NZ Herald Focus Sport's Cheree Kinnear wraps all the news as Lydia Ko wins bronze and the final day of the Tokyo Games dawn. Video / NZ Herald
New Zealand's record-breaking medal haul at the Tokyo Olympics is a massive feat for a small nation, but it has been outdone by a country the size of Paraparaumu.
Never before has New Zealand topped the 20-medal mark at a summer Olympics and the team's performance per capita is by far the best of any nation with a population over 1 million and one of its best ever marks.
Perennial per-capita rivals Jamaica have out-performed New Zealand in every single summer Games since 1992, but Tokyo has proved to a be a truly historic success story.
However, one country in particular has blown the New Zealand team away with the success rate of its athletes.
Full Kiwi schedule below. Click on a name to see athlete's bio, upcoming events, past Games performance and medal chance.
Pick one: Paraparaumu, Blenheim, Gisborne, Timaru, Ashburton. They all possess a similar population to the tiny land-locked country of San Marino.
This year, San Marino sent five athletes to Tokyo on a quest for Olympic success. Remarkably, they came away with three medals - a success rate of 60 per cent.
The medals came in shooting and wrestling and were the country's first since its Olympic Games debut in 1960.
Alessandra Perilli kicked thing off with a bronze medal in women's trap shooting before going on to win another medal, this time silver, in the mixed-team trap category with Gian Marco Berti. Myles Amine won another bronze medal for the country in wrestling.
Silver medalists Alessandra Perilli, left, and Gian Marco Berti, both of San Marino, celebrate their medals. Photo / AP
The feat also handed San Marino the title of the smallest country to ever medal at the Games.
Other small nations have made starring performances in Tokyo. Bermuda made its medal debut and briefly held the record as the smallest nation to do so before San Marino got busy. With a population of about 64,000 people, Bermuda won gold after Flora Duffy came out on top in the 56-woman triathlon.
Man Asaad of Syria won a bronze medal in weightlifting, his country's first medal since its civil war began a decade ago while Grenada's Kirani James won his third Olympic medal in three Games and he now possesses one of each kind from the men's 400 metres event.
Meanwhile, one of the biggest countries in the world — India, with a population of more than 1 billion — finally won its first gold medal in track and field when Neeraj Chopra won the men's javelin.
Finally, there's one giant country which is still searching for Olympic success after falling short once again in Tokyo.
Bangladesh, with an estimated population of 163 million in 2019, is the most populous country to never win an Olympic medal after sending athletes every four years since 1984.
