King Kaufman's Sports Daily

I miss the Olympics already.

Watching Jim Lampley sign off Sunday afternoon after that crazy men's marathon finish, or even as I listened to Bob Costas' farewell after having fast-forwarded through most of the Closing Ceremonies, I felt like summer camp had ended. I couldn't believe that when I woke up Monday morning I wouldn't have six hours' worth of rowing, shooting, badminton, tae kwan do and beach volleyball to catch up on.

I can't say I enjoyed every moment of the Athens Games, and as the 70-hour days ground on and took their toll on various body parts, there were times when I hated them. But you can't spend two weeks watching such a huge collection of athletes competing in what for many is a do-or-die event and not have moments of awe and wonder. A lot of them. More, in fact, for me than there were moments of "I have such a pain at the base of my neck and my God is there another rowing heat?!"

Everyone who spends much time with an Olympics comes up with a little list of unforgettable moments, images that will pop to mind whenever those Games are mentioned in the future.

The few that enough people agree on become the indelible images from those Games, particularly if the media helps with the remembering. So we Americans get Edwin Moses flying over a hurdle in Los Angeles, maybe that side shot of the outdoor diving platform in Barcelona, Flo-Jo burning up the track in Seoul.

I have my list from Athens and I'm sure it's different from everybody else's, a mix of what I'm interested in, what country I grew up in, what NBC and its hench-networks decided to show me and, maybe least of all, what happened.

The mental slide show is hundreds of images long, but there are highlights, from the torpid look on the faces of the U.S. men's basketball team as they got smoked by Puerto Rico in the opener to the sight of a religious nut dressed as an elf jumping onto the course and pushing marathon leader Vanderlei de Lima of Brazil into the crowd.

It includes Michael Phelps, shot from head on, pulling up to breathe as he swims the butterfly, already my enduring mental image of him, thanks to NBC. Gary Hall Jr., in a stars-and-stripes boxing robe and trunks, clenching his fists on both sides of his head like a movie champ. Natalie Coughlin sticking her tongue between her teeth as she smiles the smile that will soon have her hosting youth-oriented TV shows, the kind where the camera zooms in and out for no reason while she's talking.

There's Shawn Crawford talking to Justin Gatlin as the two Americans cross the finish line in a 100-meter heat, and then Gatlin, having won the final, skipping around with a dazed smile on his face, trying to figure out what to do, and finally dropping to his knees in the phoniest prayer gesture I have ever seen. There's the general youth movement in American sprinting, especially Allyson Felix and Lauryn Williams, gold medals for dominant U.S. women's basketball and softball teams, and one last win for the women's soccer team that put a soccer ball under your daughter's bed.

But all the images aren't of Americans. There's Fani Halkia of Greece electrifying the home crowd with an out-of-nowhere gold in the 400 meters. Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco, whom people who know about such things often call the greatest middle-distance runner of all time, finally winning the 1,500-meter gold that had eluded him in Atlanta and Sydney, and doing it in one of the most incredible finishes I've ever seen.

Leading at the final turn, he'd been passed on the home stretch by Kenyan Bernard Lagat, who looked stronger than El Guerrouj. But El Guerrouj, who looks on his best day like he needs a good hot meal, reached back and found one last piece of coal to throw into the furnace. He retook the lead and crossed the line first, then collapsed to the track, kissing it. Lagat, beaten, had eased up in the last few steps. His first move after finishing was to throw his arms around El Guerrouj.

And then El Guerrouj went out and won the 5,000 also, which happens all the time. Paavo Nurmi just did it in 1924.

There's Chinese sprinter Liu Xiang winning the 110-meter hurdles, the first track medal for the country that will host the next Games, and will probably dominate the Olympics someday soon. Gal Fridman won a gold medal in the silly sport of windsurfing, but it was the first ever for Israel.

There are others, but lists get boring pretty quickly, I think, so I won't mention Paula Radcliffe and Iraqi soccer and Amir Khan, won't go on about May and Walsh, Manu Ginobili or Taufiq Hidayat.

As these Games fade into history, I think the enduring images in this country will be: