How to Link Rio Games’ Top Stories: Just Add Water

RIO DE JANEIRO — Now that the Rio Olympics are finally over, you can imagine how the organizers of these Games might celebrate.

On the soft, wide sands of Copacabana Beach, looking out at the Atlantic. In one hand, a newspaper declaring Brazil the Olympic champion in men’s soccer and volleyball, a perfect ending. In the other, a pen. It’s to write I-told-you-so letters to naysayers who said these Games would be a disaster.

The concerns about these Games were myriad, and many of them stemmed from the water. One fear was that the polluted water in the ocean, the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon and Guanabara Bay would sicken the athletes competing in it and on it.

A bigger fear was that standing water would allow mosquitoes to multiply, increasing the chances that visitors would get the Zika virus and causing a global health crisis.

But look how everything turned out: Mosquitoes were few because it’s winter. And as far as we know, at least so far, zero athletes were affected by dirty water.

Still, the water here played a leading role in how these Games will be remembered — for reasons good and bad.

At the Olympic Aquatics Stadium, Michael Phelps blessed the pool water with his greatness. Competing in his fifth Summer Games, he won his 23rd gold medal and, with his 13th gold from an individual event, passed a guy named Leonidas of Rhodes in the record books. How momentous was that? Leonides won his 12th event in 152 B.C.

At 31, Phelps said he finally — no, really this time — had swum his last Olympic race. Now he’s a dad to a baby boy, Boomer. He’s got another life to live, and this one’s on land. When “The Star-Spangled Banner” played as he stood atop the medals stand for the final time, he wept.

“I feel fulfilled,” he said. “It was what I wanted.”

Katie Ledecky, on her way to her freshman year at Stanford, poured some of her own magic into the pool water. She set world records in the 400- and 800-meter freestyles, finishing so far ahead in the 800 that she was practically showered, dressed and ready to cheer for her competitors when they finally touched the wall. Fine, she wasn’t that fast. She did win by more than 11 seconds, though.

The pool was also a place for firsts, and for inspiration. Simone Manuel, in the 100-meter freestyle, became the first African-American woman to win an individual swimming event at an Olympics. She said she had gone into the race with “the weight of the black community” on her shoulders.

“I would like there to be a day when there are more of us, and it’s not ‘Simone, the black swimmer,’” Manuel said.

Lilly King also used the pool as a lectern, as one of several swimmers who spoke out against doping. These Olympics, after all, began under a cloud of doping.

The Russians were caught in a state-sponsored doping scheme, and about a third of their 400 or so athletes were eventually barred from Rio. The International Olympic Committee’s president, Thomas Bach, in all of his spineless glory, could have and should have barred the whole Russian delegation but punted to the sports federations to decide. That’s how Yulia Efimova, a Russian who served a drug suspension in 2013, managed to get a pass for the Games. When she finished a swim in the 100-meter breaststroke semifinals, she waved her index finger in a No. 1 sign. That didn’t sit well with King, who responded by wagging her finger at Efimova.

King told NBC: “You know, you’re shaking your finger No. 1, and you’ve been caught for cheating. I’m not a fan.” Later, King said she wanted to bar any athlete who had been caught doping.

She was accused of being a poor sport. But you know what’s really being a poor sport? Taking drugs to win. King said what so many clean athletes, for years, had wanted to. Good for her.

Rio’s water hosted some imperfect moments, too, and also the Games’ most embarrassing ones.

Two pools used for diving, water polo and synchronized swimming mysteriously turned frog-pond green. Games organizers had several different explanations, including too many people in the water, before saying it was hydrogen peroxide mistakenly added to the water. Neither was a good excuse.

Nearby, in the Olympic Park, the swimming pool — the gleaming blue water in which the Americans had dominated during the Games’ first week — had also gone bad. Albeit metaphorically.

Ryan Lochte, an American gold medalist now reviled by Brazilians and Americans alike, lied about being robbed at gunpoint when he and three teammates were out partying in Rio. He said the robber had impersonated a police officer, held a cocked gun to his forehead and demanded money. Turns out that was not exactly true.

“Not exactly” meaning not at all.

After causing an international incident, Lochte on Saturday apologized for his “immature behavior” and said he “overexaggerated the story,” without seeming to realize that his knuckleheaded tall tale was the seed that grew into these Olympics’ biggest scandal. Not easy to do, considering that the Games began with potential scandals ready to sprout from every corner.

Back at the swimming pool on Friday, though, it was time for a cleansing. Give thanks to the United States women’s water polo team for accomplishing that.

The American players started their Games in the frog-pond pool before moving to the swimming venue for the final week. They dived into the Olympic Aquatics Stadium’s crystal-clear pool for the gold medal match against Italy. On the deck was their coach, Adam Krikorian, whose Olympics hadn’t gone as planned.

Two days before the opening ceremony, Krikorian received a text from his father. Call me now, it said. Krikorian’s brother Blake had died of a heart attack while surfing.

The next day, at 7 a.m., Krikorian gathered his team to break the news. He said they shouldn’t worry about him or act differently around him. He said it would be unfair for his grief to distract them.

“He was telling us to enjoy the moment, enjoy opening ceremonies, don’t worry about me, you be you,” the team captain, Maggie Steffens, said. “‘This is your dream; live it.’”

She added, “We wanted to be strong for him, but he was strong for us.”

Krikorian went home and returned three days later, struggling to focus. He and his brother, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, were close. All three Krikorian brothers — Blake, Jason and Adam — had grown up in the pool and played water polo.

Little things would make Adam crack: a song that reminded him of Blake, a memory of a moment they had spent together. In the mornings, he would stand at a pond in the athletes’ village and try to empty his emotions. But so much remained: Thursday would have been Blake’s 49th birthday.

“I just keep coming back to how my brother, who was the coolest dude in the world, would want me to be,” Adam Krikorian said. “Anytime I was losing focus or getting too emotional, I would think about him and what he would tell me: ‘Man, you are wasting this moment. Go have a blast. Kick some butt. Go compete. Never give up.’ When I started thinking about that, that’s what gave me peace.”

In the final minutes of Friday’s final, though, Krikorian couldn’t hold back. His team was about to win, and he cried. These Olympics were hard, so hard, and so very long. Somehow, he had made it to the end to see the United States win, 12-5, and celebrate.

Steffens and another player, Rachel Fattal, ran at him and tackled him into the pool. The rest of the players and coaches followed.

There they were, in a giant wet huddle, letting the water wash over their teary faces as they bobbed up and down, cheering and hugging.

For them, the end of these Summer Games came as such a joy.

And in so many ways — actually, for so many people — the end was also a relief.