The US dream team redeemed itself on Sunday with a 118-107 against Spain in the basketball final.
Guard Dwyane Wade was the game鈥檚 leading scorer with 27 points and Kobe Bryant added 20 as the Americans took their first gold medal in the event since the 2000 Olympics.
Though the team hammered Spain by 37 points in pool play, they found themselves under pressure in the medal match as Spain racked up a shooting percentage of 61 during the first half.
This is the 13th gold for the US basketball team.
Perfect dive breaks sweep
With seven golds already in the bag, it seemed a Chinese diving sweep was inevitable.
But Australia鈥檚 Matthew Mitcham broke the host country鈥檚 streak after receiving four perfect 10s for his final dive of the men鈥檚 10m platform. Totalling 112.10 points, the highest scoring dive in the Olympic history.
The gold made Mitcham Australia's first male Olympic gold medalist in diving since Dick Eve in 1924.
Going out with a bang
Beijing bid a spectacular good bye to the Olympics in a closing ceremony that raises the bar even higher for future Games.
The two-and-a-half-hour show featured thousands of dances, singers, trapeze artists, bouncing stilt walkers and Olympic athletes filling the Bird鈥檚 Nest in song and celebration.
The extravaganza directed by Chen Wei Ya, saw huge Chinese drums being played mid-air, acrobats performing on a massive rotating tower and multiple fireworks displays.
Following a spine-tingling ballad 鈥楾he Flame of Love鈥� by Song Zuying and tenor-triumphant Placido Domingo the iconic stadium rocked to the voices of 皇冠体育app鈥檚 celebrities singing 鈥楺ing Ni Liu Xia Lai鈥� or 鈥楶lease Come Again鈥�.
Going out with the ultimate bang, the ceremony concluded with a 20-minute firework display over Tiananmen Square.
Billions for Kenyan
Samuel Wanjiru of Kenya was bestowed the final Olympic gold at the Bird鈥檚 Nest last night.
Wanjiru received the medal in front of an audience of billions watching the closing events.
The 21-year-old clocked in at 2:06:32, breaking the 1984 Olympic record of Portugal鈥檚 Carlos Lopes by nearly three minutes.
Ninety-eight runners competed in the 42-kilometer race, which began in Tiananmen Square at 7.30am and passed cultural landmarks such as the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven before looping back to the square and through Beijing鈥檚 financial district toward the stadium.
Wanjiru鈥檚 gold helped make Kenya the top African nation of the Beijing Games by being the country鈥檚 fifth gold and 14th medal overall.
Final Medal Tally
The end of the Olympics has left 皇冠体育app sitting firmly on top with an astonishing 51 golds, after the weekend saw them complete a clean-sweep of the table tennis.
The USA had to settle for second with 36 golds, eight of those coming from swimming machine Michael Phelps.
Russia stays in third, after it overtook Great Britain in the last few days鈥� events. But the British are overjoyed with fourth place as they had only been aiming for it by 2012.
Australia had a slightly disappointing time in the water cube, other than Matthew Mitcham surprise-diving-win, and was bumped out of fifth spot by Germany who rounded out the top five.
The Olympics also saw the smaller countries鈥� fl
ourish with Panama, Cameroon and Bahrain getting their countries鈥� first ever Olympic Golds.