Fireworks and spectacular lighting kicked off the closing ceremony tonight, an extravaganza of folk dancing and music in the Olympic tradition that summed up the relief the games brought to Greece.
Soon after, thousands of athletes marched into the stadium, waving their arms and flags, snapping photos of each other and bathing in the cheers of 70,000 fans.
“You have won,” International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge told the Greek people in prepared remarks for the finale. “You have won by brilliantly meeting the tough challenge of holding the games.
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“These were unforgettable, dream games.”
Even if they started slowly the first week with empty seats and vacant plazas as many Greeks took their holidays and frightened tourists stayed away, the honoured birthplace of the modern Olympics showcased a memorable 16 days of competition.
The second week saw the games transformed. The huge Olympic Stadium was packed each night for track and field. Basketball, tennis and beach volleyball rocked.
There had been no shortage of worries that Athens would not be ready for these games. As late as March 2000, the IOC considered moving the Olympics out of Greece, possibly to South Korea.
“It’s always nice to underpromise and overdeliver,” Jim Easton, an American IOC vice president, said.
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Athletes who finished their events partied, roaming the Plaka, Syntagma and Omonia squares. It was Greece at its rollicking best, a spirited fusion of visitors from all countries, and of all colours and ages.
“The world discovered a new Greece,” said Athens 2004 president Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, who made it all happen with her fierce determination to overcome construction delays and avoid an international humiliation.
The scourge of sports - steroids, stimulants and other drugs - intruded but didn’t spoil the games. A record two dozen athletes were caught, seven lost medals, and there could be more to come as the test results keep rolling in.
“Each positive test is a blessing for us because it’s eliminating the cheats and protecting the clean athletes,” Rogge said. “The more we find, the better.”
There were scandals and controversies, as always.
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Greek sprint stars Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou broke their countrymen’s hearts - and angered many - when they pulled out of the games after questions over missed drug tests and a suspicious motorcycle crash the night before the opening ceremony.
And as the closing ceremony approached there was yet another drama. An hour before the closing ceremony the men’s marathon was marred when a defrocked Irish priest bolted from the crowd and grabbed the race leader, Brazilian Vanderlei de Lima, about three miles from the finish. De Lima recovered and finished, but had to settle for a bronze when a protest by his track federation was rejected.
“I was scared, because I didn’t know what could happen to me, whether he was armed with a knife, a revolver or something, and whether he was going to kill me,” de Lima said. “That’s what cost me the gold medal.”
The marathon medallists, gold winner Stefano Baldini of Italy, American silver medalist Meb Keflezighi, and de Lima received their olive wreaths and medals at the closing ceremony.
These Olympics saw the rise of China as a sports superpower as it positioned itself for the 2008 games in Beijing.
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The United States, buoyed by the brilliance of swimming star Michael Phelps but embarrassed by the three losses and mere bronze of its once-vaunted men’s basketball team, won the most medals.
Americans beat their target of 100 by three, 35 of them gold. Russia finished second with 92, including 27 gold. China was third with 63 medals, 32 gold.