2004 — Athens, Greece By AFP

Russian pole vault queen Yelena Isinbayeva

One hundred and eight years after the first modern Olympiad, the 2004 Games returned to their birthplace, Athens, and were notable for an impressive leap forward in performances from Asian nations.

Record
Only one athletics world recod was broken at Athens, Russia's pole vault queen Yelena Isinbayeva clearing 4.91m to little surprise. Promising Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang, just 21, equalled the 12.91sec record held by Britain's Colin Jackson over the 110m distance.

Wrong Target
Defending gold medallist shooter Matthew Emmons was on target for a second Olympic title when in the last stages of the final the American mistakenly shot at his rival's target, and ended in a deflating 8th position.

Nightmare
The United States basketball team only managed bronze in 2004 with the star-studded NBA side embarassingly well beaten by Porto Rico, Lithuania and Argentina. The US had won gold in the event in 1992 with the so called dream team and repeated the feat in 1996 and 2000.

Madman
Brazilian marathon runner Vanderlei Lima was way ahead of the field and 7km from home when a defrocked priest seeking publicity leapt from the crowd and began to push and shove the bewildered athlete. Lima ended the race third after the distraction but was awarded a special medal. The Irish protestor Cornelius Horan was given a suspended prison sentence.

Goldrush
In the equestrian teams three-day event Germany was initially declared winner but it was then ruled that Bettina Hoy had made an illegal start by twice crossing the starting line. Hoy won an appeal but a counter appeal from France stung her with 12 penalty points, handing France the team gold and Britain's Leslie Law the individual women's gold.

Card Marked
South Korean Yang Tae-young was denied gold by an American judge who mistakenly gave his final routine a 9.9 start mark when it should have been marked from 10. Had it been marked from 10 he'd have won gold and not bronze. American Paul Hamm was awarded gold, a feat tarnished by bitter acrimony over the judging error that officials failed miserably to clear up.

Doping
Some 25 Olympians fell foul of doping laws during the Games, seven of them medallists and 11 of them were weightlifters.

Another Fine Catch
Birgit Fischer won kayak's K4 500m gold, her eighth gold medal all told, but the German woman missed out on joining the magic club of four Nurmi-Latynina-Spitz-Lewis, who all have nine, when she could only manage silver in the K2 500m.

Phelps In Spitz' Slipstream
He had come to Athens with the bold dream of equalling the incredible record of seven swimming golds won by Mark Spitz at Munich 1972, and while Michael Phelps narrowly missed out the affable American did however carve his own niche in Olympic history with six gold and two bronze medal performances.

Phelps was just 19, and while he also missed out on a one million dollars bonus offered by a sponsor in the event he pulled off the feat, Phelps will be back for at least one or two more bites of the cherry.

Purists would also mention that one of Phelps' medals was awarded in the 4x100m medley where he competed in the semi-final but not the finals, but the sport's governing bodies of the IOC and FINA stipulate all competitors of a team get the medal.

But aside from the hair splitting, the meaning of what Phelps achieved in the Athens pool will be remembered as one of the Olympic Games' greatest ever exploits.

Phelps gladly gave up his place in the medley final explaining he felt Ian Crocker was the better relay man because of a superior start, and for the good of the United States' team Crocker and not he would be the better man to contest the final.

And with four individual titles to his name Phelps joins fellow swimmers Spitz, Hungary's Tamas Darnyi, German Roland Matthes and Russia's Alexander Popov, though only Spitz and Phelps managed that feat at a single Games.

He also becomes only the second athlete to claim eight medals at a single Games after Soviet gymnast Alexander Dityatin in 1980.

"I wanted to achieve something nobody else had ever done in the pool," said Phelps at the time. Mission accomplished then.

And swimming is a much more competitive sport than in Spitz' time, Phelp's 100m freestyle relay team only managing bronze while Spitz' took gold.
Phelps also raced 17 times in seven days, while Spitz 'only' raced 13 times.

Finally Phelps dominated the butterfly and medley but had the massive task of facing up to swimming superstars Australia's Ian Thorpe and Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband in the 200m freestyle, where he came third in a discipline not his speciality.

Comparisons aside, the poolside fans at Beijing 2008 or even London 2012 could well see the American carve out further historic tallies as his backstroke and breaststroke have since been sharpened too.

Dates - August 13-29

Other Candidate Cities - Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Rome, Stockholm

Mascots - Athina (Greek godess od wisdom and protecress of Athens) and Phivos (alias Phebus or Apollon, god of light, beauty and arts). the cuddly toy characters were supposed to be a brother and sister, designed with traditional Greek dolls in mind.

Participants - 10,864 including 4,412 women

Participating Nations - 201

Sports - 28

Events - 301

Medals Awarded - 929

IOC President - Jacques Rogge (Belgium)

Games Declared Open By - Costis Stephanopoulos (Greek president)

Olympic Flame Lit By - Nikolaos Kaklamanakis

Olympic Oath Read By - Zoi Dimoschaki (Greek swimmer)

TV Rights - $1,498 billion

Accredited Journalists - 21,500 (5,500 from the written press)

China Boning Up
A hundred and eight years after the first modern Olympiad, the 2004 Summer Games returned to their birthplace Athens and were notable for an impressive leap forward in performances from Asian nations, and above all China who will host the Games in 2008.

The ever dominant United States were again the best performers in Greece with 103 medals, of which 35 were gold. But China sent them a chilling warning that a tilt at their crown may be made in Beijing with an impressive second best of 63 medals with a huge 32 of them gold.

It was long feared Athens would not be ready for the Games but the Greeks silenced their sceptics with an Olympian effort in the last few months. Albeit however at a mammoth cost of 8 billion euros, making them the most expensive Games ever.

That budget was swollen by a huge security bill of 1.2 billion in the first post September 11 Summer Games, which went off without any security hitches.

On The Podium
The sporting action was also a great success with some historic performances. The Olympic stadium vibrated to the exploits of middle distance runners, Hicham El-Guerrouj of Morocco winning the 1,500 and 5,000m and Britain's Kelly Holmes also bagging a glorious double in the women's races at 800m and 1,500m.

Ethiopian star Kenenisa Bekele was unstoppable in the 10,000 while an American trio Justin Gatlin (100m), Shawn Crawford (200m) and Jeremy Wariner (400m) maintained the proud stateside track record.

The only new world record was set by Russian woman Yelena Isinbayeva who cleared 4.91m in the pole vault.

In the pool, 19-year-old American all-rounder Michael Phelps was in a class of his own speeding to 8 medals, six of them gold. Phelps had been talked up as successor to Mark Spitz, who won seven gold at Munich 1972. He did however become the swimmer with the highest medal haul at one Games.

Ian Thorpe won swimming's most exciting race at the Games, the men's 200m freestyle edging back on the last lap to beat his great rival Pieter Van den Hoogenband.

The US basketball team fell spectacularly from grace only managing third in the event having won at the previous three occasions. Argentina won it, a day after winning their first gold in over 50 years where their star Carlos Tevez led the way to football triumph with a personal tally of eight goals.

On the doping front their were 25 confirmed cases including many gold medallists. But the greatest disappointment was the affair over Greek sprinters Ekaterini Thanou and Konstantinos Kenteris, who failed to show up for a drug test and were subsequently sidelined from the Games.

Belgian IOC president Jacques Rogge oversaw his first Summer Games with relative praise and can now look toward Beijing 2008 with optimism. As can China, who won their first ever athletics gold when 21-year-old Liu Xiang burst down the 110m hurdles track in an electrifying race in which he also equaled the world record.