My top Olympic moments

1) Michael Phelps gets fifth gold medal and lets teammateCocker swim the relay. Michael Phelps, who has won five gold medals in the Olympic pool, said Friday he was pulling out of Saturday's 4x100 meter medley relay final to give team mate Ian Crocker the chance to swim. Phelps, who beat Crocker in a desperately close 100 meter butterfly final Friday, said he wanted his team mate to have the spot because he had not been feeling well when he swam in the U.S. 4x100 freestyle relay squad, who were beaten into third place in the final last Sunday. Michael Phelps clinched his fifth gold medal and became the first man since Mark Spitz to hold four individual Olympic swimming titles when he won the 100 meter butterfly final Friday.

2) Mia Hamm and Fab Five win soccer gold. Abby Wambach powered home a header in the 22nd minute of extra time in Athens to give the U.S. their second Olympic title after winning at the 1996 Atlanta Games. The United States gave Hall of Famer Mia Hamm the perfect send-off on Thursday, beating Brazil 2-1 to win Olympic gold in the women's soccer tournament. For Hamm, widely regarded as the best ever female player, it was a fitting end to a glittering 17-year career. The other members of the Fab Five are Brandi Chastain, Joy Fawcett, Kristine Lilly and captain Julie Foudy.

3) Paul Hamm's amazing comeback to win Gymnastics All-around. Paul Hamm etched his name into the record books as he became the first American man to win the Olympic gymnastics all-round crown Wednesday. I thought after the vault I cost myself any medal. My thought was I should shoot for bronze," said a jubilant Hamm after adding the Olympic gold to the world title he won last August. Mounting the horizontal bar trailing in fourth place, Hamm completed his gravity-defying routine to perfection and threw his arms up in the air in victory even before the judges had declared their verdict. His final score of 9.837 was enough to edge out South Korean's Kim Dae-eun by just 0.012 of a point and spark off ecstatic celebrations around the Olympic Indoor Hall.

4) May and Walsh perfect on the beach. Called by some the best women's beach volleyball team ever, May and Walsh finished off their first Olympic competition together with a perfect record and a gold medal after beating Brazil 21-17, 21-11, in the final match.

5) Carly Patterson upstaged Russian diva Svetlana Khorkina to become the first American in 20 years to win the women's Olympic gymnastics all-round gold medal. The 16-year-old Patterson put on a fearless display to win the title with a score of 38.387 and emulate the feat of compatriot Mary Lou Retton at Los Angeles in 1984. Khorkina, favorite for the title and competing in her third and final Olympics, failed to match her young rival and was edged out by 0.176 of a point to finish second. The last competitor to perform the floor exercise, the American teen-ager knew she had to score higher than 9.536 to beat Khorkina. Patterson performed the routine of her young life, landing each of three linked tumbling combinations to perfection. As the music ended, Patterson tearfully fell into the arms of her coach and the crowd leaped to their feet. A score of 9.712 handed Patterson the gold, leaving the 25-year-old Khorkina to reflect on her third failed attempt to grab the top individual prize.

6) Phelps gets first gold. Pumped by Eminem rapping in his earphones, the 19-year-old from Baltimore broke his own world record by 0.15 seconds to win the 400 meters individual medley in four minutes 08.26 seconds. Pressure was on Phelps to win as many as eight golds in these Olympics.

7) U.S. Mens basketball Dream Team loses. The United States crashed to its second defeat in the Olympic men's basketball tournament Saturday when a late shooting spree by Sarunas Jasikevicius propelled Lithuania to a 94-90 victory. Overlooked by the NBA after graduating from the University of Maryland, Jasikevicius scored 11 of his team's last 12 points to bring it from a point down to three up before unbeaten Lithuania closed the game with another free throw. "There was an awe when playing the Americans maybe 17 or 18 years ago, but a lot of countries have caught up," Jasikevicius said after his shooting spree in the last three minutes set his team up to win Group B at the tournament.

8)Men's 4x100 swim relay wins gold for Phelps. Michael Phelps got his eighth medal at the Athens Olympics Saturday without even getting wet when the United States broke the world record in the men's 4x100 meters medley relay. The 19-year-old American did not swim the final, the last swimming race at the Games, after giving up his spot to Ian Crocker but still gets a medal because he raced in the heats. After a grueling week's work, he ending up with eight medals to match Soviet gymnast Alexander Dityatin's 1980 record for the most medals at one Games. Crocker, swimming butterfly, teamed up with backstroker Aaron Peirsol, breaststroker Brendan Hansen and freestyle anchorman Jason Lezak to finish first in three minutes 30.68 seconds, 0.86 inside the previous world record the U.S. set at last year's world championships.

9) Women's softball domintates. The United States dominated the competition in Athens, rolling off nine straight wins and only allowing one run to be scored against them in all those games. It was the third straight gold for the Americans, who have won 79 straight games in international competition.

10) Women's freestyle relay break 17 year record to win gold. Natalie Coughlin, Carly Piper, Dana Vollmer and Kaitlin Sandeno stormed home in the women's 4x200 meters freestyle relay in seven minutes 53.42 seconds to break the oldest mark in swimming exactly 17 years after it had been set. "A world record is a world record, no matter who does it," Coughlin said. "We're the fastest ever and that's an amazing feeling. "Going into the relay I had no idea that it was an East German record. I just knew that we were really, really close to it last year, that we were stronger than we were, and I knew we could do it."

11) Farni Halkia becomes Greek heroine. Fani Halkia hurtled from virtual obscurity to become Olympic women's 400 meters hurdles champion on Wednesday, giving Greece a new sports diva to hail but sparking a barrage of questions over her rise to prominence. "All Greeks athletes need is a lot of soul and hard work to come first," said Halkia, 25, a relative unknown a year ago. Halkia, a former high jumper who quit athletics and became a journalist before making a dramatic comeback, won in a time of 52.82 seconds to claim the gold medal by more than half a second, the largest margin of victory in the last five Olympics.

12) Natalie Coughlin finally gets her gold. Natalie Coughlin's run of bad luck finally took a turn for the better when she won the gold medal in the women's 100 meters backstroke at the Athens Olympics Monday. The Californian won the final in one minute 00.37 seconds -- just 0.79 seconds outside her own world record -- to add the Olympic title to the world crown she won three years ago. It's too hard to put into words," Coughlin said. "I have had so many ups and downs over the past years but I have a gold medal now and I have it for life."

13) Women's basketball shows-up men with gold. The U.S. women took their third consecutive gold medal in Olympic basketball on Saturday, breaking open a close game in the fourth quarter to beat Australia 74-63.

14) Amanda Beard gets her first gold in eight years. Amanda Beard credited her new-found maturity for ending an eight-year wait for a second Olympic gold medal in Athens Thursday. The 22-year-old American swam a superb final to touch out Australia's Leisel Jones in a 200 meters breaststroke dual between two women best known for crumbling under pressure.Beard tracked Jones down over the last lap to clock an Olympic record of two minutes, 23.37 seconds as she finally came of age after bursting onto the international swimming scene as a 14-year-old at the 1996 Atlanta Games.