108 years. That's how long it's been since Great Britain and Northern Ireland finished in the top two at the Olympic Games. After ending the 92-year wait for a top three finish in 2012, very few thought that Team GB could get near to matching the medals total and placing at 2012, letting alone beating it.
20 years on from an Olympics where Britain managed just one gold medal, this time round, they have managed 27 from 16 different sports, as well as 67 medals from 20 different sports. Add to that the 16 fourth places and it just shows how much GB have been competing at the top of big events. That's 83 top four finishes.
This article will look back at highlights of this fantastic games for GB and explain why this is the greatest Olympic performance in our history.
Wednesday Rush Kicks Off Manic Medal Wins
Other than Adam Peaty's astonishing double world record and gold, the first weekend and the start of week 2 had been pretty ordinary for team GB. They had missed out in both of cycling's road races, they had 12 4th or 5th place finishes that had come in the pool, on the shooting range and the women had fallen agonisingly short in the 7s. Britain were not having the kind of luck that had brought them the kind of success that had got them the third spot in London.
Peaty broke his own World Record twice in three incredible swims
But Day 5, the first Wednesday changed all that. Chris Froome was 2nd favourite for gold in the road race time trial, but there was little he could do to match the incredible rides of Fabian Cancellara and Tom Dumoulin who picked up gold and silver respectively. He edged his way to bronze, but it was a sign that we were finally winning those tight battles, finally getting ourselves some medals when there was every chance we wouldn't.
Froome's bronze capped off a special summer
After Steve Scott's shooting bronze, Britain had some golds to shout about. Both of which were hugely unexpected. Few gave Joe Clarke much chance of reaching the final of his canoe slalom event, but he reached it in the 2nd fastest time, and took gold in a thrilling final after a superb run. Jack Laugher and Chris Mears were given a good chance by many of replicating Tom Daley and Dan Goodfellow's bronze medals in synchro diving, this time going in the 3m springboard as opposed to the latter's 10m platform event, but they infact struck gold, stunning their rivals (especially the Chinese) with some outstanding diving. Sally Conway and Max Whitlock added two bronzes to the total on what was a day that changed the momentum of the games for Team GB.
Laugher and Mears' shock gold capped a "wonderful Wednesday" for GB
GB dominate the "sit down sports"
Australians used to taunt Britain by saying they were only good at winning "sit down sports", alluding to our success in the velodrome and on the water. Cycling and Rowing have been hugely successful for GB through the years and it was no different this time round. On the track, power couple Laura Trott and Jason Kenny produced superb performances to win one quarter of the golds awarded on the track with Trott taking the two women's endurance evens and Kenny earning all three men's sprint events.
Laura Trott and Jason Kenny have 10 Olympic golds between them
There were also medals for road legends Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish, the former took his fifth gold and eighth medal (a record) while Cavendish ended his long wait to get on the podium with a superb 2nd place in the Omnium. GB performed so well on the track that there are questions about whether they were taking drugs, Australia typically leading the whingeing after their lame performance at this year's games. Every single British cyclist who went to Rio came away with a medal, it was a brilliant performance for a team that had struggled so much in the four years leading up to it.
Mark Cavendish ended his long wait for an Olympic medal
On the water, GB did not quite dominate the rowing to the extent they have done at times in recent years, but they still managed to pick up golds in the men's eight, men's four and women's pair adding silvers in the women's eight and women's double sculls. Helen Glover and Heather Stanning continued their brilliant success in the women's double sculls, picking up a second gold together in consecutive games. The rowers fell one short of their medal requirement set by UK sport, but they got 3 golds in big events to make it a highly successful regatta.
GB Break new ground
As well as performing well in the events we can (usually) rely on, GB made history, winning a number of golds and medals in events they had never done before. It would be wrong to start anywhere other than Max Whitlock. He won GB's first ever men's gymnastics gold with a shock win on the floor before following it up with gold on the pommel horse just two hours later. That was the first time a Briton had won two golds in a day since Rower Hugh Edwards took gold in the pairs and fours in Los Angeles 84 years ago.
