Bronze in the 10 metre synchro diving for Tom Daley and Daniel Goodfellow.

We're we alone in feeling a touch of sadness at the end of a magnificent Olympics, the fifteenth that I can recall? I've been hooked since Gordon Pirie's silver in the 5000 metres in Melbourne in 1956!

Max Whitlock, two golds, one bronze in the gymnastics.

Rio has been a brilliant experience, from incredible feats of speed (Bolt, Van Nierkerk, Hosszu) to grit and endurance (Farah, Ledecky), from technical perfection and elation (Peaty, Whitlock, Wiggins, Biles, Kenny, Trott) to technical disaster and crushing disappointment (Daley, in his solo event; he'll be back) to the comradeship (the four 100 metres bronze GB girls) and the public disgust shown to the druggy Russians (Effingmova etc!).  

Tom again. He'll be back.

It's an incomparable theatre of humanity on a global stage, best reflected in the triumph of the relatively smaller nations like GB or Australia over the relative giants like China, Russia, Japan and Germany. May the 'little guys' continue to punch above our weight and piss off the bigger bastards. Roll on Tokyo.

Guess who else punched above their weight? Answer: the 'out' lgbt contingent.

A record 53 out gay athletes competed in Rio.

The publicly out gay, lesbian and bisexual Olympic athletes in Rio outperformed expectations, with 25 of the 53 publicly-out athletes winning medals. All told they accounted for 14 medals, when you combine multiple athletes on single teams (e.g. four out women played on the gold-medal-winning Team USA basketball team). You might ask: why does this matter?

Answer: those 14 medals beat every single country that criminalizes sex between people of the same gender. Jamaica, with 11 medals, came closest of these repressive countries to catching Team LGBT. Most nations that criminalize gay sex fared poorly in the Olympics. Iran, for example, won only eight medals. While 47% of the out LGBT athletes won medals, only 13% of Iranian athletes won medals. Of course there are other nations with big LGBT issues that fared better. But taking our LGBT medallists as one country, sends a message to the over seventy countries that still persecute their gay people.

The lesson should be clear: If you want your people to compete, thrive and celebrate, end discrimination and let them all be free.