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This is an article on the medals that were won by Canadian athletes at the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. There's a hill in the Vouliagmeni triathlon course outside Athens that starts slowly, then gets worse as it climbs away from the blue Saronic Gulf into a prime residential section and a world of hurt. The best triathlon showing was an 11th place finish by Simon Whitfield, who'd won gold four years ago at the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney. And kayaker Adam van Koeverden grabbed gold and bronze in the K1 500 and 1000, while teammate Caroline Brunet paddled to bronze in the women's K1 500. Kyle Shewfelt, 22, delivered Canada's first gold--and the country's first-ever artistic gymnastics medal--in a nearly flawless floor exercise, despite an ankle injury that left him unable to practise his routine all spring. That night, top-ranked Alexandre Despatie, 19, flirted with disaster before salvaging Canada's first-ever men's diving medal, a silver, with a brilliant closing performance on the three-metre springboard.

This is an article about the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece and the Canadian athletes that are competing in the tournament. Let others obsess about Canada's slow medal start in the XXVIII Olympiad in Athens. The national baseball team has better things to do, both on the field and off. This is the first appearance by a Canadian team since baseball became a medal sport in 1992, but this rookie squad of up-and-comers, minor-leaguers and ex-pros could run a clinic on Olympic spirit, on national pride and, oh yes, on winning--a concept that eluded many of Canada's athletes in the first frustrating week of these Summer Games. Because now that the focus shifts mercifully away from the underperforming swim team to the sports in which Canada truly contends--diving, triathlon (Sydney gold medallist Simon Whitfield defends his title on Aug. 26), and track and field at the Olympic Stadium. To do that, they'll have to upset Cuba or Japan, whose teams arrived in Athens as the favourites (in the round-robin, Canada lost to Japan 9-1 and to Cuba 5-2).

This is an article that focuses on the security plan of Greece to be put into place for the 2004 Summer Olympics. I was standing outside the unfinished Olympic Stadium in Athens, talking with two Australian tourists, when three cop cars pulled up and blocked the road. An hour later, at another entrance to the venue, I was alone and had just taken a picture of the stadium when the same cop showed up. They've created the Olympic Advisory Group, a task force that includes counterterrorism experts from Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Israel, Spain, and the United States. The road between Athens and Marathon--on which competitors will, yes, run the marathon--is still being paved. Louis Lahaie, the liaison officer for the Canadian Olympic Committee and Sports Canada in Athens.

This is an article about the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, and the entrance of the Canadian athletes competing in the tournament. Nicolas Gill's burden extended far beyond his entrance into Olympic Stadium in Athens at the head of a cheering, dancing, picture-taking column of his Canadian teammates during Friday's stunning opening ceremonies. With the preliminaries behind him, the judoka can return his focus to "my little thing," the business of adding to his medal haul on the mats. As flag bearer--a role some athletes maintain has a built-in curse--Gill hoisted, if only symbolically, the full weight of national expectations. With just 267 athletes, this is the smallest team Canada has sent to a Summer Games since Munich in 1972. COC president Michael Chambers expects an improvement from four years ago, when the 309 athletes sent to Sydney returned with just 14 medals and a 17th-place finish. The show -- with flying Greek gods, a water-filled playing field and a playful, modern take on the history of the Olympic homeland -- lived up to its billing as "an epic story very much on a human scale." Helicopters, jet fighters and dirigibles patrol the sky, while a security force of more than 70,000 guards, soldiers and police keep a watchful eye -- and ear -- on the public.

This article focuses on the Canadian women's rowing team and speculates on whether they will win a medal in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. It's a muggy summer morning in London, Ont. Rain threatens, the wind has picked up, and a flotilla of sailboats has added its wake to the chop on Fanshawe Lake, summer home of Canada's national women's rowing team. Morrow cranks the throttle of his tiny outboard wide open but still he falls behind as the women's boat slices across the lake. Brian Richardson, a former medal-producing national team rowing coach in his native Australia, was brought back as head Canadian rowing coach. Veteran coach Mike Spracklen was lured back to Canada in 2001 to head the men's heavyweight program, after years as a national team coach in both the U.S. and his home country of England. His Canadian men's eight won gold in Barcelona in 1992 and he guided rowing legend Silken Laumann to medals in both the 1992 and the 1996 Olympics.

