The best of the best at Athens

Soccer's Wambach, Phelps, Thorpe, Gatlin
highlighted 10 best athletes at Games

Ezra Shaw / Getty Images

U.S. soccer player Abby Wambach helped her team grab gold and establish herself as one of the game's stars — and one of the Athens Games's stars — writes NBCSports.com's Filip Bondy.

Filip Bondy

Slide show

Denmark's Olympic champion women's handball team celebrate gold at Athens 2004 Olympic Games

Visions of gold: Aug. 29
Demark throws for handball gold, Argentina takes it to the net and Britain's Mark Lewis-Francis jumps for joy.

Slide show

Emotional Moments: Aug. 29
Trouble mars the marathon but the Olympic spirit prevails.

COMMENTARY

By Filip Bondy

msnbc.com contributor

updated 9:50 a.m. ET Aug. 30, 2004

ATHENS, Greece - We named Paul Hamm to our list of top 10 athletes at the Athens Games, but then we demanded that he return the column so that we could delete him.

Even without Hamm, we had more than enough remarkable, disposable heroes from the 28 Olympic sports — and 301 medal events — to fill out our roll.

From the pool, to the gymnastics floor, to the basketball court, to the soccer field, we saw some great Olympic performances. Some athletes did their best to live up to immense hype (see Michael Phelps), while others enjoyed surprise success (Justin Gatlin and Jeremy Wariner, to name just a few).

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ALSO ON THIS STORY

Bondy: The 10 most memorable Olympic moments

So without further ado, here are my top 10 Olympic athletes of the Athens Games:

Filip Bondy writes regularly for NBCSports.com and is a columnist for the New York Daily News.