Christmas round-up 2004: Olympics

The Olympics. The chance for the world to unite over ancient sporting rivalries and traditions in the place where it all began. As Richie would say, marvellous. You might notice a slight New Zealand skew here, but what the hey; four million people against the world. Again, marvellous.

Five stories of the Olympics

1. When a motorcycle crash isn't: Greek officials couldn't have asked for a worse start to their Olympics when Sydney 200m champion Kostas Kenteris and his sprinting girlfriend, Katerina Thanou, pulled out of the Games team after leading drug testers on an elaborate goose chase through Tel Aviv and Chicago that even involved them faking a motorcycle crash which led them to be 'hospitalised'. A crazy, crazy world.

2. Phelps v Thorpe: The wunderkind against the former wunderkind. The mens' 200m free final was billed as the greatest Olympic showdown since Johnson and Lewis back in '88. It was so big, Sydney champion Pieter van den Hoogenband was barely mentioned. In the end Ian Thorpe won, van den Hoogenband got second ... but Phelps won nearly everything else.

3. When a steroid isn't: This was the sleeper story of the New Zealand Games, mainly because the NZOC, whether design or accident, released the news just hours before the Ever-Swindells twins won this country's first gold of the Games. Anthony Peden withdrew from the team when it became clear he would test positive for banned drug triamcinolone. Chef de mission Dave Currie told journalists it was a mix-up and the drug was used to ease Peden's chronic back pain. He confidently stated it wasn't a steroid when a quick check of any drugs website would have told him it was. A case of smoke and mirrors.

4. Text pest: Owen Hughes wasn't happy when he wasn't included in the kayaking team for the Olympics. He was even less happy when he watched coach Ian Ferguson's son Stephen 'tank' his K1 500m heat. He didn't mind telling all and sundry about it either, emailing a radio station and sending Ferguson and K1 1000m silver medallist pre-race text messages that wouldn't sit in the category of 'well wishing'. Expect further rumblings in the world of kayaking before this one is finally resolved.

5. Terrorism: Should be under the category the story that wasn't. Along with Athens not being ready and a state of disorganised chaos. The story of these Games was really the fact they were, despite all the dire predictions primarily in the US and UK media, a very good Olympiad.

Five performances of the Olympics by a NZer

1. Sarah Ulmer: Wicked. Awesome. She was absolutely stoked and so were we. It was wicked - have we already said that? - to smash her world record in the heats, but it was even more awesome to win the gold and do it again in the final. We'd be utterly stoked if she decided to have a year or two off now, but came back in time for Beijing. She delivered the very first Herald on Sunday off the press. Everyone there was stoked. The world needs more Sarah Ulmers.

2. Hamish Carter: Under the same management umbrella as Ulmer and at the risk of turning this into a free advertisement, let's just say it wouldn't be a bad idea for more aspiring gold medallists to seek the shelter of the said umbrella. A phenomenal performance from a man everyone thought had blown his chance of an Olympic medal in Sydney four years earlier. I just wish I could remember the name of the Teutonic sounding geezer who was standing next to me as the athletes had barely begun the bike leg and said with the sort of certainty only Germans can muster: "You Kivis vill vin a von-two here." Genius.

3. Bevan Docherty: Of course, Carter was von and Docherty, the world champion, was two. Let's not underplay that; gold and silver in one of the most competitive events at the Olympics. Skinny white kids don't do rugby anymore. Multisport is the new rugby and Docherty is at the vanguard of the movement.

4. Georgina and Caroline Ever-Swindells: They would confess that the final, in which they just pipped the fast-finishing Germans, wasn't their finest race, but these girls are seriously pragmatic and pragmatically serious so won't care if they won by an inch or the length of the Titanic. Their hunger shows no sign of abating and you can pencil them in for gold at Beijing.

5. Ben Fouhy: He's not proud of his performance, he confessed to the Herald on Sunday, but that's all right, others can be proud for him. A truly nice guy and a serious loss to kayaking should he decide to pursue other avenues of athletic endeavour.

Five performances of the Olympics international

1. Hicham El Gerrouj: Nobody went into these Olympics with more pressure on him. The almost-lovable loser when it came to the Olympics is no more after emotional wins in the 5000m and 1500m. The look on his face when he crossed the line was a moment for the ages.

