Athens Games End a Qualified Success

The nay-sayers will have crow for dinner, but only a small portion. The Athenians managed to pull of the Olympics without the organization disasters that seemed inevitable to some just a month ago. The stadium didn't fall down, and no bombs went off. There were also plenty of tickets as the Greeks lost a few billion euro on the games. Still, they provided enough memorable moments to make it worth going to Beijing in 2008.

The ignominy of the gymnastics judging still lingers, and Paul Hamm will forever have an asterisk next to his all-around gold. He won by the rules. He didn't win in reality. Yet to award a victory by 0.012 points in a subjective sport is laughable. Give these athletes a break -- quit scoring and let them show off.

The American women's soccer team bid adieu to the Fab Five. From the first women's world cup to this gold, a great women's side has made soccer an American game -- something the boys haven't done yet.

The NBA learned that basketball is a team sport. Whether the US basketball program can find a way to do better remains to be seen. However, the rest of the world plays a more elegant, 5-man game, which is much more fun to watch. Hint: have the "team" work together more than just 3 weeks before the games start.

The men's 10 meter platform diving, despite truly annoying announcers, was intense while accessible to non-divers. Wu Jia's golden performance was astonishing, and Matthew Helm's tears of astonished disbelief over a silver showed the sport at its, subjective, best.

And in the marathon, some whacko decided to tackle leader Vanderlei De Lima three miles from the finish line. The poor Brazilian survived to take a bronze. And the fellow who tackled him, Cornelius Horan, a religious nut-job who has disrupted other events gets the gold -- for being a jackass. De Lima's attitude afterward, though, scored higher than gold -- " I'm very happy to have won this medal."


© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.


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