TOKYO, Japan — The Tokyo Olympics concluded early Sunday, with Team USA winning gold in the final marquee events of the Games including women's basketball and volleyball.
But was it enough to lift the USA to first place in the final medal count?
First, it's important that the medal standings are usually constructed one of two ways - official Olympic presentations rank countries solely on how many gold medals they won.
So, by the official Olympic accounting in theory you could win quite a few medals, but still rank below countries that specifically had gold medals. Turkey, for instance, will leave the Olympics with 13 total medals - but only two of them were gold, so they rank below countries like Uzbekistan, who had only five total medals, but three golds.
Then there's the way news organizations such as NBC rank countries - by total medals.
The good news for Team USA fans is: Either way you slice it, America came out on top.
On pure golds, however, it really came down to the wire.
As the final events of the Olympic Games drew to a close, the finales to three events just minutes apart determined who would wind up with more gold medals, the United States or China.
The U.S. routinely tops the overall medal count, but in recent years China has been highly competitive when it comes to collecting gold - when they hosted the Olympics in Beijing in 2008, in fact, they beat the U.S.
Heading into Sunday morning, the Chinese had been ahead in the gold count for much of the Games - but the Americans were storming back.
With the U.S. and China tied with 38 gold medals each, it came down to four events: the women's volleyball final featuring the U.S. vs. Brazil plus three boxing finals which included two Americans and one Chinese boxer. Neither country would be in any other finals after that.
Keyshawn Davis of the U.S. lost to Andy Cruz of Cuba for the men's lightweight gold medal.
Minutes later, the U.S. beat Brazil in straight sets for the women's volleyball crown, giving the U.S. its 39th gold medal and one more than China.
A short time later, Li Qian of China lost to Great Britain's Lauren Price in the women's middleweight title bout.
That clinched the most gold medals for the U.S. at the Tokyo Games. And it turned out to be the difference as Richard Torrez Jr. of the U.S. lost in the men's superheavyweight final to Bakhodir Jalolov of Uzbekistan about 30 minutes later -- the final event involving the U.S. or China in Tokyo.
So in the final shakeout, the U.S. both just barely edged China in golds - 39 to 38 - and were comfortably atop the table in overall medals, 113-88.
Why is it so close nowadays between the U.S. and China? Two reasons - the U.S. has long been a power player in areas like swimming, gymnastics and track and field, where most of the Olympic medals are available. But China has narrowed the gap considerably in swimming and gymnastics (the Chinese had more gymnastics medals than we did this year), and is dominant in areas like weightlifting, diving and table tennis where the U.S. isn't very competitive.
Meanwhile, we continue to keep just enough of an edge by collecting golds in a wide variety of sports where China isn't all that competitive - basketball, volleyball, surfing, water polo, golf, and, this year, a particularly strong showing with there wrestling golds.
It all sets China and the U.S. up for a very intriguing rematch showdown in Paris in 2024.