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RIO DE JANEIRO -- Michael Phelps won more medals than anyone else, again. And then he said farewell, also again.Usain Bolt kissed the finish line goodbye after enhancing his Olympic legacy. Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky delivered under the burden of enormous expectations. Two strangers went from rivals to forever-linked by a display of kindness, an entire island seemed to celebrate a tennis match, and a gold medalist scampered home to avoid legal issues after a robbery story unraveled.And then the home team won soccer gold.The Rio de Janeiro Olympics were not perfect.But there were moments -- some great, some dreadful and some downright ugly -- that will not, and should not, be forgotten.Heres a look:---MEDAL LEADERSThe U.S. dominated the medal count, a rare romp in a non-boycotted games. Theres still more medals to win Sunday, but the margin of overall victory could be the most in a fully attended games in 68 years. Phelps won six medals, five of them gold, to increase his career haul to 23 Olympic titles and 28 medals overall. Ledecky and Biles each won five medals; Biles will carry the U.S. flag into the closing ceremony. And U.S. shooter Kim Rhode has now won a medal in six consecutive Olympics -- and she might not be done.---BEST FINISHBolt kissing the finish line after his ninth and final Olympic gold -- in nine final races -- was a perfect ending. He ran the anchor leg of the 4x100-meter relay for Jamaica, won emphatically to become the third athlete ever with nine golds in track and field, and insists that this will be the end of his Olympic career.Nothing left to prove, Bolt said.Hes right.I am the greatest, he added.Right again.---BEST ACT OF SPORTSMANSHIPAn easy pick.In the womens 5,000-meter heat, Abbey DAgostino of the U.S. and New Zealands Nikki Hamblin -- strangers before that day -- were involved in a tumble. DAgostino helped Hamblin up, encouraging her to finish the race. DAgostino tore a knee ligament in the fall and obviously couldnt finish. Hamblin wound up finishing last of 17 in the 5,000 final, so neither left with a medal.Instead, they got so much more.That girl is the Olympic spirit right there, Hamblin said of DAgostino. Ive never met her before. Like I never met this girl before. And isnt that just so amazing?Yes, it is.---BIGGEST EMBARRASSMENTAnother easy pick, even in a games where an Egyptian was sent home after failing to shake an Israeli judo opponents hand.Ryan Lochte is a 12-time Olympic medalist, and the odds that hell have a chance to ever swim for a 13th are as murky as some of the pools were in these Rio Games. Lochtes story that a robber put a gun to his head quickly unraveled, his three teammates who were companions that night all were left to answer legal questions after he scurried home, and more repercussions from the U.S. Olympic Committee are likely coming.Its traumatic to be out late with your friends in a foreign country -- with a language barrier, read part of the apology that Lochte released on social media Friday.Maybe so, but it bears noting that language barrier or no language barrier, the incident occurred after Lochte left a night out at ... Club France. So it would seem like not all foreign atmospheres struck him as traumatic before now.---BREAKOUT STARWe asked. You voted.Narrowing the list of potential candidates to four -- Simone Manuel (four swimming medals), Joseph Schooling (beat Phelps for a gold in the pool), Monica Puig (whose tennis gold was Puerto Ricos first Olympic title in any sport) and Ibtihaj Muhammad (the barrier-breaking fencing medalist) -- AP asked its Twitter followers to have a say in deciding this one.The response was overwhelming, and one-sided: Puig is the breakout star of these games.Reduced to tears many times after draping the Puerto Rican flag across her body after the gold-medal match, Puig beat two of the worlds best five players to win the title.To do this ... is everything, Puig said.The Olympic ideal, personified.---BEST COACHDue respect to Mike Krzyzewski, Geno Auriemma, Martha Karolyi and the Japanese wrestling coach who found himself getting body-slammed twice in celebration by womens gold medalist Risako Kawai, this one goes to Ans Botha -- the 74-year-old great-grandmother who guided South Africas Wayde Van Niekerk to Olympic gold and a world record in the mens 400 sprint.Her style is simple. When the smile goes away and the voice gets stern, its time to get serious. Sort of like most great-grandmothers.Shes an amazing woman, Van Niekerk said. Her work ... I think it speaks for itself.