the 2020 Tokyo Games. Even better, another American--Paul Hamm--won the gold medal in the ''men's'' all-around that same year.

* Speaking of gymnastics, Carly Patterson's gold medal win in the women's all-around--the first since Mary Lou Retton twenty years earlier, and the first for an American at a fully attended Olympics[[note]]Retton won her gold at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, which was boycotted by the Soviet Union, who were extremely dominant in gymnastics during that era; it's generally believed that had their team been present, Retton's chances of winning would have been significantly lower[[/note]]. Patterson began what is currently a five-peat all-around women's gold streak for the Americans, followed by Nastia Liukin in the 2008 Beijing Games, Gabby Douglas in the 2012 London Games, Simone Biles in the 2016 Rio Games, and Sunisa Lee in the 2020 Tokyo Games. Even better, another American--Paul Hamm--won the gold medal in the ''men's'' all-around that same year.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abebe_Bikila Abebe Bikila]] of Ethiopia became the first sub-Saharan African to win an Olympic gold medal. In the ''marathon''. '''Barefoot'''.[[note]](He couldn't find shoes that both fit and were comfortable.)[[/note]]

* The Hungarians beating the Soviets in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_in_the_Water_match Blood in the Water match]], just a month after the Hungarian revolution was violently put down. They won the gold a few days later, before most of them defected to the U.S.

*** Yuzuru Hanyu becoming the first man to defend his Olympic men's figure skating gold medal since ''1952''. Noteworthy that this was his first competition back since suffering a major injury three months beforehand, missing out on ''two'' competitions that season! His short program set to Chopin's Ballade no. 1 was skated flawlessly; upon finishing it he hugged his coach Brian Orser and stated, [[HesBack "I'm back."]] His free skate "Seimei" was slightly less successful - performing on painkillers, he stumbled out of two jumps (but did not fall) - but still gave him his second gold.

*** Yuzuru Hanyu becoming the first man to defend his Olympic men's figure skating gold medal since ''1952''. Noteworthy that this was his first competition back since suffering a major injury three months beforehand! He was skating his free skate ''Seimei'' on painkillers, and stomped his injured leg (ankle, precisely) on the ice at the end of the program.

* Snowboarder Chloe Kim winning gold in the half-pipe, honoring both of her countries, as her parents are from Korea. The best part is she secured gold on her ''first'' run, and didn't have to go all out on her final run because she was the last snowboarder, so knew she already won...yet she did anyway, nailing back to back [=1080s=] and beating her own score. And like the above mentioned Red Gerard, she's only 17 and the youngest woman ever to medal in snowboarding...
** ...or was for the entirety of one day, before France's Julia Pereira de Sousa-Mabileau, 16, won a Snowboard Cross silver medal.

*** Mirai Nagusu becoming the first American woman to land a triple axel at the Olympics, propelling the US to bronze in the team competition.

* The fact that '''Video Game Music''' is used for the opening Parade of Nations!!! And not just video game music, some of the best video game music yet, including from iconic game franchises like VideoGame/DragonQuest, VideoGame/FinalFantasy, VideoGame/TalesOf, VideoGame/MonsterHunter, Franchise/KingdomHearts, VideoGame/ChronoTrigger, VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog, VideoGame/PhantasyStarUniverse, VideoGame/{{Nier}}, the VideoGame/SoulSeries, and plenty more!![[note]]You can find the full listing [[https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/tokyo-olympics-opens-with-video-game-music/ here.]][[/note]] "Video games are real music" indeed!!!

* The men's 4×100 freestyle relay is probably one of the best swimming relay races of all time, with Australia winning against USA who had never been defeated in that race since the race's introduction in 1964. To top it off both teams finished almost 2 seconds under world record pace with Ian Thorpe just barely edging out Gary Hall Jr.

* The fact that '''Video Game Music''' is used for the opening Parade of Nations!!! And not just video game music, some of the best video game music yet, including from iconic game franchises like VideoGame/DragonQuest, VideoGame/FinalFantasy, VideoGame/TalesOf, VideoGame/MonsterHunter, VideoGame/KingdomHearts, VideoGame/ChronoTrigger, VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog, VideoGame/PhantasyStarUniverse, VideoGame/KingdomHearts, VideoGame/{{Nier}}, the VideoGame/SoulSeries, and plenty more!![[note]]You can find the full listing [[https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/tokyo-olympics-opens-with-video-game-music/ here.]][[/note]] "Video games are real music" indeed!!!

* Italy winning their first 100m medal with Lamont Marcell Jacobs taking gold. They then won the gold in the men’s 4×100 metre relay, by pipping Great Britain on the line.