The Olympics in Rio de Janeiro ended in samba. The whole world was surprised with the opening ceremony and even the most skeptical were forced to agree that Rio 2016 started very well.

For three weeks we forgot about the political and economic crisis, congress, senate and impeachment. We needed just a few minutes of the opening ceremony for every Brazilian to become proud of his country, a pride forgotten for a long time, by the way. We celebrated our culture, our differences, our plurality, our identity or our identities.

The most important part of the so-called "Olympic legacy" is, perhaps, the return of a sense of belonging, the pride of the nation. We received well all tourists, the games went smoothly, safely, happy and everything went right, and who could imagine that the biggest issue in the Olympics was played by an American.

The proven farce of American swimmers, on the other hand, exposed a big symptom of the Brazilian people, what we call "stray dog syndrome" since we all, automatically, gave a true history of the gold medal without question, after all, we are in Rio de Janeiro and it happens all the time and they, Olympic heroes, had no reason to lie. This fact alone is symptomatic of the country's self-image. But this new moment, even this ingrained behaviour in Brazilian culture, disappeared quickly and the story had an impressive turnaround.

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