Rio 2016 Olympics day five highlight: Come-from-behind wins

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We’ve made it a work-week’s worth of days into the Olympics, and boy was the fifth day jam packed with all sorts of competition, and four different countries taking home gold. Women’s road cycling time trials finished up, with American Kristin Armstrong taking home the most prestigious hardware, Men’s road cycling time trials closed as well, with Swiss cyclist Fabian Cancellara winning gold, Men’s 50m pistol finished up with Jing Jon-Oh taking home the gold, along with judo, table tennis, kayaking, and men’s breaststroke closing out competition as well (in which American Nathan Adrian medaled with bronze). To quote the immortal Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes, “The days are just packed,” at this point.

Some of the more electrifying moments continued in the later, “glamour” events of the day that featured too-close-for-comfort-come-from-behind wins – in the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay and in the men’s gymnastics all-around finals, by Japan’s Kohei Uchimura – to really put an already exhilarating day of competition to rest. In the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay, competition saw the USA squad that consisted of Allison Schmitt, Leah Smith, Maya DiRado, and superstar Katie Ledecky more than a full body length behind Australia’s Tamsin Cook before the expected happened – Ledecky closed out the race as the “anchor leg,” the last resort in case the team was behind, and the D.C. born swimmer managed to make up a near 60m meter deficit to win gold for the team in dominating fashion.

The second story of astounding human ability and sheer will to win comes out of the men’s individual all-around finals for gymnastics. Known as “Superman” in his homeland of Japan, the 27-year old salty dog Kohei Uchimura managed to come from behind to win the event that he has so historically dominated by the skin of his teeth. Thanks to a near perfect routine on the high bars, Uchimura managed to edge out Ukrainian Oleg Verniaiev by .099 of a point for gold. Before Uchimura, no male gymnast had swept all our years of major titles in a two-Olympic span. The gold will be a nice buffer for Uchimura’s legacy at these Games, as his legacy prior to winning gold in inspiring fashion was being known as the Olympian who managed to rack up a $5,000 phone bill playing Pokemon Go at the Games.

This article originally appeared on MensTrait.com as Rio 2016 Olympics day 5 highlight – Come from behind wins.