---BEST COUPLEDecathlon champion Ashton Eaton of the U.S. and his wife, heptathlon bronze medalist Brianne Thiesen-Eaton of Canada, would be a very easy selection here.But what Kate Richardson-Walsh and Helen Richardson-Walsh did was even more rare.Theyre married, and played for the same gold-medal winning British womens field hockey team. In a games that had more openly gay athletes than ever before, theirs was a moment that surely resonated with many around the world who dont know the first thing about field hockey.To win an Olympic medal is special. To win an Olympic medal with your wife standing next to you ... we will cherish this for the rest of our lives, Kate Richardson-Walsh said.---BEST BACK-AND-FORTHWhen the U.S. womens soccer team was ousted by Sweden (and former U.S. coach Pia Sundhage), American goalkeeper Hope Solo raised eyebrows with her assessment of the match.But her former coach had the perfect rebuttal.We lost to a bunch of cowards, Solo said.Its OK to be cowards if you win, Sundhage countered.---BIGGEST OFF-FIELD STARA tough category, especially after Leslie Jones of Saturday Night Live parlayed hilarious Twitter commentary into an invite to Rio. Matthew McConaughey hung out with everyone from the U.S. womens rugby team to Phelps, and Gisele Bundchens catwalk in the opening ceremony was one not to forget.But the pick here is Zac Efron, who flew to Rio just to surprise the U.S. womens gymnastics team -- particularly Biles, who doesnt hide her enormous crush on the actor.He also saw Bolt and the U.S. mens basketball team, but lets face it, no one is going to ignore invites to hang with Biles and the U.S. gymnasts right now.---BEST SPINNo one might have been better at their job during the Olympics than Mario Andrada, the spokesman for the Rio Games organizing committee.When something went wrong it was his job to explain it -- and do so with the world watching and listening. He and International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams held daily hourlong briefings with reporters, and Andrada offered up some quote gems. So well go ahead and award his head-scratching statements their own set of medals.The bronze: Numbers mislead, he said, as part of an answer about ticket sales and poor crowds.The silver: Lets give these kids a break, he said of Lochte and his U.S. swimming teammates, after their incident.The gold: Chemistry is not an exact science, he said, talking about why the water at a diving pool went from blue to green.---BEST BRAZILIAN MOMENT ...Stand up and cheer, City of God.One of your own is now an Olympic champion.Slums, or favelas, are everywhere in Rio -- none more infamous than the City of God, which rose to fame through the 2002 movie of the same name that depicted life in the slum. Rafaela Silva grew up there, and she won gold in judo at these Rio Games.Now thats a made-for-Hollywood story.---... THAT IS, UNTIL THIS HAPPENEDHows this for a storybook ending for Brazil?Soccer gold -- and in most dramatic style, too.Brazil vs. Germany, mens soccer, gold-medal matchup. Neymar gives the hosts a 1-0 lead, but the Germans tie it and ultimately it goes to penalty kicks to decide the Olympic champion.Germany makes its first four.So does Brazil.Then Germany is stopped on its fifth, and the stage is set for Neymar -- who else? -- to set off a national celebration. His shot sails into the back of the net, Brazil wins and the roar could be heard all over Rio as Neymar collapsed on the field in a quivering mass of joyous tears.Forget all the problems these games had. Forget how many Brazilians opposed them in the first place.They got their perfect finish to an imperfect Olympics. Adidas Gazelle China Wholesale .Y. -- Jayna Hefford scored the winning goal Friday as Canada survived a scare with a 4-3 win over Sweden at the Four Nations womens hockey tournament. Cheap Fake Nmd . -- Tony Stewart is 20 pounds lighter and has a titanium rod in his surgically repaired right leg. http://www.nmdukonlinestore.com/ . A lawyer for MLB, Matthew Menchel, confirmed Wednesday the league dropped its case against Biogenesis of America, its owner Anthony Bosch and several other individuals. The lawsuit had accused Biogenesis and Bosch of conspiring with players to violate their contracts by providing them with banned performance-enhancing substances. Cheap NMD R2 Trainers . -- The Portland Timbers and Real Salt Lake played to a 0-0 tie Saturday night that left the top of the Western Conference standings unchanged. Adidas Nmd r1 Ebay