GB's wait for a first gymnastics gold was 120 years, the wait for their second was 120 minutes
Whitlock led GB to new found success in gymnastics, after falling agonisingly short in both the men's and women's team events they managed to win 7 medals in all. Louis Smith, won a third straight medal in the pommel, finishing just behind Whitlock. Nile Wilson became the first Briton to win a medal in the horizontal bar as he took bronze and that was matched by Amy Tinkler. The 16 year old who recieves her GCSE results on Thursday took bronze on the floor as the United States' Simone Biles secured her fourth gold medal of Rio 2016.
As previously mentioned, Wednesday wonders Jack Laugher and Chris Mears won a dramatic diving gold, but I failed to add that it was the first diving gold in GB Olympic history. It certainly won't be the last however, as Britain continue to grow in the diving pool. To top off GB's new found acrobatic prowess Byrony Page became the first British woman to win an Olympic trampoline medal by claiming silver in Rio.
Byrony Page celebrates her historic medal
Cyclist Mark Cavendish ending his long wait for a medal was a brilliant moment in itself, but add that to the fact it was GB's first men's Omnium and it is made extra special. Sophie Hitchon won GB's first ever medal in the hammer to help Britain reach their minimum requirement athletics target of 7 medals. Last, but by no means least, Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge won Great Britain's first Olympic badminton men's doubles medal, beating China's Hong Wei and Chai Biao to take bronze.
Britain's stars: Title defences and Olympic history makers
Of GB's 27 golds, 11 were titles that were defended from 9 athletes, and several of those defences were historic. Alongside the rowers and cyclists, Nicola Adams who beat Sarah Ourahmoune of France to clinch the flyweight boxing title, becoming the first Briton for 92 years to retain a boxing gold. Jade Jones was just one of four welsh gold medalists (a record at the games) as she retained her women's -57kg taekwondo gold.
Jones came through some tricky opposition to land a second Olympic gold
An emotional Charlotte Dujardin earned a second individual dressage title in between Mo Farah successfully defending not one but two Olympic titles, winning both the 5,000m and 10,000m. Farah became the first man to ever achieve the long distance track "double double" and will surely be in line for sporting accolades and honours come the end of this year. Andy Murray's winning run came to an end in Cincinnati on Sunday, but that was not before he became the first player in Olympic history to win two singles titles as he retained his tennis gold with a gruelling four set win over Juan Martin Del Potro. Finally, on the subject of title defences, Alistair Brownlee edged out brother Johnny (again) by 6 seconds to win gold in the men's triathlon. He became the first triathlete to win two Olympic titles.
There was plenty more history made by British athletes at these games in other areas too. I've already mentioned Adam Peaty but his achievement cannot be overstated. Two world records saw the Brit reduced the world record by 0.8 seconds from 57.92 to 57.13 in two incredible days. No-one else has ever swum within 1.5 seconds of Adam Peaty's record in the 100m breaststroke. On the track GB broke the world record in both Team Pursuit events, and despite his dismal semi-final, Tom Daley can take some heart from his Olympic record in the diving preliminaries, although that will probably make his early exit all the more painful. Finally, Justin Rose took victory in the first Golf event for 112 years after coming through in a pulsating last round.
The Golf tournament exceeded all expectations
The Near Misses - Let's not forget them
GB had a wonderful games, but they were close to beating London in terms of golds won, but for some desperately near misses. Whilst GB picked up 5 silvers in the pool, they couldn't complain about those, all being beaten into first by some margin, but in other sports it was a different story. In the team dressage, GB were beaten by just 3.334 points, with Germany's 81.396 enough to see off Britain on 78.602. Johnny Brownlee was beaten by his brother Alistair by just 6 seconds, the second time he has missed out to him in two Olympics.
Johnny got bronze in London, and now silver in Rio, will it be gold in Tokyo?
