Up, Up and Away

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.