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RIO DE JANEIRO -- Kohei Uchimura stepped off the floor, saluted the crowd inside Rio Olympic Arena and bent over. Symbolically, it looked as if the Japanese gymnast was overcome by the moment after clinching the Olympic team gold hes pursued during his otherwise unparalleled career.Nope. The reason the six-time world champion and defending all-around Olympic titlist found himself with his hands on his knees gasping for breath was more pragmatic than poetic.I was just exhausted, he said.And relieved. No more questions about whether he can beat top rival China on the biggest stage. His status as the greatest of all time is no longer in doubt. Turns out his team -- Koji Yamamuro, Ryohei Kato, Yusuke Tanaka and Kenzo Shirai -- is pretty good, too. Japans total of 274.094 was more than two points better than Russia and nearly three clear than the Chinese, who couldnt lock down a third straight Olympic title thanks to a series of small but crucial missteps the Japanese simply didnt make. Britain finished fourth while another slow start in the Olympic finals dropped the United States to fifth.I think compared to the Japan athletes, tonight we are a little bit less good, but this difference is very slight, Chinas Zhang Chenglong said.Maybe, but the gap isnt a mirage. Japan laid the groundwork at last falls world championships when it ended Chinas decade-long run at the top. Uchimura called the victory in Scotland vital in showing the judges it could keep it together under pressure.If you dont win gold there, the judges just dont formulate a very good impression of you, Uchimura said. If Russia or China were to win in Glasgow, the sense would be that theyll probably win in the Olympics.No chance. Though it was close for the first five rotations, ultimately it wasnt. The Japanese finished on floor, where Shirai is the world champion and a spinning, twisting wonder. His 16.133 made it nearly mathematically impossible for Japan to be caught. Its only fitting the routine that sealed Japans triumph fell on Uchimura.Controlled and precise, he was his typically elegant self as Japan bounced back from a so-so qualifying round, where it wound up fourth and looked plenty sloppy while doing it. Not in the finals. Japans overall score was nearly five points better than preliminaries.The only drama in the end surrounded silver, where the Russians cemented their return to the Olympic podium for the first time in 16 years by holding off the Chinese on the final rotation. It was vindication for a team that spent the days leading up to the games wondering if their country would be allowed to compete at all following a doping scandal that ultimately barred more than 100 athletes from Rio de Janeiro.Of course there was a psychological pressure, Denis Ablyazin said. We didnt know if we would have access or not. The situation around Russia was difficult. We decided to put everything aside.The going was far bumpier for the Americans. The U.S. men were second in qualifying on Saturday and pointed to their experience as a key to avoiding their meltdown four years ago in London, when they topped preliminaries but slid to fifth in the finals. In 2012, the problem was a nightmarish start on pommel horse, typically their weakest event. This time it happened on a usually far friendlier spot: floor exercise.Alex Naddour stepped out during his dismount and the orange out-of-bounds flag went up on teammate Sam Mikulak a few minutes later. Though they avoided disaster on pommels, the Americans were sixth after three rotations and even a series of hit sets -- including a spectacular performance on parallel bars -- couldnt salvage a shot at bronze. The chase ended when Danell Leyva came off high bar while coach Mark Williams gave him a brief pep talk.In a lot of ways, these guys performed better than I feel we did in London, Williams said. We fought through everything and theres no giving up. 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Patrice Bergeron and Daniel Paille scored 20 seconds apart a few minutes after Stamkos was taken off the ice on a stretcher with a broken right leg, and the Bruins beat the Lightning 3-0 on Monday afternoon. The clock is ticking on the 2016 season, with just two races remaining. This week, we roll to Phoenix, which is a different track than most on the schedule.Its a flat, 1-mile track, the closest Id relate it to is New Hampshire, but its really its own animal, so Im going to stick with mostly Phoenix data. That really favors one driver. More on that later.We have a lot of data to look back at with the end of the season approaching.dddddddddddd And with my goal being to help my loyal readers win as much money as possible, I want to look back at ideal roster construction, meaning the roster that wouldve put together the most points per race.Some of the facts might surprise you a little bit. ' ' '