"What was easily the worst day of the Athens Games for the United States team also could be considered among the nation's worst at any Olympics." So said the unbylined Associated Press reporter dis

Mark this down in your diary: Saturday October 16 is the day for the 2004 Rock Scissors Paper World Championships at the Kool Haus, Toronto, Ontario.

I never thought I'd see this day come. After following 28 years of near and not so near misses, I wake up this morning to see Channel 7's Randy Hobbits announcing that the Kookaburras - Australia's men's hockey team - had won the gold medal. It was Australia's first olympic gold in men's hockey, and ended Holland's dream of a three-peat.

It's 1pm Friday in Athens, 8pm here in Sydney on a balmy Friday evening in late winter. We're getting down to the Bismuth End of the Athens Games. Here's where the team sports are up to:

We've come a long way since Rick DeMont lost his swimming gold medal because of his asthma spray in 1972. Are there really more drug cheats in the Olympics these days or is the IOC just doing a better job of catching them? Two words: (i) East. (ii) Germany. Two more words: (iii) Stella. (iv) Walsh.

Since the start of these Games, the following medal-winners have been disqualified because of drug breaches:

When the Australian Government introduced anti-spam laws earlier this year, an exemption was included for charities and political parties. I've yet to see any legalised spam from an Australian charity or political party. They'd be mad to do it, you'd think.

They've been in Olympic competition since 1952, but tragically the words "Israel" and "Olympics" have mostly been used together in terms of the terrorist atrocity at Munich 1972. On Wednesday, however, Israel finally picked up its first gold medal.

Cuba has won the gold medal for Olympic baseball. That's three gold and one silver in the four Games since baseball was introduced in Barcelona 1992. They did so by defeating Australia 6-2 in the final on Wednesday night. It was Australia's first medal in olympic baseball competition.

Goodness me. There is a push on to have Tony Blair impeached over his handling of the Iraq/WMD issue, invoking some obscure laws not used since 1848 and never repealed.

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If there's anything that makes me immensely patriotic, it's the way we Australians place our imprint on the world stage. It doesn't matter whether it's David Wenham being Faramir, Jimmy Little doing U2 covers, Steve Waugh snubbing GW Bush, or the Puppetry of the Penis simply existing. And then there's the Australian baseballers beating the Japanese Dream Team.