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Wednesday, August 18

Great Zeus! The Olympics have returned

OLYMPIA, Greece - Yo, Zeus. You should see what they've done with the old neighborhood.

The Olympics are back in town. Talk about your long road trips. This one lasted 1,611 years.

Anyway, someone came up with the nifty idea of holding the shot put in the ancient stadium. Right where all those guys used to run naked, remember? And just down the path from where your temple stood, back when you were bigger than Elvis.

What's best about this, in an age where everything has to be supersized, here was a masterstroke with modesty.

No lights. No scoreboard. No loud music. No Laker Girls. No dogs jumping for Frisbees at halftime. No luxury boxes. Just us and the crickets. I didn't even see many cell phones.

Imagine 15,000 people baking on grassy slopes, with their kids, in a mix between Woodstock and a Fourth of July fireworks show. Those that didn't sit searched for shade, wandered around the grounds, posed for pictures and clogged the aisles. They tell me 40,000 came here in the ancient times, but then, they didn't have cameras.

Russian Irina Korzhanenko and Yuriy Bilonog of the Ukraine won gold medals. And then they probably went out and partied like it was 393 A.D.

American Adam Nelson fouled his last five attempts, the final one just a brush of the foot that cost him the gold. In this place, it's a game of centimeters.

Sports are so complex, it seems everything has been done before. But this one hadn't. And the athletes loved it, because they occupy a sport usually noticed only by friends, family and diet supplement salespersons.

The news media flocked as if there was a sign on the door that said ``Free drinks.'' And the little town of Olympia was teeming. Just down the street, by the way, is the Hercules Hotel.

``Shot put paradise,'' American Kristin Heaston said.

Because women were no-nos back in your day, and Heaston had the first throw Wednesday, that makes her the first lady to ever compete in the stadium. A regular Neil Armstrong, with biceps.

``You can kind of look at it as a pile of rocks,'' said teammate Laura Gerraughty, ``or you can imagine people were here thousands of years ago, just like this. It's a ghost feeling.''

Same for the men. ``I think everybody is just kind of numb,'' said Canadian Bradley Snyder.

``It felt,'' said Poland's Tomasz Majewski, ``like `Gladiator.'''

``I told my family that if there was a shot put nirvana or field of dreams, this would be (it),'' Nelson said.

Zeus, you and the fellas were in the air. How could you not be? Back in the Bronx, they have a place we think is pretty venerable called the House that Ruth Built. That was only 81 years ago. You couldn't clear your throat in 81 years.

This is the house Milo of Croton built, the wrestler who won in six straight Olympics. Or Nero, the Roman emperor who ordered a poetry reading contest be included, so he could win.

Who'd vote against him? You think that figure skating judge from France got in trouble?

This is where there used to be the long jump, only the athlete was followed down the runway by a flute player to help him keep pace.

This is where married women weren't allowed to watch, and when one slipped in disguised as a trainer, they made the trainers come naked, too.

This is where Aristotle took a look at the superstars in his day and grumbled, ``The comportment of certain athletes does not contribute to the quality or worthiness of the citizens, nor to education or child rearing.''And he didn't even used to be a Portland Trail Blazer season ticket holder.

They loved it, the crowd and the shot putters, each with an idea of how to touch the past.

It ended in late afternoon shadows, the winners wearing olive wreaths.

``It's brilliant,'' said Australia's Justin Anlezark. ``But they should have given us rocks to throw.''

Maybe next time. We'll see you again, Zeus.

In the year 3,615.

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