Athens - In the first major security breach of the Olympics, the leader of the men's marathon was grabbed by an intruder five kilometres from the finish on Sunday and knocked off the course.
Vanderlei de Lima of Brazil was pushed to the curb into the crowd as police tackled the intruder, dressed in a brightly coloured costume.
Lima was able to get back into the race, but lost precious time and eventually was overtaken by Stefano Baldini of Italy, who won the race in 2:10:54.
The intruder was arrested. His name was not immediately available.
Mebrahtom Keflezighi of the United States won the silver medal, with De Lima getting the bronze, running into the Panathinaiko Stadium to cheers from the crowd.
Despite dire warnings of hijacked airplanes, dirty bombs and killer kites, this was the first major security problem apart from a man in a pastel-blue tutu doing a swan dive into the pool during the diving.
The marathon - a 42.2km course that originated in Greece 26 centuries ago - was the last event of the Athens Olympics.
The race began in the village of Marathon, where doomed runner Pheidippides took off with word of a Greek battle victory against the Persians in the fifth century BC.
After 16 days of competition and 301 events, the United States won the medals race, with 35 gold, 39 silver and 29 bronze.
China, which hosts the next Summer Olympics in Beijing in 2008, was second with 32 gold, 17 silver, 14 bronze.
Russia was third with 27 gold, 27 silver and 39 bronze, with Australia fourth in its best-ever Olympics with 17 gold, 16 silver and 16 bronze.
There were more doping scandals on the last day of the games.
Two more Olympic medals were taken away on Sunday when Hungarian hammer throw champion Adrian Annus was stripped of his win for failing to take a follow-up doping test - the third gold to be returned in Athens.
Colombian cyclist Maria Luisa Calle Williams also lost her bronze in the points race after testing positive for a stimulant, taking the total number of athletes stripped of their medals to seven.
And the dispute over the men's individual all-around gymnastics gold medal, which was won by American Paul Hamm, continued.
South Korean bronze medallist Yang Tae-young appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to correct a mistake in the results that deprived him of victory.
Drugs aside, the Olympics has surprised its critics.
International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge praised Athens organisers for defying the skeptics.
"I'm an extremely happy president of the IOC," Rogge said.
"We always expressed our confidence in our Greek friends.
"I've always said I believed there was enough time to finish the preparations in due time.
"I think our friends have delivered in Athens in a very splendid way."
Rogge said the security - before Sunday's marathon incident - had been "flawless."
He also noted that ticket sales of 3.55 million had topped the figures from Seoul and Barcelona.
International sports federations praised the venues as "outstanding," and global broadcasters reported that TV ratings were up more than 15% from Sydney four years ago. - Sapa-AP
