Being held every four years and in front of the entire world, the Olympic Games don’t reward good performances, only great ones. And Team USA found its biggest number of great performances since 1992.
Twenty-nine medals and countless images from the Games made a return to the United States. Most occurring in a few moments’ time over nine days of track and field competition, historic images in front of consistently large crowds at Olympic Stadium in London became common.
The first image was of American men sprinting to distance performances not seen before in the Olympic Games since the 1960s. Silver medals from American record holder Galen Rupp in the 10,000m and Leo Manzano in the 1,500m were the first medals by Americans in those events since 1964 and