Quotes of the Day

As the games raced through their indelible final weekend, leaving shattered records and storybook upsets in their wake, 21,000 reporters began trying to set this Olympiad in amber — to identify what made it different from all those that have gone before. But the Summer Games are designed to resist the imposition of narrative. Two hundred and two countries, 301 medal events, 10,500 competitors — one story line? Not likely.

And so the teams of Athens 2004 head home telling very different tales. For the Chinese, with their best-ever haul of gold medals, this was the year when the global balance of athletic power shifted east — just in time for the Beijing Games of 2008. For the Russians, many of whom found themselves co-stars or also-rans on stages their nation once dominated, Athens 2004 felt like a poignant salute to a fading power. And for the Americans, these Olympics rarely escaped the shadow of Iraq. The much-feared terrorist attack thankfully didn't come, but American spectators couldn't stop wringing their hands over proper comportment in a world grown hostile toward the lone superpower. (Were they cheering too much? Too little? Should they leave the God Bless The USA fanny pack at the hotel?) It didn't help that a presumed ally, the Iraqi soccer team, swatted away suggestions that its surprising run to fourth place came courtesy of U.S. liberators. One Iraqi, upset at his team's inclusion in a campaign ad for George W. Bush, said he'd be fighting in the resistance if he weren't beating up on Portuguese fullbacks.

Most of the negativity was directed toward the U.S. men's basketball team. The first NBA-stocked squad not to win gold was booed lustily, though as Spanish star Pau Gasol suggested, that may have been because the team was just plain bad. In truth, the Games weren't anti-American; they were anti-Goliath. Just ask the British sprinters who beat the supposedly unbeatable U.S. by a hair in the men's 4 x 100-m relay. Was victory sweeter because it came at the expense of the Cousins? You bet it was. And that win changed everything for the British men; without it, they would have left the Athens track without a single medal.

The medals table, especially the gold column, reflected global political and economic patterns that have been playing out for more than a decade. The main event was between the traditional might of the U.S. and the surging ambition of China, with the Americans reaching their gaudy goal of 100 medals by Saturday night, 34 of them gold, and the Chinese right behind them. But the decline of European powers such as Russia and Germany played like melancholy background music throughout the Games. By late Saturday, with one day's competition to go, Germany had just 47 medals — down from Sydney's 56 and Atlanta's 65 — its poorest showing since reunification. Russia may finish second in the overall tally (on Saturday night it had 83 medals), but it lagged in golds, with just 23 through Saturday, nine fewer than in Sydney. Athens looks likely to be the first Games since Helsinki in 1952, when the USSR first competed at the Summer Olympics, that Russia will fail to come first or second in the gold medal table in a non-boycotted Games. Some of the decline can be attributed to the end of the Soviet-era sports system, which poured almost unlimited finances — not to mention drugs — into athletics in Eastern Europe. By contrast, Australia grabbed 17 golds through Saturday — one more than it won at home in Sydney — and 49 medals overall. And a resurgent Japan won 15 golds through Saturday, an astonishing three times its tally in Sydney and five times more than in Atlanta.

If Europe no longer has the prestige that once came from its hefty medal tallies, it can still take delight in outstanding individual performances — smaller stories, perhaps, but precious because of their rarity. Britain, shocked by Paula Radcliffe's twin flameouts in the marathon and 10,000 m, was lifted by 34-year-old Kelly Holmes' double gold success in the 800 m and 1,500 m. Russia celebrated a memorable 1-2-3 sweep in the women's long jump, while Germany rejoiced with canoeist Birgit Fischer, 42, who earned a gold and a silver, becoming the first woman ever to win medals over a 24-year span. And a splendid moment of pan-European dominance came on Day 11, in the women's pole vault. The contest came down to five women: two Russians, two Poles and an Icelander. At one point, world-record holder Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia was one miss away from being bounced out of the competition — and then she cleared 4.80 m, claiming the gold. Finally, she had the bar set at 4.91 m, 1 cm higher than her old world record, and soared over on the first try. That done, she packed her pole for the night. Her motives were mercenary — on the track circuit, she gets a bonus every time she breaks the record. "I would like to do just a centimeter by one centimeter," she explained, "because every centimeter is big money."

A world-record holder has the luxury to decide just how much glory — and how much cash — she wants to shoot for on a given night. Others have to make the most of the chance to compete at all. Coming into Athens, 86 of the 202 participating countries had never won a medal of any kind, and the loudest cheers went to those who made national history, however small or troubled their nation. Muslim women sprinters from Kuwait, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and Bahrain — some of whom ran in head scarves — were treated with special reverence by the crowds. So was windsurfer Gal Fridman, who sailed Israel to its first gold medal in 52 years of competition, and whose victory seemed all the more appropriate given that his first name means wave in Hebrew. And when Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj, perhaps the greatest middle-distance runner of all time, finally hauled in the 1,500-m gold medal that had eluded him in two previous Olympics, he fell to the track and bawled. His fellow runners picked him up and hugged him, then laughed as he performed a victory dance to the Zorba the Greek theme that played about 14,000 times during the Games. (El Guerrouj was more restrained on Saturday night, when he unexpectedly won gold in the 5,000 m.) Looking for villains? The crowd reserved its lustiest boos for the judges. There were questionable calls in the pool, on the gymnastics floor, in the boxing ring, on the baseball diamond — even in team dressage. Occasionally, the fans took matters into their own hands: after Russian gymnast Alexei Nemov was awarded a low score, his supporters unleashed a barrage of whistles and jeers, forcing the judges to revise his score up. He still only finished fifth.

Incredibly, the judging controversy almost managed to overshadow the Games' other scandal: the level of doping. At least 22 athletes in a range of sports, from boxing to track and field to weight lifting, were thrown out of the Games for doping-related transgressions, the most in Olympic history. But antidoping officials saw the high toll as progress in their fight to clean up sports. Said Costas Georgakopoulos, who runs the doping lab at the main Athens Olympic complex that analyzed about 3,000 urine and blood samples during the Games: each positive "means we're successful."

In the end, the host nation could say the same. Greece ended with a sparkling medal haul that included a dominant 400-m women's hurdles win by Fani Halkia and a fourth medal for weight lifter Pyrros Dimas. Though just a bronze, it prompted an ovation so loud and raucous that the other medalists had to wait an extra 15 minutes to join Dimas on the podium. That exuberance filled Athens during the Games, drowning out the doubters who said the Greeks couldn't — wouldn't — pull off this big show. They could and they did. The nation that has given the world so much drama and so many timeless tales has now added a new volume of rich, unforgettable stories: the Games of the 28th Olympiad.

• JENNIE JAMES
• With the U.S. and China vying for glory and Europe taking pleasure from smaller victories, the Games were a mirror of our times