Okay, so maybe there are a few things left to say about the Beijing Games, both in general and from the perspective who was extremely fortunate enough to view it from the inside.

Let us begin with a vignette. I cannot share with you who told me the story, or the names of the people involved. But that shouldn't detract from the tale itself. A more experience employee was telling me about the time he sat in the office of a network executive (non-NBC) and the person who oversaw that network, one of the most powerful media moguls in the world, kept phoning and interrupting their meeting. What the person sharing this tale with me was amused and astounded by was the nature of the phone calls. This mogul, extremely wealthy and accomplished, was calling to check on the details of production of various shows, stuff that you'd assume was not worthy of his concern. You'd think he'd have someone else sweat the small stuff.

At last my friend, exasperated, asked the executive the question. "He has wealth. He has power. He has just about everything you could want. Why is he phoning to check on these little details?"

The network executive looked at my friend. "Because he wants what we all want."

Back from Beijing...Interesting flight from Beijing to JFK in that during the 12-hour journey you fly over four countries, which just happen to be the four largest nations on the planet, in terms of area: China, Russia, Canada and then the U.S.A.

Totally fired up to be back in the States (blues skies!) and now it's time to transition from Michael Phelps to Michael Floyd.

Don't know if I'll have much time to do a favorite memories/Beijing recap piece, but I'll throw you this benediction of sorts that I wrote for Jim Lampley on the final day. Since it aired some time between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., depending where you live, last Sunday morning, I thought we could reproduce it here.

On Tuesday afternoon my Olympic sidekick, Andrew Silver, and I, took a shuttle bus over to the wrestling venue to watch Henry Cejudo's gold-medal match. It occurs to me as I write this that the Lone Ranger had a trusty companion named Silver and that this Lone Stranger does as well (though carrying the analogy any further is both inaccurate and ruinous).

Although it bears noting that while the masked Old West lawman cried out, "Hi Ho, Silver!", I have been known in Beijing to rally him with a "Houhai, Silver!"

I don't know about you, but judging from what we've witnessed at the Bird's Nest this week, I wouldn't bet against the Jamaican Bobsled Team two years from now in Vancouver. If Michael Phelps was the overwhelming star of Week 1 here, then Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt is undoubtedly his Beijing heir. Lost in the gleam of Bolt's resounding performances here--world records in both the 100 and 200 qualify him as "The World's Fastest Man...Ever!"-- is the overall success of Jamaica in the sprints.

Consider this: In the six main sprint events-- 100, 200 and 400, men's and women's-- Jamaica has won eight medals and the United States has won eight medals. Eighteen total medals, and these two nations won 16 of them (let's hear it for Trinidad, which won a silver in the men's 100 and Great Britain, which took gold in the women's 400).

So, sure, the rest of the world is sniffing the USA's and Jamaica's fumes, but the real story is that Jamaica is neck-and-neck with its neighbor to the north. After all, Jamaica is an island barely the size of Connecticut (and with far better beaches... no offense, Westport). Jamaica's population is approximately 3 million, or about 1/100th that of the United States.

You've got to get yourself together,

You got stuck in a moment,

And now you can't get out of it,

                              --U2, "Stuck in a Moment"

Matt Emmons had waited four years to return to this very moment.

Redemption, vindication and victory were just the slightest touch away. Emmons was just one shot away from a feeling of satisfaction, of (I normally loathe this term) closure that few could imagine.

This was Saturday, the final shot of the three-position rifle event here in Beijing.

In three-position rifle, each competitor gets 10 shots from a standing position in the final round. The target is a 10-ring bull's eye. Shoot it in the center ring, about the width of an aspirin, and you can receive anywhere from 10.0 to 10.9 points. 

Heading into his final shot, Emmons, originally from New Jersey but now residing in Colorado Springs, was well ahead of the field. How big was his lead? 

His worst shot to that point had been a 9.7. Emmons needed only to fire a 9.3 to set an Olympic record in the event. He needed just a 6.7 (like asking Usain Bolt to break 12.0 seconds in the 100 meters) to earn gold. And how sweet would that be? If you don't already know his story, you have no idea. 

When Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt first, um, bolted onto the scene a few years ago, track aficionados expressed mild surprise. After all, Bolt stands 6-feet-5 and has a lean, albeit muscular, physique. Kind of like Terrell Owens before he began working out with bar bells in his driveway.

The World's Fastest Man is supposed to be, if not short, then at least compact and muscular. Ben Johnson. Maurice Greene. Barry Sanders. Now along comes Bolt, who on April 11, 2004, became the first and still only teenager to crack the 20-second barrier in the 200 meters. And people wondered how.

On NBC's Sunday evening prime-time show, U.S. female sprinter Lauryn Williams was featured in a taped segment. Williams, of Miami, has a classic sprinter's build and she even said (and I paraphrase), "I have short legs so I have a higher stride-per-second rate. That allows me to go faster."

The logic, according to Williams, is that because she requires less time between strides, she will be faster than someone taller who takes more times between strides.

But that is only half of the equation.

The United States of America has won 17 gold medals, 18 silvers and 22 bronzes since the opening day of competition of the Beijing Games on August 9th. The USA has won more overall medals--57-- than any other nation.

But, at least through nine days, they've won something more than that. Our respect.

Redeem Team? You bet, and that moniker fits this entire contingent of 595 athletes.

The overriding theme of the first week of the Olympics, at least from an American perspective, has been class.

Gone are the hubristic images of a gold-medal 4 x 100-meter relay team clowning around on the track. Nowhere to be seen is the Aesop-like vignette of a downhill racer "showboarding" and in the process squandering a gold medal: a literal enactment of the maxim "Pride goeth before a fall." Absent has been the athlete who failed to meet expectations (be it his or ours) and rationalized it by saying that he "got to party and socialize at an Olympic level."

It was exactly a quarter-century ago that noted pop chameleon David Bowie became the first person to weigh in on the biggest controversy of the opening week of the 2008 Beijing Games: the age of female Chinese gymnasts.

My little China girl,

You shouldn't mess with me,

I'll ruin everything you are

As fate had it, neither Ziggy Stardust nor Bela Karolyi, nor his wife Marta, nor the Associated Press nor The New York Times were able to ruin China's golden moment at the National Indoor Stadium earlier this week. China took gold in the women's team competition, the host nation's first-ever gold in that event. This despite much harrumphing ("harrumph harrumph harrumph") about three of China's six female gymnasts: Yang Yilin, Jiang Yuyuan and He Kexin.

Did you hear about the ruckus at the medal ceremony in men's 84kg (that would be 185.2 pounds) Greco-Roman wrestling? Turns out that Swede bronze medalist Ara Abrahamian (I know!) removed his bronze medal on the podium and threw it down on the mat before stomping out of the arena with a fist raised in the air.

Abrahamian was the silver medalist in Athens and a gold-medal fave here. After he lost his semi-final match by decision to Italy's unheralded Andrea Minguzzi, the two-time world champion Swede had to be restrained from going after matside officials. How do you restrain someone who is arguably the world's greatest wrestler? And if you do, as they did, can he really lay claim to being so?

"I don't care about this medal," Abrahamian said. "I wanted gold. This will be my last match. I wanted to take gold, so I consider this Olympics a failure." 

And if that weren't vitriolic enough, Honest Abrahamian added, "They (the judges) are a bunch of fatsos."

You have to feel for anyone who believes they were robbed of a medal that they've worked so hard to earn. But "fatsos"? Who says "fatsos" anymore?

His coach, Leo Myllar, was equally upset. "It is all politics," said Myllar, "and it is all corrupt."

Welcome to Olympic judging, Leo.