2. Michael Phelps: The Baltimore kid was hoping to emulate Mark Spitz's seven gold medals at the Munich Olympics, but was Thorpedo'd in the 200m free nand ended up with a miserly six. Yes, there are too many swimming events at the Olympics and six golds means in the pool means about the same as two on the track, but that doesn't diminish his freakish ability. Quickly learnt that gold medals don't make you exempt from the laws of society, being done for drunk driving in Baltimore recently.

3. Kelly Holmes: The 34-year-old ball of muscle won the coveted 800-1500m double, something that Steve Ovett and Seb Coe never managed. Her mastery of the middle distant events was such that it was fait accompli she would win the 1500m with some 300m to go. Attended the same gymnasium in Kent, England, as the Herald on Sunday's very own double winner James McOnie, who won the difficult standing jump and long tennis-ball throw double as a Te Awamutu primary schoolboy.

4. Kenenisa Bekele: It was a hot August night but Neil Diamond wasn't in sight. Even if he was, frankly, we doubt if he would have had the legs to keep up with the flying Ethiopian. He finished at the sort of pace you'd expect of Michael Johnson to finish a 200m race in. He'd put 400m on Kiwi Jonathan Hendood by the halfway mark. He's proof that runners don't need drugs, they just need Africa.

5. Carolina Kluft: If she was an English footballer they'd be singing "You only smile when you're winning, smile when you're winning". Which she does. A lot. The Swedish heptathlete charmed the crowd on her way to gold, smiling beatifically all the way to the victory dais and potentially millions of dollars in toothpaste endorsements.

Five flops of the Olympics

1. New Zealand sailors: They wanted for nothing, did our sailors and came away with the same thing. Barbara Kendall was the most unlucky, but her self-inflicted failure - by crossing the line early twice - could see her hang on in there until Beijing. Hamish Pepper put in a creditable performance but there was little else for this team to hang their hats on.

2. Equestrian team: Forget the nasty asides.

3. Soulan Pownceby: Forget about the conviction for the killing off his child. Forget the distasteful media circus surrounding it and instead remember two of the worst rounds of boxing ever witnessed.

4. US men's basketball team: Don't even get us started on the fact that they are still labelled the Dream Team, unless they're dreams of the nightmarish variety. This bunch of over-hyped and overpaid prima donnas spent more time perusing the Athens' nightlife wearing bling than they did practising.

5. Anthony Peden: Idiot.

Bizarre moments of the Olympics

1. Double-barrelled haka: There we were, swept up in a wave of patriot hysteria, watching the New Zealand Olympic team chant the words to Te Rauparaha's famous ode. "A upane kaupane whiti te ra!", they went as we waited breathlessly for the "He!", when all of a sudden a strange thing happened. Led by athlete services team member Trevor Shailer, the team roared into "Ka mate ka mate" again, thus instituting the double-barrelled haka. It is possible, we discovered, to have too much of a good thing.

2. Greek tragedy: In fair Athens, where we lay our scene ... A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life. Eleni Ioannou, a 20-year-old judoka, died after she either fell or jumped off a third-floor balcony after a tiff that apparently grew out of a computer game. The next day, after being interviewed by police, her distraught boyfriend, Giorgos Chrisostomides, 24, attempted to jump from the balcony. "I'm going to find Eleni," he said. Friends stopped him, but during a quiet meal the next day he suddenly ran across the room and plunged over the balcony into critical condition.

3. Football: You want to destroy any myth about the Olympics being the pinnacle of achievement in its chosen sports, then go to the football. A bunch of kids running around empty stadiums with a small group of adults there to hold their hands. Absolute dross. Argentina won, but can you name five of their team? Neither.

4. Paul Hamm: The US gymnast gave the best example of why sports that require the discretion of scoring judges are always open to trouble. In a dispute over scores that turned into a political squabble, Hamm was asked to give the all-around gold medal to South Korea's Yang Tae-young after a scoring discrepancy led to him being wrongly awarded gold. He refused and was eventually cleared to keep it. Yang, the bronze medalist, was wrongly docked a tenth of a point on his parallel bars routine. If he had received the proper score, he would have won gold and Hamm would have won silver. Three judges were suspended.

5. Irish priest: Cornelius Horan, a defrocked priest who made headlines by walking down the middle of Silverstone in a kilt and carrying religious placards, somehow got on to the marathon course and tackled race leader Brazilian Vanderlei de Lima into the crowd. In one spolit second he turned de Lima, who finished third, into the biggest folk hero of the Olympics.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY