Sport will never be the same again after the Olympic Games in 2004 in Athens.
Let us, however, first celebrate the performances of the South African heroes that won us six medals before discussing that.
Here in Athens we have often seen how emotionally drained medal winners were after their competitions. In most cases, it takes many years of hard work to win a medal.
Our rowers Ramon di Clemente en Donovan Cech rowed for six years as a pair before they could win their bronze in the coxless pairs in Athens.
Roland Schoeman and Ryk Neethling competed four years ago in Sydney. Another four years of hard work and they could swim a world record with team-mates Lyndon Ferns and Darian Townsend in the 4x100 freestyle relay for their gold medal.
Schoeman also won silver in the 100 freestyle which can still become his best event, as well as bronze in the 50 freestyle. He was asked to lead the South African team as flag bearer at the closing ceremony and is now destined to become one of the superstars of the sport.
Do not for one moment feel let down by our high jumper Hestrie Cloete and 800m runner Mbulaeni Mulaudzi for winning silver. They are still both world champions, but on the day they were beaten in Athens.
Our Olympic medal winners did their best and they did their country proud.
We also expected medals from athletes like Okkert Brits, Frantz Kruger and Jacques Freitag. They all had realistic chances if they could get to Athens in their best form and could have made the SA team's performance look so much better.
Good groundwork
We still have a lot of untapped talent and can feel more positive when we start thinking about the next Olympic Games in Beijing.
The SA Sport Commission of Dr Joe Phaahla has done a lot of good groundwork the past few years and it looks as if we just need a change of management at top level to make things happen.
Sam Ramsamy will retire as Nocsa boss in November and there will also be some restructuring in our sport. It creates new opportunities to get the right people to do the job.
Keep in mind that rugby had a upswing when Brian van Rooyen and Jake White came on the scene and cricket do not seem to be doing well after Ali Bacher left.
People also said the world would never be the same again after two terrorist planes crashed against the World Trade Centre in New York.
My feeling is that we must not underestimate what is now happening in sport after two Olympic athletic champions were stripped of their gold medals here in Athens.
Hunting down the culprits
This is not new for the sport, but after the Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson violated the drug rules in 1988 in Seoul a lot of things happened.
He also handed his gold medal back after winning the 100m for men, but the world soon realised that an independent body would be needed to try and stop the use of banned substances.
The World Anti-doping Agency (Wada) is now in charge of hunting down the culprits and is busy taking giant strides under the leadership of the Canadian Dick Pound - maybe the biggest hero of the Games in Athens.
The sciences however has put us now on the verge of sport, and also the Olympic Games, to become a freak show like we have never seen it before.
Cloning and the manipulation of genes can already have its impact on the next Games in 2008 in Beijing, some people say.
The thought of it is frightening. More frightening is that even the officials of Wada will not be able to detect gene manipulation.
That will bring us back to the ethics of sport. Some serious thinking and strong leadership will be needed in the next few years if we do not want sport to lose its credibility.
Jacques Rogge of the International Olympic Committee already said that the Greeks sprinters Kostadinos Kenteris and Ekatrina Thanou must not even think of trying to participate in the next Olympics.
Unique problems
This warning was also a first for drug cheats.
But let us turn our attention to South Africa and the continent of Africa - a country and a continent with unique problems.
The modern Olympic Games made its start in 1896 in Athens with the support of mostly European countries and America.
They have already had some tradition going when other continents like Asia, South America and Africa awakened.
In Athens it was China and Japan that showed most progress, while Australia had a good haul of medals again.
There are however obvious reasons why Africa will find it difficult to make progress beyond the natural abilities of its middle and long distance runners.
Africa has no tradition in many Olympic sport. It is however the gap between the rich and the poor countries that will still get bigger.
In Africa we will envy the money and support that is available for the competitors of Australia, China and Japan - it surely makes a difference.
