What Happened at Rio Olympics 2016

August has come and gone along with the biggest event in sports, the Olympics. This years Rio Olympics were undoubtedly the most controversial from athletes not attending to concerns about Zika and crime to the political climate in Brazil. There's no doubt this years Olympics was going to be talked about.

Breaking Records

There were clear favourites with Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt living up to the hype and setting new records and growing their medal counts. Surprises came in the form of younger unknown swimmers and new world records on the race tracks.

Breaking Bones

As with any event when you push yourself there are bound to be injuries. There were some scary crashes and dislocated elbows, Gymnasts snapped bones in their legs and divers seriously bruised their egos.

Controversy

While certain aspects of Rio's instability did feature with muggings, shootings and green pools it was the Olympics itself which brought it's own controversy as the Russian's fought to have their athletes accepted and the Olympics torch itself came under threat. However, the Gold for most ludicrous controversy went to US swimmer Ryan Lochte.

Deadly Repercussions

Death hung low over the world this week with many long awaited legal decisions interrupted by a growing body count.

Race Relations Deteriorate

We begin when the dark days that led to Ferguson, Missouri taking it's place in history were relived with another black man shot and killed by a white officer. The incident unfolded in North Charleston where Officer Michael Slager pulled over Walter Scott for a traffic stop. During the stop a bystander managed to record what happened next showing Walter Scott running from Officer Slager followed by 8 shots in his direction, 3 hitting him in the back. The officer claimed Walter Scott had reached for his Taser but the video footage shows Officer Slager walking back to the initial spot, pick something up, walk back and drop it next to Walter Scott.

Needless to say the response to the latest in a long line of shootings has been swift with condemnation coming from all fronts including North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey who said all officers would wear body camera's from now on while the attorney for previous victims, Martin and Brown, questioned progress made. The bystander who shot the video has since spoken out saying that Scott was trying to get away from the Taser. Another video, this time the dashboard cam from the officers vehicle has been released showing the initial stop. Since the shooting and video release Officer Slager has been arrested and is being held without bail.

Legal Trials

One of the biggest trials in years has found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty on all 30 counts for his part in the Boston Marathon bombings, he now awaits sentencing.

Other trial's came to an end this week when blogger, Lacey Spears, was sentenced to 20 years for intentionally killing her 5-year-old son by poisoning him with salt in order to gain attention online; The judge claims Miss Spears was suffering from a rare mental condition and was spared the maximum 25 year sentence. Another case ended this week with 2 women sentenced to 8 years for their part in the death of a Mississippi black man and finally we end this week with a judge declaring that Craig Hicks, the man who killed 3 Muslim college students in North Carolina, can face the death penalty.