Author's Note

The differences between where I pick up the story and canon are:
- That whilst ice-archery remains the last event, it was in the morning, not the evening (And given real life olympic schedules, that is realistic.) Consider it the last of the events, before they set up the stadium for the closing ceremony in the evening.
- There was six contestants, not four, otherwise Cloudsdale was pretty much guaranteed to medal.
- Unicorns can not take part (there was one in canon but I needed to get rid of Rarity somehow)

The Final Day

Twilight Sparkle looked at her dragon assistant "Wait a second. I think I get it. You keep saying you let everypony down, but we all keep saying you didn't. You know who's disappointed in you, Spike? You. And only you can make it right with you again. What would that take, Spike?"

Spike, having just saved thousands of ponies still felt a little down "Meh, I don't know. Can you turn back time? 'Cause I'd sure like a do-over on that opening ceremony."

Princess Cadance thought and then smiled at the little dragon she once foalsat, but had now saved her kingdom twice "We can't turn back time, but, would you do me the great honor of lighting fireworks in my place at the closing ceremonies tonight?"

"Tonight?” Ms Harshwhinny approached the gathered ponies, nodding politely to the four princesses present. “Don’t get me started on tonight. We’ll have to rearrange the closing ceremony to accommodate the ice-archery final. What a nightmare.” She paused for a second and turned to Princess Luna “No offence!”

“None taken!” Luna rolled her eyes.

“Wait?” Rainbow Dash interrupted “So the ice archery final will be redone?”

“Of course!” Ms Harshwhinny replied “It wouldn’t be fair on the ice-archers if they don't get to compete for their medals. Although the fact we won’t know if Ponyville or Cloudsdale will be top of the table will make final arrangements a bit awkward, but I’ll find a way to make it work...I suppose.”

The ponyville delegation had returned to the hotel they were staying in. Everypony was congratulating Spike for saving the day, but as they sat down Rainbow Dash looked miserable.

“What's wrong?” Fluttershy asked timidly

“It would have been nice for Ponyville to have topped the medal table, but now that looks even more unlikely than it did this morning.!”

“Waitever do you mean darling?” Rarity asked.

“Well, Cloudsdale has two ice-archers and there's only five ponies left. The contestant from Manehatten who caused the disaster has chosen not to take part...”

“Awww, poor guy. I'm sure it really wasn’t his fault!” Fluttershy cooed but Rainbow Dash ignored her.

“Therefore the chances of Cloudsdale getting two medals is high given they have the former champion Snowy Sight, and his student.”

“It doesn’t matter, right?” Scootaloo chirped “I mean, we were all sorts of awesome out there!”

Rainbow Dash smiled at her number one fan and ruffled her mane “Of course kiddo, but it would have been great given how close we were!”

“If only we had an entrant, at least we would stand a chance.” Applejack slightly moped “As long as we got at least one medal, regardless if Cloudsdale had medalled twice on countback we would have won!”

“Then why don’t we just enter somepony?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“It’s not that simple Sweetie” Fluttershy replied “They need to qualify for the event like we did at Rainbow Falls! Besides, each pony can only be in one event and we don’t have any competitors left.”

Rainbow Dash turned to the alicorn in the room “Surely Twilight could use her Princess authority to get us in?”

“Twilight could never do that! It would be a political nightmare should she interfer to help Ponyville!” Rarity gasped, greeted with a nod from Twilight.

“Besides, we have nopony left to take part.” Applejack replied “I’m banned as a winner of the rodeo circuit and Pinkie Pie as an official cheerleader.”

“What about one of us?” Applebloom motioned to the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

“Unfortunately you have to be a adult to take part, Sugarcube.” her sister replied.

“What about Derpy?” Rainbow motioned to the backup to the flying relay.

“Thanks for your thought Rainbow Dash, but I don’t think I have the vision for archery!” the grey pegasus replied with a faint blush.

“Of course, don’t worry about it. And this event is not open to unicorns so that rules me out!” Rarity added.

“There must be a loophole!” Pinkie Pie replied

Spike grinned “And to find a loopholes somepony needs to do research!”

“Research, now thats something that I can do and not be considered interfering.” Twilight beamed and teleported out of the room in a flash, causing the others to giggle. Despite being a Princess, despite all the growth she has had made since moving to Ponyville, she was still an egghead at heart.They continued to have their brunch and within twenty minutes Twilight flashed back into the room

Twilight trotted to the to the table “Girls, I have a cunning plan. Rainbow Dash, find Ms Harshwhinny and tell her to come here. And if she says she’s busy, tell her that Princess Twilight sent for her!”

