Day 17 and Closing Ceremony

Galen Rupp of the USA wins bronze in the men's marathon in 2 hours 10 minutes and 5 seconds. Eluid Kopchoge of Kenya wins gold in 2 hours 8 minutes and 44 seconds. Feyisa Lilesa of Ethiopia wins silver in 2 hours 9 minutes and 54 seconds. Rupp wins the first marathon medal for the USA since 2004.

The USA men's volleyball team beat Russia for bronze 3-2, 23-25, 21-25, 25-19, 25-19, 15-13. Brazil wins gold over Italy 3-0, 25-22, 28-26, 26-24. Italy wins silver.

Kyle Snyder of the USA wins gold in the men's 97kg freestyle wrestling competition, 3-1 over Khetag Goziumov of Azerbaijan.

Clarissa Shields of the USA wins gold in the women's middleweight 165lb by beating Nouchka Fontijn of the Netherlands 3-0.

The USA men's basketball team wins gold by beating Serbia 96-66. The USA was leading 52-29 at halftime and was up 88-47 late in the 4th quarter. Kevin Durant led team USA with 30 points. Demarcus Cousins added 13 points for team USA. This is the 3rd consecutive gold medal for the USA. Serbia wins silver. Spain beat Australia for bronze 89-88.

The closing ceremony started at 8pm and was not live. NBC's coverage started at 7pm eastern and had a Olympic special on for an hour so it was taped delayed for an hour.

Brief review of closing ceremony:

NBC's coverage started out with a reference to Brazil's assertion that they were the first in flight. Then Brazilian dancers formed the landscape of Rio to include Christ the Redeemer Statue, Sugarloaf Mountain and the Olympic Rings. Young children sung the Brazilian national anthem while the Brazilian flag was raised. Then the flag bearers of all nations came into the stadium followed by all of the athletes. Kygo from Norway performed along with Julia Michaels to promote the launch of the Olympic Channel.

References of Indigenous people of Brazil were used as they were in the opening ceremony. This refers to Brazil's slave culture in its past. Next, the men's marathon medal ceremony took place, The Greek flag was raised to the Greek national anthem and the Olympic flag was lowered to the Olympic hymn. This was the beginning of the handoff to Japan. The anthem of Japan was played while the Japanese flag was raised. There was a video tribute depicting the 2020 Tokyo games and its video game culture, followed by an appearance by Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who was seen dressed as Nintendo's Super Mario coming out of a Mario pipe in the middle of the stadium. There were displays on the floor of the stadium that read "Thank You for your Support," and the Tokyo 2020 emblem.

IOC President Thomas Bach declared the games closed and thanked the city of Rio de Janeiro. Mariene de Castro was singing with water coming down behind her as the flame was extinguished.

The last part of the ceremony was a Brazil carnival like atmosphere with costumes, singing and dancing. NBC's coverage ended at 10:25pm eastern time as Bob Costas provided final commentary on these games before signing off for an episode of the Voice.

While the closing ceremony seemed great, again, NBC's coverage was quite subpar again. Too many commercials, too much talking over the singing and dancing were the main complaints across Twitter. NBC's coverage was down about 25 percent in the key 18-49 age group. This may be a reason why. The next 3 Olympic games will be all on a tape delay due to the time difference. This was NBC's chance to show a completely live Olympics and they came up short. So short that NBC had to make up for low ratings with free commercial airtime for sponsors. Tape-delay is in NBC's rulebook, so expect it for any Olympics to come, even when its supposed to be shown live.

Photos credit: Getty Images, UPI and other media sources. For blog use only.

Final Medal Count

USA 46 gold, 37 silver, 38 bronze - 121 total
China 26 gold, 18 silver, 26 bronze - 70 total
Great Britain 27 gold, 23 silver, 17 bronze - 67 total
Russia 19 gold, 18 silver, 19 bronze - 56 total
Germany 17 gold, 10 silver, 15 bronze - 42 total
France 10 gold, 18 silver, 14 bronze - 42 total