I hereby award the following special gold doran medals for the 2000 Olympics:

Juan Antonio Samaranch--for getting all those Korean people together and for letting the whole world see how badly those people want it that way.  He also gets a second one for arranging to bring Esther Kim to Sydney after hearing about what she did. (see below).

Svetlana Khorkina--Russian gymnast--for exceptional unselfishness in giving up her spot in the vault final to her teammate Yamo so that she might compete and have a chance to win.  If you saw her face during  Yamo's vaults, you don't have any doubts whatsoever about whether she really wanted to do this.

Rulon Gardner--USA Greco-Roman wrestler--he outsmarted the best wrestler in the world, Alexandre Kareline, who hadn't lost since 1987, including three Olympic meets, and who had only been scored on once in ten years.

Yamo--for being that teammate and coming through under those circumstances to actually win the thing

Inga de Bruijn--Dutch swimmer--for putting up with Amy van Dyken and with the American press, who didn't give her nearly the credit she deserves for not only winning, but dominating her events

Brigitte McMahon and Michellie Jones--for the gutsiest all-out race for a medal that I've ever seen--and also a silver doran medal to NBC for catching the drama of this race so you could really see how much effort these two were giving.

Michellie Jones--a second one for the extraordinary class she displayed in the way she took Brigitte's hand in hers immediately after the race

The Canadian men's beach volleyball team--for extraordinary effort in knocking off the favored American team in a nailbiter

Ian Thorpe--In spite of all the hype, he gets one for winning the 400 free in a huge romp

Misty Hyman--for believing she could pull off the big upset

Megan Quann--for being the best and knowing it, but somehow still coming across as the nicest person

Loretta Harrop--Australian Triathlete--because I wanted you to win

Naoko Takahashi--for winning the toughest race of all and for the way she threw her sunglasses to the ground just before digging down deep and pulling away to leave behind her one remaining challenger

Laura Wilkinson--US diving--for coming through under pressure like no American since Kristi Yamaguchi; and it was even more special because she came from so far behind--and another one for being the best looking American olympian and a nice person besides

Maurice Greene--for putting aside his normally overbearing ego and giving believable credit to his coach John Smith immediately after the 100 meter final rather than telling us how great Maurice Greene is like he usually does. 

Michael Johnson--you can't argue with that degree of success

Efi Sfyri--Greek Beach Volleyball--just for being special

Lexus--the shoefly pie and apple pan johnny commercial with the Italian people in the Italian country side singing.

Andrea Raducan--Romanian gymnast--I give her a medal to replace the one the IOC is trying to take away.  I didn't necessarily even think she was the best gymnast in the competition, but she won fair and square when it counted and no one can justify taking that away from her.

Esther Kim--American tae-kwon-do athlete who didn't compete in Sydney.  You had to see the story on NBC to understand, but basically she and her best friend entered the US Olympic trials.  Her friend was injured at the end of her semi-final match, but won the match and the right to face Esther in the finals.  The young Ms. Kim said it wasn't right to face her friend, who was too injured to compete effectively, so she forfeited the match and her trip to the Olympics so that her friend might go.

And the following black splat non-awards for exceptionally bad performance:

Amy Van Dyken--Her rude and piggish behavior might have been borderline acceptable had she beaten Inga de Bruijn--but  in fact she got squashed.  To stand there on TV with her own 47 inch biceps and accuse the Dutch girl of being a man doesn't show much sense.

Evanston Northwestern Health Care--for the most annoying and overused commercial of the games--"I'm an athlete...I've always been an athlete…"although this is probably just a local plague

NBC TV--for ignoring certain athletes who had great performances but didn't happen to be from the USA.  Some who come to mind include Massomiliano Rossolino, Inga de Bruijn, Peter Vandenhoogenbond, and many, many others.

Synchronized Diving--a special sport medal for worst sport, given particularly because of the strange and totally senseless and inconsistent judging system

Gabe Jennings--for not winning, because if you're going to be as big of a wacko as this guy, you have to back it up by winning.

The IOC--for not finding a way to clear up this Andrea Raducan doping situation in a reasonable and fair way.  The olympics is about human beings, yet they chose to ignore the human side of this case and go strictly by the book.