It only took ten minutes for Rainbow Dash to return with her target.

“Princess Twilight Sparkle, I am a very busy pony and have much to do.” the earth mare groaned as she entered one of the hotels conference rooms.

“I understand Ms Harshwhinny. This won’t take long, but is important!” the alicorn replied, gesturing to a seat. Once she had sat down, Twilight turned to Applejack and nodded.

The orange pony approached the lone dragon in the room “Now Spike, I want you to tell the truth okay? And we all know I am all about the truth.”

“Okay?” the dragon replied, a little confused.

“I’m about to ask you a question, and I want you to tell Ms Harshwhinny if anypony has ever talked about this before, if you know why I've ask, and then answer the question truthfully.”

“Sure?” Spike grew a little nervously with all eyes now on him.

Twilight took a deep breath as Applejack was about to ask the question she had been prompted to ask, one that could change a lot in the long term “Spike, do you consider yourself an adult?”

Spike looked over to Twilight, his mother figure, with some confusion, before looking back at Applejack “Well, nopony has ever asked that before, and I don't know why you're asking now! But, if I had to, I would say that...yes...yes I am.”

Applejack turned to the event organiser “Then, Ms Harshwhinny, Ponyville formally declares an entry for the spare slot in the ice-archery final, Spike!”

“But Mr The Dragon is a baby dragon in the eyes of Equestria law." Ms Harshwhinny replied as droley as she could "And he has not qualified for the event. Despite him being a very brave and noble hero, rules are rules!”

Twilight stepped forwards boldly “I thought you would say that, and I’m all about upholding harmony, law and rules. But, as you just heard, Spike identifies as an adult, right?” When Ms Harshwhinny nodded, Twilight continued. “Rule 654.2a of the games states that non-pony contestants are eligible to enter regardless of their physical age as long as they are considered an adult in their culture. And as Spike is the only dragon here, he has defined the culture as per rule 654.2c.”

Ms Harshwhinny raised an eyebrow “That may be, but Ponyville did not qualify for the event Princess.”

Twilight smiled, knowing that the earth mare was no pushover but enjoying the debate “Rule 149.3 states that competitors that are not native equines of Equestria can enter finals of events requiring qualification as long as ,a, they haven’t failed to qualify and ,b, that there is enough room in the event for the contestant. Spike is not an equine, and there is a spare slot on the range, so he is eligible to take part!”

Twilight produce the rulebook, and Ms Harshwhinny took it in her hooves to read “That’s meant to cover creatures from outside Equestria who couldn’t make it to qualifying events!”

“But it’s not worded that way?”

“Technically no, but thats taking a bit of a liberty of the spirit of the rule.”

“Maybe, but as you said rules are rules.”

“They can be changed.” Ms Harshwhinny replied dryly.

“Yes, for the next games. But right now Spike is an adult, Ponyville didn’t fail to qualify and there is a spare space in the final.”

Ms Harshwhinny actually smiled at Twilight this time “Well played Princess, and Ponyville. As there is a spare slot in the ice archery final, and as Spike the dragon is eligible, he can take part. Now, I will get to work to make the necessary arrangements!”

“Thank you”

Ms Harshwhinny started to leave but stopped and turned in the doorway “I must say Princess, are you not worried about any political fallout from this?”

“Maybe, but lets call it a wash for the fact that I could enter if I wanted, Applejack being banned because of her Rodeo experience despite bearing nothing on this event and that the rules were only recently changed to prevent Cheerleaders from taking part. Besides, tehcnically Ponyville asked for the entrant, I just made the position of the rules clear.” Twilight beamed.

“Very good, Princess. I will make sure that is communicated properly” Ms Harshwhinny winked and left the gathered ponies alone. As soon as the door was shut, the room erupted into cheers.

“Well, we did it!” Rainbow Dash cheered, doing a hoof pump “We’re in the ice-archery final!”

Twilight noticed how overwhelmed Spike looked, so walked over to him “Spike, you wanted a chance to redeem yourself some more, well here it is.”

“And it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, as long as you're awesome!” Scootaloo winked at the dragon.

Spike gulped nervously “Only one problem...I’ve never shot an arrow in my life!”