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The Olympic opening ceremonies are usually where good intentions and bad taste merge into something profoundly silly — and there was no reason to expect anything different from Athens 2004. With the weight of ancient mythology, Olympic history and western civilization piled on its nervous shoulders, surely the Greeks would give us papier-mache Argonauts fleeing from an angry Zeus robot. Or a children's chorus performing a Zorba medley at the Acropolis. Or at least Yanni. But last Friday, Athens introduced a surprising new element to the show: class, or at least its cousin, restraint. History was referenced by way of crisp video from Olympia, but no actor-Pheidippides stumbled breathlessly into the stadium to recreate ancient Marathon. There was a graceful recap of three eras of Greek sculpture that did not include a singing Trojan horse. A hovering cube allowed those familiar with Pythagoras to feel intellectually flattered without patronizing those who were merely amazed. A glassy lake in the middle of the stadium floor suggested the importance of the sea in Greek culture — and looked really, really cool.

Oh, there were a few aesthetic offenses — trying to sum up human history in 15 minutes using a parade of lasers and mimes was probably a mistake, and next time let's have a less anatomically correct centaur. But most of the four-hour ceremony was pitched perfectly between reverence and glee, as some 10,000 athletes from 202 countries were introduced to 72,000 spectators and a couple of billion other people. It was just the kind of perfectly secured, glitch-free triumph that the Greeks needed to boost their confidence for the 16 days ahead.

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Unfortunately, nothing is ever quite that easy in Athens. The evening before the ceremony, Greece's two most celebrated athletes — 200-m Olympic champion Konstantinos Kenteris and 100-m silver medalist Katerina Thanou — missed their mandatory drug tests and were suspended by the Hellenic Olympic Committee (H.O.C.) pending an International Olympic Committee (I.O.C.) investigation. For Greeks, it was a shocking front-page horror story. I.O.C. officials say notices were posted on the athletes' doors in the Olympic Village alerting them to the 6:15 p.m. test, and that doctors waited more than an hour before declaring them no-shows. The H.O.C. confirms the athletes had checked into the Village, but says they left with no idea the tests had been scheduled. With scandal brewing, Kenteris and Thanou visited their coach in an Athens suburb, then got on a motorcycle to head back to the Olympic Village. They took a detour, though, to a hospital after skidding off the road; the accident left them with minor injuries and the H.O.C. with a major public relations headache. But it was enough to keep the two from testifying at a scheduled I.O.C. hearing to determine their status for the Games.

For Greece, a country of 11 million people and two Olympic celebrities — Kenteris and Thanou — the absurdity and timing of the incident was a cruel blow. It's been a tough battle for Greeks to shake their reputation as the reprobate relatives of the global family, and just when the world seemed convinced that the country was competent, Kenteris and Thanou ensnared themselves in what may be history's most elaborate lost-homework story. Kenteris and Thanou have missed tests before (once they were in another country when the people with cups came calling) and suspicion has followed the Greek track team since 2002, when it had nine of the world's 14 drug-test no-shows. The Swedes, curiously, have threatened a walkout if the duo is allowed to compete in their events. But it seemed likely that the I.O.C., which has shown no mercy in doping cases, would recommend the boot.

Guilty or innocent, the potential loss of the two biggest Greek stars sent various Olympic officials into a tragicomic spiral of self-pity. "We've been screwed," said a senior Athens organizer. "All the fun has been spoiled. All our efforts for a success have been destroyed."

Not really, of course. To the rest of the world, Thanou and Kenteris are just two more hard-to-pronounce names, and if it turns out Greece does have a couple of high-profile dopers on its squad — well, who doesn't? If nothing else, the scandal added some suspense to the opening ceremony, since word had already leaked out that Thanou was going to be one of the final torch bearers and Kenteris was going to light the Olympic flame. Instead, Nikos Kaklamanakis, a gold medalist in sailing, got the honor. He touched his small flame to a giant, deus ex machina contraption bent over the stadium as if it was getting a light for a cigarette. Very European, that.

