Athens earns laurels

ATHENS, Greece — In these times when all's well that doesn't end in an explosion, go ahead and grade the Athens Olympics an unmitigated success. That's a wrap, Athena. See you in another 108 years.

There was no bloodshed, no wars were declared, no terrorist attacks. Unless you were one of the couple dozen athletes caught with performance-enhancing drugs in your system or a member of the U.S. men's basketball team, no one went home in disgrace.

I don't know about you, but I'm still trying to figure out how LeBron James can make the pros straight out of high school and win NBA Rookie of the Year and appear on every SportsCenter highlight film and yet he's not even good enough to play on the team that's not even good enough to beat Argentina.

LeBron was Lebronze.

Still, the little-used LeBron and his teammates had it easy compared to Russian shot-putter Irina Korzhanenko. One of the handful of athletes who got to compete on the hallowed ground of ancient Olympia, she won the first golden olive wreath in 1,611 years and then got busted for drugs.

They should fine Irina and use the money to put up a statue of Zeus outside Olympic Stadium, like the old days.

Overall, you had to hand it to the Greeks as the O-Games returned to Athens for the first time in 108 years and only the second time in the modern era. In a nation where half-finished buildings is the national icon — the Parthenon fits right in; it's actually more finished than a lot of condo projects I saw — they completed every one of the 35 Olympic venues, as well as the new freeways and subway lines, in time.

They welcomed the Games home and welcomed the world along with them, although the more blue-and-white flag-waving I saw the more I got the impression it would be fine with the Greeks if it was like it was in olden times when only Greeks could enter the Olympics, although I think now they'd also be OK with Greek women.

But as much as the Games try to return to what they once were, the more apparent it becomes how impossible that is. I, for one, was anxious to come to witness the return of the Olympics to their birthplace. But what I realized over and over again the past 17 days is that Olympia, site of the ancient Games, is buried under 2,000 years of change and will stay that way — and even Athens isn't what it was a mere century ago.

The change was particularly obvious at the finish of the men's marathon Sunday, when an Italian, an American and a Brazilian won the medals, far ahead of the top, and only, Greek finisher, Nikolaos Polias, who placed 24th.