London can echo a Greek victory

Athens transformed itself and its spirit transformed the event. The city did not even mope for long about the unbelievably untimely doping scandal of Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou, though you could glean from the night that the jeering home crowd in the Olympic Stadium tried to delay the 200m final in which Kenteris would have been competing that many were still left in denial about this pair.

Greece seemed to take it as a personal affront but the fact that their star athlete, not to mention one of their weightlifting medallists, were successfully prosecuted here was actually cause for celebration because it demonstrated that Olympic president Jacques Rogge wasn't paying mere lip service to fighting the cancer when he promised "zero tolerance for cheats".

He was happy to risk terrible shortterm publicity for long term good, which is something you never felt under the 'image is everything' reign of Juan Antonio Samaranch. Even the most symbolic moment of the Games was soiled when the shot put went to the ancient site of Olympia and gave us Irina Korzhanenko, the first champion to test positive there for about 2,700 years.

Being from the host country did not spare you. Nor did being in a picture postcard event. No-one was safe, nothing was sacrosanct. Good. Twenty eight athletes were caught at the Games, over twice as many as four years earlier, and it really did feel like the first Olympics to tackle doping head on.

Rogge said he believed TV ratings were up generally by 15 per cent on Sydney and once everyone came back from their summer holidays here, the seats got filled to the extent that Athens sold some 600,000 more than the Barcelona and Atlanta Games.

If it couldn't compete with Sydney that is no disgrace because, in the modern era, it is doubtful any Games could. From a sporting perspective, though, it was on a par. The Aussies gave us that "Magic Monday" with Cathy Freeman, Jonathan Edwards et al yet the final "Superlative Saturday" here with the completion of Holmes's 800m/1500m double, El Guerrouj's 1500m/5,000m double and a British sprint relay sensation to rival the Dream Team's humbling was one of athletics' most exhilarating nights too.

It was the night which topped a grand Games for Britain. We are a picky lot these days, so we will look at the tally of nine golds, nine silver and 12 bronze and say 'not bad, but could have been better' and forget that this and Sydney represent almost unprecedentedly halcyon days for us on the biggest sporting stage of all as we revisit the 'Chariots of Fire' era of the 1920s.

We will mutter about just two medals won in the pool and we'll hardly register that our swimmers set 13 records and made 14 finals compared to only five in Sydney.

We will mutter about Holmes papering over cracks in the track team with her double and forget that athletics was being slaughtered before the Games yet still won more golds than any other British team in the most competitive of all the sports here. How competitive? Well, 40 nations won athletics medals; Britain were third in that table.

Yes, there were much-touted failures and a touch of big occasion freezing but what about a 17-year-old kid, Amir Khan, boxing a European champ's ears off or a cyclist, Bradley Wiggins, becoming the first Briton to win three medals since Mary Rand 40 years ago.

Britain would have been awarded one other gold. Apart from the home crowds, our spectators made more noise, gave better support and seemed to enjoy themselves more than any other set of fans. An abiding memory will be seeing several thousand Brits braving that murderously hot Sunday afternoon in the ancient Panathinaiko Stadium, waiting to give a 'mad dog' welcome to their Paula who, sadly, eventually needed four wheels to transport her there.

Said Simon Clegg, Britain's team chef de mission: "Our marvellous support will have been noted by the International Olympic Committee." So it should be since one of London's trump cards over Paris remains its greater passion for sports watching. "You have won," Rogge told his hosts at the closing ceremony. "We can win" has to be London's echo.