US wins medal count, and British celebrate as well

LONDON (AP) — Most medals. Most gold medals. The U.S. left no doubt at the Olympics.

Victory by the men’s basketball team Sunday gave the United States its 46th and final gold medal in London, the most ever by Americans in a “road” Olympics.

The U.S. — winners of 104 medals overall at these Olympics — took home 45 golds from Paris in 1924 and Mexico City in 1968.

Those totals are still far behind the best medal hauls for the U.S at any Olympics: 83 golds (174 overall) at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, boycotted by the Soviet Union, and 78 golds (a whopping 239 overall) at the 1904 St. Louis Games.

The Americans were hardly the only ones with much to celebrate as the London Games came to a close Sunday.

China won 38 golds, its most ever on foreign soil. Britain, riding home-field support, savored its best Olympics in more than a century with 29 golds and 65 medals.

Among the disappointments: Australia won only seven golds, half as many as it did in Beijing.