Day 15: Best day ever

Submitted by Rick Eyre on August 30 2004, 2:11 pm

You can just see Steve Cram dribbling over his keyboard as he wrote his BBC Online recap of Saturday night's athletics. But you can probably close off the polling for the 2004 BBC Sportsperson of the Year right now. Kelly Holmes has it in the bag. She won the 1500 metres to add to her 800 crown earlier in the week.

Another of the leading candidates for Athlete of the Games would have to be Hicham El Guerrouj from Morocco. He completed an extremely rare double on Saturday night, winning the 5000 after taking the 1500 last Tuesday. It's so rare a double that only Paavo Nurmi has done it before, at Paris 1924. "Magnifique, explosif, époustouflant" says Morocco's Le Matin. Mais oui.

Great Britain, who started their gold medal so slowly in these Games, added the men's 4x100 relay to their treasure chest in another upset loss by the Americans.

Yelena Slesarenko is the new queen of women's high jump, with a mark of 2.06 metres. Hestrie Cloete of South Africa took silver, which was immediately tarnished by the conduct of her family and friends as NOC president Sam Ramsamy presented Hestrie with her medal. South Africa's Sunday Times reports what happened next.

Argentina had failed to win a gold medal at any olympics since Helsinki 1952. Saturday, they won two. Their soccer team beat Paraguay 1-0 in a final which had a 10am kickoff. This event was a milestone for Paraguay as well, being their first ever Olympic medal. Paraguay's La Nacion picks up the story in Spanish.

Grab that souvenir, Walter!Argentina's second gold for Saturday was the climax of an extraordinary men's basketball tournament, as they defeated Italy 84-69 in the final. Here are the match stats, reports from Argentina's La Nacion, Italy's La Gazzetta dello Sport, and NBCOlympics.com. The San Antonio Spurs are the only NBA team with an Athens gold medallist on their roster, namely Manu Ginobili.

The Team Formerly Known As Dream took the bronze medal by defeating the hapless Lithuanians. A moment of farce (well, 45 minutes actually) as the start of the match was delayed while a clash of uniforms between the two teams was resolved with the US having to change theirs. This game was but an anticlimax, as the US women had earlier beaten the Australian Opals 74-63. Here's the match stats and Sydney's Sun-Herald's report.

Back to the men's basketball one last time, Team Espana maintained their record of being the only team in the tournament to lose only one game. They beat China 92-76 on Saturday morning to finish seventh. Pau Gasol of the Memphis Grizzlies averaged 22.4 points per game for Spain in the Olympics.

Ginobili and the USA's Lisa Leslie were voted MVPs of the men's and women's tournaments respectively.

A thrilling women's volleyball tournament finished on Saturday night with China defeating Russia 28-30, 25-27, 25-20, 25-23, 15-12 in two hours 19 minutes. Here's the play-by-play and the Xinhua News Agency report. Cuba beat Brazil in four sets to take bronze.

Australia had their most successful Games in diving this year, with six medals (1 gold, 1 silver, 4 bronze). Sailing was a different matter. Twenty countries picked up medals in the regatta. Australia was not one of them. A remarkable turnaround from tradition. So much for Colin Beashel carrying the flag at the opening ceremony!

Finally, there is no truth in the rumour that Waterford Crystal will be carrying the flag for Ireland in Sunday's closing ceremony. Or that George W Bush is on his way to Athens to congratulate Georgia's two gold medallists, and to lend his support for the 2012 Olympic bid by Paris, Texas.