Grabbing three golds and two bronze medals on Sunday the US wrapped up Rio with 46 gold medals and 121 total medals. The 46 golds matched the total from four years ago in London as the most at a summer games other than the exceptional 1908 and 1984 Olympics and the the 121 total medals are the third most behind 1908 and 1984. The US had never won more than 110 medals in any Olympics other than those two years so this was a major successful medal haul from the US. Individually speaking Sunday saw golds from heavy favorites (men’s basketball and Claressa Shields), a gold from a rising young wrestling star (Kyle Snyder), a newcomer to the marathon that took bronze in just his second ever marathon (Galen Rupp), and a comeback story bronze (both in Rio and in their match on Sunday) on the volleyball court.

August 21st Recap:

Basketball

The US men won gold for the third straight Olympics with a 96-66 victory over Serbia on Sunday. The US led by only four after the first quarter 19-15 before pouring it on in the second to take a 23 point lead to the locker room. The final margin of 30 was seven less than the margin the US won by when these teams met in the World Cup in 2014. Kevin Durant had a massive game for the US with 30 points, five rebounds, and four assists. DeMarcus Cousins also stepped up with a double-double scoring 13 and grabbing 15 rebounds. Kyle Lowry had five points, five rebounds, and five assists while Klay Thompson added 12 points. The US men’s program is being handed over from Mike Krzyzewski to Greg Popovich after the Olympics and the schedule for the next four years will be a little different than what it has been. The World Cup will be held in 2019, one year before the Olympics, whereas in the past the World Cups had been two years before the Olympics. The US will also be forced to go through qualifying beginning late next year. The US will have 12 games in qualifying between late 2017 and early 2019 and will only need to finish top three in their final group of six to advance to the World Cup. You would expect the US could advance without sending their best players but making sure that a good team takes the court and takes care of business will be interesting to manage.

Boxing

Claressa Shields became the first American to win back-to-back boxing gold medals in the Olympics with yet another one-sided win on Sunday. Nouchka Fontijn met Shields for the second time this summer in a title deciding fight (the first in the world championships in May) and it doesn’t look like she is any match for Shields at this point. The question going forward is what’s the best option for Shields, staying an amateur or turning professional? Women’s boxing is not exactly lucrative but perhaps with a two-time Olympian star like Shields to market that would change. But Shields has not shied away from admitting that turning professional is not a sure thing for her and that staying an amateur for another four years and attempting to become a three-time gold medalist is quite possible. She should land some endorsement deals and with whatever level of support she is given to train she may find her lifestyle staying an amateur to be acceptable to her. Only time will tell.

Cycling

The final cycling event of Rio was the men’s mountain bike cross-country event. Howard Grotts had some bad luck with two flat tires, a broken seat, and eventually was lapped and taken out of the race. Cycling ended up being the only sport where the US didn’t win a medal on Sunday.

Track and Field

Track and field wrapped up in Rio with the men’s marathon. The US had 2004 silver medalist Meb Keflezighi in the field but it was the newcomer to the marathon, Galen Rupp, who stole the show and took bronze in Rio. Rupp was running in only his second marathon (after the US trials) as he expanded his field of events to something new after being the silver medalist in the 10,000m in London. Rupp is a certain contender to be the first American gold medalist in the marathon since 1984 if he decides to train for it and focus on it going into Tokyo. Rupp was followed by Jared Ward in sixth while Keflezighi finished 33rd after fighting nausea during the race. Keflezighi slipped right before the finish line and showed some great humor in pumping out a few pushups before getting up and crossing the finish line.

Volleyball

The US men’s bronze medal match with Russia was a decent analogy for their entire Olympics. The US lost the opening two sets before battling back and getting something out of it by winning in five sets. The 3-2 win (23-25, 21-25, 25-19, 25-19, 15-13) gave the US just their second medal since 1992 after a gold in Beijing.

Wrestling

The US took their first men’s freestyle wrestling gold of the Olympics on Sunday as 20-year-old Kyle Snyder continued a meteoric rise as he won the men’s 97kg division. Snyder opened with a 10-3 win over Javier Cortina in the round of 16 before dispatching Albert Saritov 7-0 in the quarterfinals. With a medal match guaranteed Snyder made sure that would be for gold with a comeback in the semifinals to defeat Elizbar Odikadze 9-4. It was clear by the end of the match that the Georgian had nothing left while Snyder was still ready to go. In the gold medal match Snyder faced his closest match of the day and barely managed to hang on to win 2-1 over Khetag Gazyumov in a really exciting matchup. Snyder is the youngest gold medalist in US history. There were almost two US medalists on Sunday but Frank Molinaro came up just short of a Rio medal. Molinaro opened with a tiebreak win (or winning on criteria as it’s referred to in wrestling) over Magomedmurad Gadzhiev in the men’s 67kg round of 16 after their match ended 2-2. Molinaro lost in his next match 10-0 to Toghrul Asgarov in the quarterfinals in a match that was much closer than the final score indicated. Numerous times in the match Molinaro seemed on the verge of scoring but Asgarov would turn it around and score points instead. Molinaro did beat Andrii Kviatkovskyi 8-5 in the repechage bracket to earn a bronze medal match but lost that one 5-3 to Frank Chamizo.