SYDNEY — After all the planning, all the fretting, all the preliminaries, all the medley relays in the pool, all the failed drug tests, all the parades, all the innovative ways to light the cauldron, all the women's weightlifting, all the price gouging and all the scandals; finally, the Olympics get back to something your basic ancient Greek could recognize.

The footraces.

It all began with a footrace, as far as historians can tell, about 2,776 years ago, when the Greeks in Olympia marked a distance of about 240 yards in the dirt and everyone lined up to see who could make it to the mark fastest.

Chariot racing and fighting-to-the-death — a couple of events that were ancient Greece's answers to synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics — would not be added to the program for another 200 years.

In the good old, old days that's all it was, a 240-yard footrace followed by a weeklong party.

Now, of course, there are more races . . . and more parties.

If the ancient Greeks could take a look at Stadium Australia, also known as Olympic Stadium, with its 110,000 seats, its huge cauldron bellowing the huge Olympic flame, its twice-a-day sellouts at prices that would buy Athens, they would have to first have this thought: "$6.50 for an Australian Superdog!"

The sleek body suits would also no doubt stump them.

And the times everybody is running.

And the absence of Greek winners.

Their mistake, of course, was opening up the Olympics to all countries. In the beginning, Greeks won every race because only Greeks ran in every race. But in 1896, when the modern Olympics began in Athens after a 1,503-year layoff, the whole world was invited.

The first event was, of course, a footrace at 100 meters. The Greek champion, the fleetest man in the country, was named Alexandros Halkokondilis. He had history on his side. He had Zeus on his side. He had the home-turf advantage.

Alexandros made it through the opening round of three heats, but in the finals the next day he placed fifth as an American, Thomas Burke, won in 12.0 seconds. Second was a German, Fritz Hofmann; third was a Hungarian, Alajos Szokolyi; and fourth was yet another American, Francis Lane. Halkokondilis finished fifth in 12.6 seconds.

One hundred and four years later, a Greek male is yet to win an Olympic footracing gold medal at any distance other than the marathon — although a Greek woman, "Voula" Paloulidou, did win the 100-meter hurdles at Barcelona in 1992.