This is an article focusing on the performance of cyclist Lori-Ann Muenzer at the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. Lori-Ann Muenzer made it to the Olympic finals, her good-luck ritual had become such an elaborate dance that, if set to music, it could qualify for federal arts funding. An intricate series of fist bumps, shoulder chucks and laying of hands built up over three days of competition, until all of the coaches and trainers and officials who hovered around Canada's lone track cyclist had a role. And as she teetered on the starting line, a 12-second sprint away from gold, one last refinement: the 38-year-old legal secretary from Edmonton reached down to the man steadying her bike--national team coach Eric Van den Eynde--and gently rubbed his Mr. Clean pate. Muenzer powered past Tamilla Abassova of Russia, a woman 17 years her junior, at a speed of just over 59 km/h, to win Canada's first-ever cycling gold. In the semi-finals, she took down Australia's Anna Meares, a 20-year-old who won gold and set a world record in the 500-m time trial just days earlier.

This is an article that focuses on rowers from Canada that are competing in the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. After the heroic row to the finish by the Canadian men's four last Saturday, after the photo finish showed they'd failed, by a mere 8-100ths of a second, to catch Great Britain, Buffy Williams walked as close to the Olympic medal podium as security would permit to witness a silver medal being draped over her husband Barney's head. The silver was Canada's second of the Games, and perhaps an appropriate symbol for a first week filled with near misses. But for the crew of the men's four--Cameron Baerg, Jake Wetzel, Tom Herschmiller and Williams--the medal was welcomed with triumph as well as disappointment. In the last Olympics, it was Buffy, as part of the women's eight, who won bronze, with Barney cheering. Richardson's crew, the lightweight men's four, was to race Sunday, along with a crew in rowing's showcase event, the men's eight, coached by Spracklan.

This is an article on Canadian triathlete Simon Whitfield, who will compete in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. Simon Whitfield rolls off the ferry to Salt Spring Island, B.C., in a Mini Cooper, a car well-matched to his triathlete's soul--an abundance of speed, guts and fun, packed into a deceptively small frame. Many Canadians had their introduction to Whitfield and his three-pronged sport four years ago, during his breathtaking sprint to gold at the Olympic Games in Sydney. It was one of the few Canadian victories in Sydney, in the first Games to feature triathlon as an Olympic event. Canada is sending two men and three women to the Olympic triathlon. Top-ranked Jill Savege, 30, of Penticton, B.C., and Carol Montgomery, 37, of North Vancouver, whose medal hopes in Sydney ended with a crash during the cycling leg of the race, and Samantha McGlone of Montreal have qualified.

This is an article that focuses on Canadian wrestler Daniel Igali, who will compete in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. Perhaps he's suffering the lingering effect of injuries that have plagued the 30-year-old wrestler in the aftermath of his victory at the 2000 Summer Games, or maybe it's the effect of intensified training as his date on the mats of Athens approaches. The injuries, especially a herniated disc that required neck surgery and the insertion of a metal plate last year, were "quite crippling." Six years later he was studying criminology at Simon Fraser University, he was a Canadian citizen, and a gold medallist--something for native-born Canadians to ponder as they bitch about the country's sorry state of amateur sport. Igali is writing a master's thesis on models of terrorism, a sadly appropriate theme for these Olympics.

This is an article focusing on efforts to help athletes competing in the Olympics in Athens, Greece in dealing with high temperatures. That hoary joke about the weather--everyone talks about it, nobody does anything--doesn't apply in Gordon Sleivert's case. As director of sport science and medicine at the PacificSport national training centre in Victoria, he's done plenty to help athletes cope with what could be the hottest Olympic Games ever. Many Canadian team members left for Athens with elaborate vests Sleivert developed to mitigate the effects of the heat, but he isn't about to tip the competition to all of Canada's cool ideas. At a race in Hawaii this April, Sleivert had Canadian triathletes swallow pills containing micro thermometers and transmitters that track changes in core temperature. Clothing giants Adidas, Nike and Reebok have all created fabrics designed to dissipate heat and promote evaporation.