Quotes of the Day

It was an irresistible formula for concocting the most popular Olympic event of the first week. Start with an unroofed pool venue, which became a giant, boisterous tanning bed during the scorching morning races. Add the lure of an athlete who might be undone by his own hubris, and you have an Athens experience that's hard to match. In the end, American teenager Michael Phelps did not reach the prize he was aiming for — the most gold medals won in a single Games — but it would be churlish to suggest that his haul of six gold and two bronze was anything less than spectacular. And the fans who streamed into the Aquatic Center — which was sold out every evening, unlike so many other venues — saw a week of thrilling races with an array of breakout stars like Japan's Kosuke Kitajima, who swept the men's breaststroke races, and France's Laure Manaudou, just 17, who picked up freestyle gold and silver, backstroke bronze and a new nickname: L'Or (the Golden) Manaudou.

No starburst was more sudden and surprising than that of Zimbabwe's Kirsty Coventry, 22. First, the cherubic swimmer won silver in the 100-m backstroke and bronze in the 200-m individual medley — her troubled country's first medals since 1980, and the first swimming medals ever for any African nation besides South Africa. Then, on Friday, in the final length of the women's 200-m backstroke, Coventry found herself in the lead, but with her stamina flagging and Russia's Stanislava Komarova roaring back. "Just hang on," she told herself — and she did. Her perseverance was golden. "I knew about the history," she said afterwards, all smiles. "I just wanted to swim well and show some of Zimbabwe's soul. And now I've got the full package!" Not to mention a quintessentially Olympian story about a girl from Harare who represented her country in a far-off land, and entered the annals of the sporting greats.

Not every ending in the Games' first week was so happy. The Greeks wanted to move beyond the embarrassment of the missed drug tests (and mysterious, possibly staged, motorcycle accident) of sprinters Konstantinos Kenteris and Katerina Thanou. Both quit the Games before the i.o.c. could kick them out. It seemed time to concentrate on questions of a purely sporting nature: When would Britain finally join the rest of the big countries and win its first gold? (Answer: Day 7, when cyclist Chris Hoy won the men's 1-km track time trial.) Would the millionaires of the U.S. men's basketball team be eliminated? (No, but they would become, fairly or not, a symbol of American hubris.) Would Swedish drama queen/heptathlete Carolina Klüft score as highly in the seven elements of her event as she did with swooning the crowd? (Yes. She won gold.) But first, another Greek tragedy. Bronze-winning weight lifter Leonidas Sampanis, the country's first Athens medalist, tested positive for too much testosterone. That might not sound like such a bad thing to many guys. But it made him the latest national hero-turned-goat.

In the swimming pool, at least, all was well. South Africa stormed to an upset win over the Australians and Americans in the men's 4 ¤ 100-m freestyle relay. South Africa's Ryk Neethling called home before the race to see what people were saying about the team's prospects. "No one gave us any credit," he said after the race; so he earned it, anchoring his team to a historic victory. The South Africans set a new world record and became the first African men ever to win gold in the pool — and the first team outside the U.S. and Australia ever to win this event.

Their success was especially sweet since the Yanks and Aussies were the two strongest, deepest teams in the pool. Australia's Ian Thorpe won four medals, including a gold in the 200-m freestyle, his marquee matchup with Phelps, who got the bronze, and Dutch champion Pieter van den Hoogenband, who took silver. But the U.S. could even share credit for some wins that didn't show up in their medals tally, because many of the athletes swimming for other countries are products of the American collegiate system. Three of the four South African men trained at the University of Arizona. Markus Rogan, who won two backstroke silvers to become Austria's first swimming medalist since 1912, was a Stanford team captain last season. Duje Draganja, who captured Croatia's first ever swimming medal with a silver in the 50-m freestyle, trains at U.C. Berkeley. And Coventry swims at Alabama's Auburn University. "I got to a point at home where I didn't have anyone to race," she says. Of course there were homegrown successes too. Back home in Warsaw, Poland's Otylia Jedrzejczak — who doubled her country's all-time pool haul by taking medals in three events — trains with men.

The meet was a bittersweet finale for some fine athletes: eight-time relay gold medalist Jenny Thompson of the U.S., who failed to win the solo gold that has eluded her; Inge de Bruijn of the Netherlands, who won a gold, a silver and a bronze but couldn't match her triple gold from Sydney; and four-time Olympic champ Alexander Popov of Russia, who didn't even make an individual final. This time, it was a new generation's turn to make an Olympic splash.

• JEFF CHU
• A surprise showing for Africa in the pool