This unusual duet was preceded by the familiar pageant of the parade of nations, in which swaggering jocks are transformed into Model U.N. delegates thanks to enduring fashion stereotypes. The Bermudans wore their shorts; Tonga had grass skirts; the Japanese showed up in neon Hello Kitty-ish floral patterns; and the Americans, cautioned against excessive displays of national pride, strolled into the stadium in what appeared to be pajamas and — sacre bleu!--berets.

A lot has changed since the 2002 opening ceremony in Salt Lake City, when many countries carried the Stars and Stripes along with their own flags. There was none of that this time, though the negative reaction U.S. athletes were prepared to expect hasn't surfaced either. "Coming in here, I was conscious of the possible dirty looks," said U.S. hammer thrower Jackie Jeschelnig in the Olympic Village, "but honestly, I haven't seen them." In fact, the U.S. delegation received one of the loudest roars of the evening, U.S. politics having been given the night off. But Iraq — whose soccer team shocked global powerhouse Portugal the night before the ceremony by beating them 4-2 in the Olympic preliminaries — and Afghanistan were clearly the stadium's favorite guests.

When all the athletes were finally in place, standing in the spot where 2,162,000 liters of magic lake water had been drained in just three minutes, Bjork performed a song about mother earth while her dress morphed into a map of the world that stretched over the heads of the athletes. It was the largest printed photograph ever. Bjork was followed by Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, the woman widely credited with saving the Athens Games from their own inertia in 2000. Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, who smiles even when she's not smiling, got Greek pride going again and welcomed the world to the party.

Even before some of the late partygoers arrived home Saturday morning, athletes were taking the field. The Games' first gold was awarded to China's Du Li in the women's 10-m air-rifle competition. The People's Republic followed up Du's feat with another shooting gold, along with a pair of conquests in the men's synchronized platform and women's synchronized springboard diving events.

In only two decades, China has gone from Olympic outcast, with just five golds in 1988, to a powerhouse, with 28 in the 2000 Games. China's athletic czars have promised that 2008, when Beijing is host, will bring the nation an unprecedented medal trove. To better its chances, China has poured money into lesser-known sports like shooting that offer a bounty of medals. "If we plan very carefully, we could surpass Russia by 2008," boasts Wei Hongquan, a publicity official with China's State General Administration of Sport.

Over at the Aquatic Center there were no Chinese contenders in swimming. And no roof. The steaming Grecian sun that felt warm enough to boil water didn't seem to bother U.S. phenom Michael Phelps, who raised the temperature a few more degrees by winning his first Olympic gold in the 400-m individual medley in world-record time. It was the first gold for the U.S., and as impressively stoic as Phelps has been in pursuing Mark Spitz's cache of seven of them, the weight of the first medal brought on his own waterworks. "There were definitely tears," he admitted. "I've thought about this every day for my whole entire swimming career." Pulled along in his powerful wake, the U.S. medaled in every swimming event on the first day, launching the 43-strong swim team on its quest to surpass its haul of 33 medals in 2000.

Much of this athletic output went unnoticed in Athens. Apparently the Greeks were not so interested in keeping the festival atmosphere going for the actual events. Several high-profile ones — swimming, gymnastics, cycling — played in venues brimming with unoccupied seats. The small crowds underlined the problem of slow ticket sales, which will hurt the country's ability to defray the $7.5 billion it laid out for the Games.

But in the Olympic Stadium Friday evening, even as the athletes took their oath, committing to a Games "without doping and without drugs," it was still very much a party. The brotherhood of man doesn't get many chances to gather in one place, and when it does, it's kind of hard not to be buoyant. So in between wondering if Palau is actually a country and — hey, looking good over there, Eritrea!--marvelling at the discrepancy between 7 ft. 6 in. Chinese flag bearer Yao Ming and 4 ft. 8 in. Malaysian flag bearer Bryan Nickson Lomas, the Athenians lit cosmic flashlights and shook cowbells and stood for relentless wave upon wave, proving in the end that people the world over really are the same. We're all kind of goofy.

• Josh Tyrangiel/Athens