Uk . While hell be dialed in to that tournament on a course he loves, you can forgive him if his eyes glance down the calendar just a bit, towards April. LAS VEGAS -- Four years after Linsanity, Jeremy Lin returns to New York a different player, a more mature person, and with a much different role.Lin said Saturday he signed a three-year, $36 million contract with the Brooklyn Nets in free agency because he was given an opportunity that has been rare during his six-year NBA career: to quarterback a team as the starting point guard.Its going to be collective, and Brook [Lopez] is going to be a big, big part of it as well as other players, Lin, speaking while watching the Nets at the Las Vegas Summer League, said in his first public comments since signing his new deal. But Im definitely coming in [understanding] what my role is. Im the playmaker. Im the point guard. Ive got to lead. Ive got to be an extension of the coach, and Im not shying away from that role at all.For me, being 27 now, thats something I wanted. Its a challenge I wanted to embrace, and I cant wait to do that. ... Im going to be the guy bringing it up the floor and leading the team. And thats definitely something that appealed to me.In six seasons with five teams, Lin has been a full-time starter for only one of those seasons, during the 2012-13 season in Houston, where he started 82 games and averaged 13.4 points and 6.1 assists.After enjoying a successful season in Charlotte, averaging 11.7 points off the bench, Lin said he was looking for a long-term home with a bigger role.New Nets coach Kenny Atkinson, who developed a strong relationship with Lin as an assistant coach with the Knicks during the 2011-12 season, when Lin exploded on the NBA scene, pitched to Lin a chance to be his floor leader.I dont think there will be a quarterback controversy right off the bat, Atkinson joked when asked about handing the ball over to Lin. I think that everybody thinks Jeremys best position is that combo guard off the bench. We took a little, kind of outside-of-the-box idea and said he can be our full-time point guard.Lin was born in California; his parents immigrated here from Taiwan in the mid-1970s.He still has a large following around the U.S., including in New York, where Linsanity was born while he played for the Knicks. Lin averaged 14.6 points, 6.2 assists and 1.6 steals in 35 games with the Knicks in 2011-12. However, during aa breakout 11-game stretch, he averaged 23.dddddddddddd points and 9.1 assists in 2012.Lin became a phenomenon and an international star in Asia, as well. Now he returns to New York uncertain of what the expectations for him might be in his second New York stint, albeit this time with Brooklyn.I am pretty far removed from that, Lin said of his Knicks stint. I dont forget about it like its a bad memory. But for me, I am so far past that. In terms of expectations, when I talk about me growing as a person, one of those ways is the expectations for myself, from the team.Expectations are going to be the same for me. I am going to go in and keep my mind right, keep trying to play for God. The last few years, I have been able to live with the results. There have been disappointing times -- my Lakers season [in 2014-15], losing in the first round. There definitely are going to be a lot of disappointments. But I know I did things what I felt like was the right way.Atkinson has built a stellar reputation for developing players, particularly point guards. He said he believes Lin can be a full-time starting point guard despite being given few opportunities to do so.I saw it in flashes in New York that he can distribute the ball, Atkinson said. I think he has got great vision. I think if you look at his attributes, he can play the point-guard position and he can defend the point-guard position. I see him leading our team. I see him being a great pick-and-roll combination with Brook. I think that is part of the reason we got him -- we challenged him with that role.Atkinson also said he thinks Lins experience in Brooklyn will be different from his time with the Knicks and the pomp and circumstance surrounding Linsanity.I think much different, Atkinson said. That was a little happenstance, all the things that happened around circumstances. This is a long-term thing, and coming to a system that was maybe a little different to what he was playing in New York. It will be a little different to him. But I think he is smart enough to be able to adjust to a new system, new team. That is one of the things I trust -- his adaptability. ' ' '