A MILLION television viewers in Bulgaria joined a global audience of over four billion to watch the opening ceremony of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. The cheers for the small Bulgarian delegation were matched by groans, as the station that has sole rights to broadcast the Olympics in this country regularly interrupted its relay to show advertisements. Pity those poor countries that marched in vain, unseen by Bulgarians who were left to watch beer commercials. The Bulgarian audience should have been there in person, had the money and the seats been available. The media, with very few exceptions, handed the Greek capital piles of laurels for the spectacle of the opening ceremony. No less the home crowd. Greek daily newspaper Eleftherotypia said the first gold medal of the Games should go the ceremony's artistic director, Dimitris Papaioannou, and his team. The newspaper described the ceremony as "a hymn to beauty and the variety of human existence". Most Greek pundits agreed because he had avoided an exercise in folklore or populism, preferring to focus on art and ideas, with an overriding theme that human passion is the engine of history. Yet, inasmuch as the opening event sought to transport its audience to another sphere, with its pageant of mythology and its invocation of high ideals, some realities were not far away. Even television audiences heard the cheers picked up by the microphones as the Iraqi and Palestinian teams entered the stadium. To the credit of the 70 000 strong international crowd, no national team was derided, to the relief of the US press that had half expected some animosity. And there were other realities. In the days after the Games opening ceremony, Greek sprinting stars Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou withdrew from their intended participation, among a furore of international media coverage of doping allegations against them. "This year's Summer Olympics have got their drugs scandal," said Norway's Aftenpost. And so the media caravan marched on, wringing all the sustenance it could out of the Kenteris-Thanou Affair. But anyone waiting for those doom-saying journalists who had been so sceptical about Athens being ready on time, to acknowledge that they were wrong, was left only to watch the caravan recede over the horizon, its bearings elsewhere. That attention was, inevitably, also on the dramas and surprises within the Olympic arenas. Already, on the morning of Monday August 16, Greek television station Alpha was able to report the first upset of the Games, when the South African men's 4x100m swimming relay team defeated the two favourites, the United States and Australia. Back home, South Africa's Independent Newspapers dubbed the team the "Awesome Foursome". Some detected a mournful note in CNN's acknowledgement that the South Africans had dashed US swimmer Michael Phelps's hopes of winning eight gold medals. Said South African team member Ryk Neethling: "We knew we were fast, but we didn't know how fast, and we surprised even ourselves with that record". Still, by August 18, they were the sole gold medal holders for their country, with China at the top of the table with 10, Greece eighth with two gold medals, and to return to the subject of Bulgaria, this country was low in the medals table, with a gold and two bronzes. Maria Grozdeva got the bronze medal in the women's 10 m air pistol. Georgi Georgiev won the bronze in judo, in the 66kg category. No one in the Bulgarian-language media seemed to be saying much about whether the controversy surrounding IOC member, and Bulgarian Olympic Committee head, Ivan Slavkov would affect the morale of the country's representatives at the Games. But there was the obligatory cheering on from the sidelines, with the Deputy Minister of Youth and Sport, Stefka Kostadinova, telling daily 24 Chassa that there would be "enough Bulgarian medallists at the Olympics to make us proud". But some Bulgarian hopefuls took a fall. Among them was two-time Olympic champion Tanyu Kiriakov, who finished seventh in the men's 50 m pistol competition. He walked away empty-handed, a comedown for the shooter who took gold in Sydney four years ago. Repeating his performances in Sydney and Atlanta, but in a rather sad way, was Ali Mollov, who for the third consecutive time withdrew from the Games because of injuries. The Greco-Roman wrestling ace would be replaced by young hopeful Kaloyan Dichev, it was reported. This was the stuff of the main events, the progress followed by sports fans. But for fans of quirky stories, the Olympics have been no disappointment. There was the Canadian fellow who, dressed in a tutu, stormed into the three metre synchronised diving final, shouted "I love you" to his wife, and leapt into the water. Had he lost a bet? Was this true love? By mid-week, news was still awaited. Elsewhere, Anthony Cooke was taken in for questioning by Athens police after he painted his daughter Nicole's name on the road where the UK Olympic cyclist was to race. Police emphasised he had been questioned, not arrested; they simply had wanted to know why he did it. The answer, apparently: tradition. No doubt in Athens that should be a reason to respect, and it was. The UK's The Sun reported that "special modesty patches" had been sewn on to the swimsuits of the country's women's triathlon team after it turned out that the costumes were see-through when wet. A cracker of a story, the type The Sun likes, and it would be mischievous to suggest that that newspaper may have preferred it had the flaw gone undetected. And the greatest sideshow story of them all ensued when a dossier was opened after a private post-opening ceremony party's fireworks caused many small brush fires in the city's prestigious Filothei district. The party was hosted by none other than Athens Olympic Games chief Gianna Angelopoulou. Several currently serving PM's, including Greece's visibly displeased Karamanlis; and Bulgaria's immaculately dressed Saxe-Coburg, made a hasty exit when they realised what was happening. "Gianna lit a second Olympic torch," Reuters reported. Eleftherotypia daily wrote "Let's not burn ancient Olympia...just because the ruling class is possessed by this uncontrollable euphoria, if not vanity," said one of the newspaper's commentators, Giorgos Marnellos. She did in fact have a licence for the fireworks from the local council, and had put the local fire department on notice, which the press omitted to report, but the comparisons to Nero were obvious and irresistible. Angelopoulou and her tycoon husband realising their gaff, were apologetic, and quickly promised to pay for the forest's restoration. But that realisation came somewhat late, and Athens prosecutors are still looking into possible (post-Olympic) charges. But euphoria, and perhaps vanity, are among the things the Games are about, inside and outside the stadium. And with finals, medals, and laurels still up for grabs, it was safe to expect that among the things to expect was the unexpected.