The Crying Games

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

Have you ever seen so much waterworks since Titanic hit the big screen?

New Zealanders wept over missed opportunities at the Sydney Olympics - medal chances which dissolved in water, were buried in the dust, or just plain got away on the track and the turf.

Kiwis are a shy, modest race, so most of their tears fell away from the spotlight.

The rest of the world blubbed for all to see, making the emotional release as much a part of the modern Games as victory and defeat, the Mexican wave and steroids.

Maybe there's something in the air here. Australia is, after all, the home of greater wailers such as Kim Hughes and Bob Hawke. Or perhaps the blame could be placed on the billions of moths, drawn to the Olympic flame, for flying into athletes' eyes.

On one hand, you had the drug-stained tears.

Wee gymnast Andreea Raducan fell to her knees and sobbed when the big IOC bosses demanded she give back her gold. Two headache pills, and the little Romanian will never compete in gymnastics again.

Mr Marion Jones, aka C.J. Hunter - the disgraced shot putter apparently packed to the gunwales with nandrolone - cried and protested his innocence to an unconvinced world that was sick of drug cheats turning these into the Games of Shame.

And all the while, his wife stayed dry-eyed, even when her "drive for five" became "gee, it's only three."

And of course there were tears of unabashed happiness.

Motormouth Mo, Maurice Greene, claims he shed a tear of joy when he bulleted home in the 100m, and had to stick out his tongue on the medal podium so he didn't completely break down.

Cathy Freeman's moist eyes sparkled as she danced before a nation who had crowned her their queen.

Mixed in were a few teardrops of relief (can you imagine Australia's distress had she come second?).

Freeman's reclusive rival, Marie Jose Perec, fled Sydney in tears without ever setting foot on the brick-red track of Stadium Australia. The pressure was too much for the Greta Garbo of athletics, who says she may never run again.

Worst of all were the tears of failure.

Australians howled when their walking wonder woman, Jane Saville, was callously kicked out of the 20km walk 200m from victory.

French track cyclist Arnaud Tournant bawled when he won gold in the Olympic sprint - not in happiness, but grieving for the gold he was denied in the kilo the night before.

Svetlana Khorkina's pouting mouth twisted in misery when she fell face-first from a vault that was 5cm too low - robbing the favourite's chances of the all-round gymnastic title.

But the biggest blubberer of them all was Hicham El Guerrouj, who could not win a gold medal on the track, but would pick one up as the Olympics' most emotional wreck.

Even before he got on the track for the 1500m final, the Moroccan started sniffling. After doing the unthinkable - coming second - he was inconsolable.

Out on the dusty plains of Horsely Park, Ready Teddy's groom, Fiona Fraser, wept as she slowly led the limping horse back to the stables. A garden variety pebble had hamstrung New Zealand's hopes of, at worst, a bronze in the team's three-day event.

New Zealand hockey coach Jan Borren fought tears of anger over a bizarre umpiring call which ultimately sucked the spirit out of his team. Two days later, the players cried in embarrassment back in the dressing room - a 7-1 whipping from the brazen Argentines halted the New Zealanders' dream run.

And who knows just what high jumper Glenn Howard was doing, his head veiled under a towel for half an hour after he failed to clear what should have been a routine height.

New Zealand's medallists - all four of them - weren't the crying kind.

Big-hearted rower Rob Waddell stopped Kiwis weeping into their teacups about an unexplainable dearth of gold.

Did anyone ever dare doubt that Waddell would not win on the Penrith Lakes - that he would not leave Olympic champion Xeno Mueller wondering if he was even in the same race?

Another thing is for certain - Waddell will be crowned New Zealand Sportsperson of the Year for the third year running.

The Kiwi medals came in a three-day burst smack in the middle of the Olympic 16-day marathon.

Horseman Mark Todd, hero-cum-villain-cum-hero again, started the ball rolling on the first Friday with a bronze to end his golden career.

When boardsailing twins Aaron McIntosh and Barbara Kendall collected two more on a sunny Sunday afternoon, dry-witted Aussie comics HG and Roy hailed "an avalanche of bronze" for New Zealand.

Sailing was once again New Zealand's most successful sport at the Games - eight of the 11 crews finishing in the top 10. But Kiwis, like most sports-mad nations, judge success in medals.

Sarah Ulmer, New Zealand's darling of the cycling track, was the width of a tyre from bronze, but the rest of her team-mates were off the pace.

In track and field, New Zealand's runners, throwers and jumpers found countless excuses for their failure to even achieve personal bests.

But at the other end of the scale, weightlifters Olivia Baker and Nigel Avery broke national and Commonwealth records as quickly as they hoisted the massive weights above their heads - even though they were mere fish among the whales of their sport.

The Team With No Name, the hockey women, won hearts but no medals. Yet they achieved what no other New Zealand women's side had done in 16 years - winning a game at the Olympics.

The same could be said of both Kiwi basketball teams, who scored their first Olympic wins to finish 11th.

Bruce Goodin kept New Zealand's medal hopes alive until the last gasp, when he tripped up at the final hurdle at the showjumping, while wild girl Kallista Field footed it with the best in the most peculiar Olympic event, dressage.

The young Kiwi swimmers - whose sights are set on Manchester 2002 - were drowned in the tidal wave of fanaticism for the Thorpedo, the Dutch Dolphin Peter van den Hoogenband, and the incredible Inge de Bruijn.

If you are still feeling weepy about New Zealand's meagre medal haul, just remember it could be worse.

You could live in Morocco, the gold-less nation in mourning over ol' red eyes, El Guerrouj.