The Summer Olympics in Athens were the biggest political, cultural, business and athletic event on the planet, and newspapers gave it big-event coverage. And that was without a catastrophic terrorist attack.

	Stand alone: Several newspapers, such as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, devoted six or more pages in a special section to their 2004 Olympics coverage.
	Stand united: Other newspapers, such as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, incorporated their Olympic coverage into their daily sections.

The Olympics also gave newspapers a chance to report on relatively obscure sports with relatively obscure athletes from their own backyards.

Jumpers and gymnasts pushed for space that usually goes to quarterbacks and shortstops. The New York Times and the Colorado Springs Gazette both wrote about a shooter, Emily Caruso, who grew up in Connecticut, lives and trains in Colorado and is a non-hunting, vegetarian member of the National Rifle Association.

Swimmer Michael Phelps was a big story for every paper, but a local one for the Baltimore Sun and Washington Post, both of which had tracked the Baltimore swimmer for months before the Games.

With Phelps in mind, the Sun and Post filed Phelps-material to the web immediately. The Sun's sports editor, Randy Harvey, served as the "webby" from pool side. A Post staff member did an online chat each day. To blog or not to blog was a question, to which some answered yes.

The marathon is always a big story at the Olympics and the historic route from Marathon to Athens gave it more flavor. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram spent 150 Euro for a taxi to transport a reporter along the route for an interesting story, according to sports editor Celeste Williams.

Hammer thrower Jackie Jeschelnig used email to do a daily journal for the Willoughby (Ohio) News-Herald. Sports Editor Scott Kendrick said the paper did not realize Jeschelnig was violating International Olympic Committee rules until midway through the Games and he hopes the IOC changes its rules.

"It's not fair to the rest of us, who can't afford to spend thousands of dollars to send people to Beijing," said Kendrick, who is moving to Jacksonville to work for the Times-Union.

The calendar conspired to make for extra work for people in most sports sections. With football starting at all levels, preview sections still had to be produced. The situation will be similar in 2008. The Beijing Games are scheduled for Aug. 8-24, 2008. The Winter Olympics in Torino are scheduled for Feb. 10-26, 2006.

Finding space is part of the Olympic challenge. Many papers did preview sections. Fort Worth and Colorado Springs published 22-page preview sections. The Orange County Register spread its preview coverage over weeks and months.

During the Games, USA Today had a 12-page separate section, while Colorado Springs, Minneapolis Star Tribune and Fort Worth published 6-page separate sections.

Other papers incorporated Olympic coverage into the section, albeit with extra space. The Boston Globe used 6 to 8 extra pages, the Washington Post used 5 to 6, and the Denver Post had five. Newsday produced 8 to 12 tabloid-sized pages. The Willoughby (Ohio) News-Herald used two full pages inside. The Reading Eagle-Times used a full page inside and often got as high as two pages total.

Some papers with staff members in Athens rented cell phones off the Athens organizing committee rate card. Others reported saving a lot of money by buying or renting phones from independent companies. Those who bought phones plan to use the phones in Torino, Italy and perhaps, Beijing.

USA Today supplied each of staff member, including 29 reporters, with Blackberrys in expectation of security problems. "It turned out to be a very smart thing to do, not because of security, but because it kept us in touch when cell phones weren't feasible," USA Today sports editor Monte Lorell said.

San Francisco Chronicle sports editor Glenn Schwarz said he was surprised the entire press center was not hooked up with Wi-Fi and hoped that would be the case for Torino.

In a different realm, a major complaint was the mixed zones, which is where most interviews were conducted after events.

"My writers had one complaint, and they all had it: The mixed zones were just intolerable," said Washington Post deputy sports editor Tracee Hamilton, who directed the paper's coverage from Athens. "The crowning blow was waiting nearly two hours for the U.S. women's soccer team to make itself available. I don't know that the organizing folks have any motivation to make this situation better, but at an Olympics where we are all actually on deadline, this will be a big problem."

U.S. Olympic Committee spokesman Darryl Seibel said he understands the frustration and he said the USOC has urged the IOC and other organizers to prepare better for future Olympics.

"We share those concerns. Several mix zones were simply not functional," Seibel said. "We were working on daily basis with the IOC and the (Athens) organizing committee to improve mix zones that were not functional. To their credit, both were responsive and did what they could to help. But problems need to be identified beforehand, not once we're on site. Three groups are involved: the international federation for the sport, which is responsible for conduct of the sport at the games; the local organizing committee, which runs the entire operation; and the IOC, which monitors planning. We've been encouraging the IOC to make it a higher priority with the local organizing committee and the international federations before everyone arrives on site."

The Olympics resonated with readers. Lorell said USA Today had a 2-percent increase in sales during the period. The Colorado Springs Gazette had a 7-percent bump in daily circulation. The Washington Post's Internet chats drew more readers with more questions than the reporter had time to answer.

The newspaper numbers reflect those of television. NBC often dominated the combined ratings of its competitors (ABC, CBS, Fox) and had the highest ratings in all 101 primetime half-hours in the household ratings. According to NBC, this was the first time since Nielsen Media Research invented its people meters in 1987 that a non-U.S. Summer Games swept every half hour. During an average minute, the games attracted 24.6 million viewers, a 14 percent increase over Sydney's 21.5 million.

"People are positive about the Olympics," Boston Globe sports editor Joe Sullivan said of reader and newsroom response to coverage. "The Red Sox? That's another story."