Go for the gold.

There’s gold in all of us.

Welcome home.

All important tributes for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. The biggest question asked is “will this be a disaster?”

Upon the athlete’s arrival to the games, the discovery of their unfinished housing is made, diving platforms have been washed away and shores are trashed.

What about the ban of the entire Russian track team due to doping?

How about finding the good from this event?

11,545 athletes compete to be the best at their event at the thirty-first olympics. Here starts the good, the bad and the ugly…

Michael Phelps

In the all-time gold medal count, if Michael Phelps were a country, he would be tied with Brazil — the host of the 2016 games — in 37th place. He has a total of 23 gold medals. At the age of 15, Phelps competed in his first olympics in Sydney, Australia, making a grand debut to his well- known swimming career. In Rio, he gained a total of five gold medals, and one silver, making his complete overall a total of twenty eight medals. 15 year olds these days are sitting on their couches or doing God-knows-what. What were you doing at the age of fifteen?

Russian Track Team

The International Association of Athletics Federations — track and field’s global governing body — banned the Russian track and field team due to their elaborate cheating plot that had been confirmed through computer files and records. An anti-doping investigational Canadian team uncovered tampered doping samples from Russian athletes that were hidden in Switzerland. Of 95 samples, eleven were chosen at random, and all eleven were tampered with. Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, Russia’s former anti doping lab director, worked with the NY Times, admitting that a concoction called “the duchess” was used to hide detection of drugs in the athletes. Consisting of steroids and liquor, the cocktail condensed the time it would take to detect the previous drugs by absorbing them into the blood. Starting at a temporary ban, an educated decision was made to withhold the participation of the Russian team in the 2016 Rio Olympics.

LGBT Presence

A record number of 53 gay, lesbian and bisexual athletes competed in this year’s Olympics. By Tokyo 2020, the number is expected to grow. Rio is the first Olympiad to accept trans athletes without two years of hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery, although no known trans are competing. The Olympic body changed the transgender guidelines to the following — they will not have to undergo gender reassignment surgery as mentioned above.

These athletes, who put themselves out there, deserve a gold medal for that alone.

Oldest and youngest Olympians

The youngest known Olympian to take home a medal was 10-year-old Dimitrios Loundras, who finished third in the team parallel bars at the 1896 Olympic Games. A rower in 1900 for France competed, but his age and name are still unknown. The estimated age was anywhere from 7-12. This year, the youngest olympian to compete is Gaurika Singh, a 13-year old Nepalese swimmer. The oldest this year would be Mary Hanna, an equestrian, coming in at the age of 61.

New events added and planned to be added in Tokyo

Rugby — last seen in 1924 — and golf — last seen in 1904 — have been added back into the Olympic programs through at least 2020, but no guarantees past then. Nearly a century later for Rugby and 112 for golf is a long time. Don’t they need recognition as events too? As far as Tokyo goes for the olympics, softball, baseball, karate, roller sports and surfing have been suggested for the addition of the program of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
The modern olympic games have been going on for 120 years. Although the ancient games were held 1503 years earlier, a frenchman was credited with the rebirth later in Athens. As the 31st Olympiad will come to a close in Aug. of 2016, the olympics will continue for decades to come.

Information collected from these sources:

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/25/sport/transgender-olympic-athletes/