In another close battle, Richard Hounslow and David Florence narrowly lost out in the C2 canoe double slalom by just 0.43 seconds to the Skantar brothers of Slovakia. Whilst the 7s rugby team did not get particularly close, they reached the first Olympic final in the sport, only to come up against a determined Fijian side who won a first Olympic gold, with a crushing 43-7 victory over the British team. Jessica Ennis-Hill came up against a Belgian on a mission. Said Belgian Nafissatou Thiam made 5 personal bests as she produced a stunning effort to deny Ennis-Hill. The 2012 Champion missed out by just 35 points at what is surely her last Olympics.
But the closest near miss for a gold medal in the whole games was with Lutalo Muhammad. In what has to go down as one of the most devastating defeats in sporting history, the Briton led 6-4 when the fight was stopped with one second left. As the ref restarted the fight, his Ivorian opponent reacted quicker to land a reverse head kick, which left Muhammad beaten. He will not be remembered for a gold here, but for the immense courage he showed in his heartbreaking post bout interview before collecting his medal with a smile. Muhammad has in the past suffered with hate mail and trolls after being controversially selected ahead of Aaron Cook in 2012, but showed he was far better, as Cook flopped out for his new country, Moldova, in the last 32.
Muhammad couldn't hold back the tears but showed incredible strength of character to be interviewed
How about the fourths? This lot perhaps deserve even more of a mention, as they came away with no consolation prize. Starting with the GB Women's 7s rugby team, who beat Canada in the group stage, but saw yellow twice to hand Canada one of their 15 bronzes at these games (just two fewer than GB). James Guy was the 200m freestyle world champion heading into Rio, but poor heats and semis left the Briton unlikely to win a medal. He stepped up his game but was 0.26 seconds out from a medal. Fortunately for Guy he picked up two medals in medleys to avoid coming away empty handed.
Another painful fourth in the pool came to Andrew Willis, after finishing in the "worst position" in the 2014 European Championships and the World Championships the following year, he did it again as he missed out by 0.09 seconds. Spare a thought also for Non Stanford and Tim Kneale who had to watch compatriots Vicky Holland and Steve Scott pick up bronzes in the triathlon and shooting respectively, while the former two had to settle for fourth.
Finally, Adam Gemili. The GB athletics captain missed out by a thousandth of a second to Frenchman Chrsitophe Lemaitre in the 200m sprint. The latter was obviously ecstatic but the former was completed devastated. It would have laid brilliant foundations for his career after a 5th in the 2013 World Championships but he missed out, leaving him "absolutely heartbroken".
Gemili couldn't believe how little he had missed out by
So is it the Greatest?
Without a shadow of a doubt. 1908 is our most successful games, with 146 medals, but that was a very different time. But with a third of the athletes, biased judging and refereeing and difficulty for other athletes to bring training equipment over, we were always at a massive advantage. It was strange if the host nation didn't finish in the top two back then.
To make the top two, away from home is quite remarkable. Beating Russia was always likely after they had several top athletes removed, but to beat the Chinese was quite incredible. Huge sports funding focused on very particular sports has helped the Chinese in recent years to surge into the top end of the table, battling the US for the top spot, and winning that battle at their own Olympics in 2008. However we managed to beat them this time round, with more gold and silver medals. We also managed to win golds in 16 sports to their 10, and all this with a significantly smaller population or history of Olympic domination.
For me, it is that variety that makes this the greatest games. 4 more sports than 2012 that have produced golds and they have popped up everywhere. The fact it was done on away soil makes it all the more impressive. We are by no means a superpower yet, but we have seen a lot of young athletes at these games, some who got medals, others that missed out. If those youngsters are better in 4 years, GB could be challenging at the top.
We are still dominating in our favourite sports, we are back to our best in our previously good sports and we are breaking ground into new sports. Since John Major introduced the National Lottery and it's funding for British Sport, we have gone from a country that woefully underperformed to one that massively exceeds itself. Germany, a richer country in terms of GDP per capita, with 10 million more people, were 10 golds behind us. In 1996 they won 20 times the number of golds we managed. What a turnaround.
Sir Steve Redgrave won GB's solitary gold in '96
While I think that this is the greatest, I think it will be exceeded very soon. British Sport is in a brilliant place at the moment and with so many young athletes coming through, it is only a matter of time before we will go past 67 medals.
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