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People from all over the world flocked to Olympia to experience a once-in-more-than-a-millenium event.
The Good...
The Games returned to Olympia for a day.
The US 4x200 freestyle relay swimmers shattered the world record set by a then East German relay team in Strasbourg, France, on 18 August 1987, exactly 17 years ago to the day.
The Bad...
Kenteris and Thanou withdrew from the Games, and their case was bumped to the IAAF, the world athletics governing body. On his was out from the hearing in front of the IOC Executive Committee, Kenteris announced that he had fired his, and Thanou's, coach Christos Tzekos.
It was revealed that a BALCO official had wired a Greek coach last year that the World Anti-Doping Agency had developed a new test that, for the first time, traced drugs that the coach had given his two athletes. Speculation raged in Athens.
And the Weird...
In the equestrian events, France claimed Germany's Bettina Hoy had started illegally. The judges agreed, dropping the Germans to fourth. The Germans quickly filed an appeal. An appeals committee reversed the judges. France, which would get the gold if Germany's penalty is restored, says it will appeal yet again, this time to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
nyloo's daily Olympic Diary
Wednesday was a day of firsts.
The Games returned to Olympia, their birthplace, on Wednesday, for the first time since 379 AD. That was when Byzantine Emperor Theodosius shut them down, along with the Delphic Oracle and every other site and expression of non-Christian religious belief, in an effort to put to rest any challenges to Christianity as the official religion of the Byzantine Empire.
For the first time ever, women competed at the ancient stadium of Olympia. Now, that was a moment that, if nothing else, will make the Athens Games a historic landmark in the history of the Olympic movement. For the record, a Russian shot putter was the first female winner in Olympia.
The grassy slopes of the ancient stadium in Olympia (read more about the ancient site here) filled up with an international crowd of more than fifteen thousand, who came here to experience one of the most significant Olympic moments since the Games were reborn in 1896.
Nyloo.com was there, of course. Check out our impressions in the Photo Gallery, on the right hand side of this page.
In other news, the Games continued running smoothly on Wednesday. World records were broken, matches were played, medals were awarded, the metro ran. Everything is in order.
You don't believe us? Sally Jenkins, a well known Washington Post reporter who is in Athens covering the Games, had the following to say about here experiences here in a recent post on the newspaper's website:
"Athens is magnificent. The airport is now one of the best in all of Europe. So are the trains, and the buses and the trams. Everything runs perfectly and is beautifully organized. It is one of the easiest, most hospitable, and most hauntingly beautiful Olympics I've ever covered. I will be coming back here on vacation first chance I get.
[...] the real winner of the Games is Athens, which has already been profoundly altered no matter how many empty seats there are. These Games will do for Athens what the Olympics did for Barcelona, remake its reputation as a splendid first rate European capital that must be visited.
One of the things that has happened here that hasn't received much coverage is that every museum in Athens has been renovated and refurbished. It's about to become a must-see destination for anyone interested in classical art. Which is hugely significant for Greeks, who've had to sit by and watch people go to the British Museum to study their sculpture instead of come here."
