Dry Your Eyes, Australia: Japan’s PM Turned Up To Rio's Closing Ceremony Dressed As Super Mario

The numbers don’t lie.

With just eight gold medals and 29 medals overall, Australia could only notch tenth place among all the competing countries at Rio’s 2016 Olympic Games.

It was our worst showing (for golds and medals in general) since Barcelona in 1992, when we only managed seven gold and 27 medals, total.

The final insult came early today, when the Boomers missed out on a Bronze medal by a measly point in the basketball third-place final. Spain secured an 89-88 win thanks to a foul awarded in their favour in the final seconds of the match.

But these numbers don’t paint the full picture of Rio 2016. And though victories – particularly the record-breaking, history-making, iconic achievements of international stars Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, Katie Ledecky, Mo Farah, Caster Semenya and Simone Biles - ring loudest, there are many other great moments that make this Olympics worth remembering.

Consider New Zealand’s Nikki Hamblin and America’s Abbey D’Agostino, who helped each other across the finish line of the 5000m semi-final after an on-track collision. They were today awarded the Pierre de Coubertin medal for sportsmanship; a prize that has only been handed out 17 times in Olympic history.

There was the ground-breaking inclusion of women’s rugby sevens – rugby’s first appearance at an Olympic Games since 1924 – in which, yes, Australia snagged victory over New Zealand. (Okay, sometimes winning really does matter.)

And there was the success of the refugee team (another Olympic first), who didn’t collect any medals, but impressed nonetheless; particularly Syrian asylum seeker Yusra Mardini, who won her 100m butterfly heat (a year after swimming for survival in the Mediterranean).

There were also low lights (*cough Ryan Lochte cough doping controversies cough Brazil's endemic poverty cough*) but those have been well documented and will continue to remain the subject of scrutiny and debate as the weeks, and years, roll on.

Australia’s chef de mission Kitty Chiller has said she’s not interested in playing “the blame game” regarding Australia’s performance. She was instead more concerned about getting nine Aussie athletes charged with falsifying a document back home (they’d had their passports temporarily revoked after their accreditation was found to be altered).

Australian athletics coach Craig Hillard has also said that the team's performance at Rio set the groundwork for a successful run at Tokyo 2020.

Speaking of Tokyo, Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe popped up – literally – at Rio’s closing ceremony today, emerging from a pipe, dressed as Mario, in honour of Super Mario Bros, to tease his nation’s upcoming games.

Ima let you finish but Shinzo Abe had the best entrance of all time pic.twitter.com/uQsQt5SmLI

— Olympic Bun (@Rxbun) August 22, 2016

See? The Olympics Games aren’t always just about sports.

#RioToTokyo https://t.co/IXSg9dkbbA

— 7Olympics (@7olympics) August 22, 2016

Photo:  Twitter / @7olympics.