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The U.S. women's soccer team wore Nike T-shirts with a smug, tacky slogan reading "Greatness Has Been Found" after its gold-medal win over Japan on Thursday. The shirts were roundly panned on Twitter, from critics both foreign and domestic.

[ Photos: U.S. women's soccer team takes gold ]

Members of the team were handed the shirts immediately after their win. This is a ritual common after big victories in American team sports. After the Super Bowl or NCAA basketball title game, for instance, winning teams immediately put on shirts and hats that proclaim them champions.

If it's ever happened at an Olympics, I can't remember. Throw in the phrase "greatness has been found" -- which would be distasteful enough on a team celebrating an SEC championship -- and the whole thing feels completely out of place.

Ben Rothenberg of the New York Times tweeted, "'Greatness has been found,' but not humility. Gross."

SI.com's Courtney Nguyen agreed. "Put those t-shirts away, USA," she tweeted. "Keep it classy."

Canada's synchronized swim team must have clairvoyant powers. During its first event in the team competition, its soccer-themed routine was a moving, early tribute to the gold-medal winning U.S. soccer team.

(Getty)See the gold on the swimmers' costumes? Looks just like the gold hanging around the necks of the U.S. team.

Nick DelpopoloNo Olympics is complete without certain elements: glorious victories, stunning upsets, heartbreaking losses…

And athletes kicked out of the Games. These Olympics saw the dismissal of several competitors, with the use of performance-enhancing drugs as the main culprit. People were also kicked out for being openly racist, tweeting inappropriate things, purposely trying to lose, and, in the case of one athlete, getting so drunk in public that he looked like he wet himself.

You need to spend 55 seconds watching McKayla Maroney, the U.S. gymnast who was impressed with her silver medal, teaching the former first daughter how to Dougie.

There's so much to take in here. The Fierce Five hanging out with Jenna Bush Hager on a double-decker bus while calmly sipping coffee. Maroney showing off her dance moves without caring that she's on a moving vehicle. When Bush tries the dance, Maroney giving the forceful direction to stand up. Gabby Douglas laughing at the attempt.

Admit it. It's the best 55 seconds of your day, right?

(Getty)No matter how hard the London organizing committee tried, it couldn't control every aspect of the Olympics. Though it had everything in place to hand out medals in sailing Thursday, it was missing one crucial item: wind.

The men's 470 meals race was called off because the conditions in Weymouth were too still to allow for the sailors to race. Though the medals will definitely go to two  from Australia and one from Great Britain, who gets which medal has not been decided.

[ Video: Molly Vandemoer's grueling workout ]

Australia is in the lead. The Brits can win if they win, and the Aussies finish in third or worse.

"I think it plays the ball in our court a little bit if we wait longer," Luke Patience of Team Great Britain said. "I imagine if the Aussies are feeling anything it's more discomfort than we are. The longer it draws out, maybe that's a good thing for us and a worse thing for them."

It's not out of the ordinary for weather conditions to stop an athletic event. Baseball games

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Both literally and figuratively, Usain Bolt silenced whatever critics he had left on Thursday night.

As he crossed the finish line after another decisive victory in the 200 meters, the Jamaican track superstar brought his finger to his lips to quiet the crowd, his detractors or anyone who thinks he's not the greatest sprinter who ever lived.

[ Photos: Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt ]

Great athletes take the most minor slights and turn them into a chip on the shoulder. The greatest athletes act like those chips are the Grand Canyon. When Yohan Blake defeated Bolt twice at the Jamaican trials, many wondered whether it was a changing of the guard of the sport. No one had ever defended their 100 and 200 titles at the Olympics. Would Bolt be the next to come up short?

Bolt gave an emphatic answer in London. He wasn't challenged in either race, not by Blake nor anyone else on the track. The victories were both validation and legacy building. [ Related: Yohan Blake wore a $500K watch during 100 final, and IOC is not happy ]

Never mind that these were the obvious questions to ask after those losses to Blake, nor that the skeptics were doing what Bolt almost certainly wanted them to do: create doubt about his chances in London. He embraced the extra challenge and motivation that a would-be usurper brought.

After he crossed the finish line in 19.32, well ahead of Blake, who won the silver, Bolt fell to his knees to do pushups. The clear implication: There was plenty of more in the tank for the greatest sprinter of our generation.

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Getty ImagesLONDON — Claressa Shields tried to be solemn atop the podium. But she's 17 years old, a kid from Flint that people said couldn't be an Olympian, let alone the first U.S. fighter to win gold in Olympic women's boxing. Her enthusiasm punched its way through.

"I kept looking at the medal. I tried not to look at it, but …"

Shields stared straight ahead, and darted her eyes down at the golden disc around her neck. "I was like, 'Here it go, here it go!'" she said, laughing. "It just made me laugh. I couldn't believe this medal was in front of me now. And when he put it on me, I was just like 'aaaaaaahhhh,'" she said, shimmying her shoulders wildly.

"I thought I was going to have a seizure."

Claressa Shields knows her life changed the moment that medal was placed on her. She isn't simply a champion — she's a pioneer.

Gabby Douglas gets cereal boxes because she did what Mary Lou and Carly and Nastia did before her. There is no "before" Claressa Shields.

"I'm a first," she said.

[ Photos: Women's boxing makes Olympic debut ]

Kevin Durant, Tyson Chandler and Carmelo Anthony all cheer on that free trip to Brazil (Getty Images)

On Wednesday, Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski detailed NBA commissioner David Stern's severe backtracking as he attempted to save face amongst the worldwide chorus of boos that met his suggestion that the next Team USA Men's Basketball roster be comprised of players aged 23 or younger. Stern attempted to couch the suggestion with the hint that this was some sort of starry-eyed look toward the future of youth-focused hoops that dovetailed nicely with the idea that NBA teams were becoming more and more uncomfortable with sending their veteran stars off to international competition.

[ Related: NBA owners want to kill Olympic format to protect investment in international players ]

Of course, this was all trumped up benevolence. Stern just wanted to clear the room for his new World Cup of Basketball project as pitched in concert with FIBA. Nothing to do with letting the kids play and the veterans sit. And, as fans, we won't have to worry about losing out on a chance to see NBA stars in their primes play Olympic ball, because according to SI.com's Ian Thomsen, there's no chance that a legislating change to the under-23 rule could be put in place in time enough to see things switched by the 2016 Olympics. Here's Ian:

The NBA's interest in pursuing an age ceiling for Olympic basketball is "unlikely'' to be instituted in time for the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, according to the source, who has direct knowledge of the talks involving the International Olympic Committee and FIBA, the international ruling body for basketball.