Olympics began with scandal, ended with ambush

Athens was the grand stage for some stunning surprises and established that there is still nothing in sports quite like the Olympics.

It began with a scandal in the sprints and ended with an ambush in the marathon.

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The first rocked the host nation. The second startled everyone else.

All it proved is that for grand stages and stunning surprises, there is still nothing in sports quite like the Olympics.

Only at the games could US swimmer Michael Phelps win six golds, a silver and a bronze, and leave people wondering what might have been. Then he did something almost as impressive. Phelps handed his spot on the 4x100-metre medley relay team to friend and rival Ian Crocker, took a seat in the stands, and cheered his heart out.

"I wanted to come in here and I wanted to win one gold medal. And I did it the first night," Phelps said. "So, from then on out I was here to have fun and ... Represent my country as best as I could."

Nowhere else could Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj, the greatest middle-distance runner of all-time, win the 1,500 gold after failing twice before and leave everybody murmuring about what should have been.

Only at the Olympics could US gymnast Paul Hamm go home with a gold wondering what still might be.

And only here could two dozen athletes get caught for doping - more than twice the number at Sydney four years ago - and have it widely hailed as a success.

"These were the games where it became increasingly difficult to cheat and where clean athletes were better protected," IOC chief Jacques Rogge said at closing ceremonies last night.

The US men's basketball team, by reputation a gold medal certainty at the start of the games, stumbled over their size 15 sneakers and had to scramble for bronze. The win that knocked them out propelled Argentina to the top of the medal stand, but their countrymen were probably too busy celebrating to notice. Only in a soccer-mad land like Argentina would certain gold in their national pastime trump the biggest upset of the games.

Upset is how the Greeks felt when hometown heroes Kostis Kenteris and Katerina Thanou skipped a drug test on the eve of opening ceremonies to take a mysterious midnight motorcycle ride that ended with both forced to withdraw from the games. US track star Marion Jones was fortunate to stay ahead of the drug testers, but she couldn't say the same about the competition. She was soundly beaten in the long jump, then undone in the 4x100-metre relay by a botched pass of the baton.

"It exceeded my wildest dreams," she said afterward, "in a negative sense."

Brazilian marathoner Vanderlei de Lima knew exactly how she felt. He was leading the race with about 10 minutes and five kilometres to go when a defrocked Irish priest in a bizarre costume stepped onto the course and shoved de Lima into the crowd. He got back into the race, but was eventually caught and passed by the winner, Stefano Baldini of Italy.

"I'm not going to cry forever about the incident, although it broke my concentration," de Lima said. "But I managed to finish and the bronze medal in such a difficult marathon is also a great achievement.