Jones, Johnson win five medals each

 Marion Jones was one of the few people who broke a track and field record in 2000.

 And she was disappointed.

 Jones won five medals at the Sydney Games, the most ever for a female track athlete at a single Olympics, but her bold and ballyhooed goal for an unprecedented five golds fell short.

 She gathered gold from the women's 100 and 200 meters and the 1,600 relay, but settled for bronze in the long jump and 400 relay.

 Jones felt she should have won the long jump, which she lost by less than three inches, and she might have had a chance for gold in the 400 relay if the United States team was not missing 200 world champion Inger Miller and two-time Olympic 100 gold medalist Gail Devers, both out with injuries.

 "I wanted to win them all ... and I still think it's possible," Jones said.

 Her initial victory, in the 100, elicited uncharacteristic tears from the usually composed Jones.

 Two days later, Jones' husband, world champion shot putter C.J. Hunter, cried during a news conference after it was revealed he had tested positive four times for the steroid nandrolone.

 While Jones' drive for five golds fell short, Michael Johnson did reach that milestone.

 The efficient Johnson, who never has lost a finals race in a major championship, increased his career Olympic gold total to five by becoming the first to repeat as men's 400 champion and anchoring the winning 1,600 relay.

 The heroics by Jones and Johnson punctuated an unusual Olympics in which no world records were set for the first time since 1948 and the U.S. men, usually the world's overpowering team, equaled a record for futility by winning only six gold medals and set a record low with only 13 total medals.

 Other odd happenings:

 -- A men's walker was disqualified about 15 minutes after celebrating his first-place finish.

 -- The winning U.S. 400 relay team of Jon Drummond, Brian Lewis, Bernard Williams and Maurice Greene preened and posed with flags wrapped around them as spectators whistled and booed.

 -- The bizarre disappearance from Sydney of 1996 Olympic women's 200 and 400 champion Marie-Jose Perec of France, shortly before the start of competition.

 -- The world record-holder in the women's hammer throw, Mihaela Melinte of Romania, was escorted off the field because she had tested positive for drugs.

 -- Six members of the celebrated team of Ma's Army of Chinese women's distance runners tested positive for drugs shortly before the games and were dropped from the team.

 The games saw several unexpected winners, including Greece's Konstantinos Kenteris in the men's 200, Germany's Nils Schumann in the men's 800, and Kenya's Noah Ngeny in the men's 1,500.

 The list of losers was also surprising: Trinidad & Tobago's Ato Boldon, men's 200; Denmark's Wilson Kipketer, men's 800; Morocco's Hicham el Guerrouj, men's 1,500; Cuba's Javier Sotomayor, men's high jump; the Czech Republic's Tomas Dvorak, decathlon.

 Two other disappointments were Ukraine's Sergey Bubka, the world record-holder in the pole vault, who failed to clear a height during qualifying, and Algeria's Noureddine Morceli, once the world's premier middle-distance runner, who didn't make the 1,500 final.

 The Olympics also introduced three women's events -- the pole vault, hammer throw and 20-kilometer walk.

 Cathy Freeman, Australia's first track and field gold medalist in 12 years, and Germany's Heike Drechsler, who added to her 1992 Olympic title in the long jump by beating Jones, were among the most popular winners. Freeman, running for aboriginal pride after lighting the cauldron to open the Olympics, won the women's 400.

 Greene reaffirmed his position as the world's fastest human, convincingly winning the 100.

 Ethiopia's Haile Gebrselassie won the most dramatic race at the games, beating Kenya's Paul Tergat in the men's 10,000 by .09 seconds for his second straight gold. Cuba's Ivan Pedroso won the men's long jump on his final attempt.

 Naoko Takahashi became the first Japanese woman to earn Olympic gold in track, winning the marathon, while Polish walker Robert Korzenowski produced a durable double in the men's 20K and 50K.

 While the Olympics overshadowed everything else in track and field during the year, there were other significant developments.

 American 400 hurdler Angelo Taylor and Norwegian women's javelin thrower Trine Hattestad, both Olympic champions, won IAAF Grand Prix titles.

 No man broke a recognized world track record during the year, though Johnson set a world-best of 30.85 for the rarely run 300 meters. Among the women, Hattestad produced a world record in the javelin at 227-11, and Dragila broke the world record in the pole vault twice, at 15-1 3/4 and 15-2 1/4.

 Indoors, the women also dominated the record-breaking. Dragila raised the pole vault mark to 15-0 3/4, and Kipketer lowered the 1,000-meter mark to 2:14.96.

 Other record-breakers included Ethiopia's Hailu Mekkonen in the men's two-mile, the American Jearl Miles-Clark in the women's 500 yards, and American Dawn Ellerbe in the women's 20-pound weight throw.

 Hattestad, Bubka, Morceli and Hunter all announced their retirements, along with world and Olympic women's 100 hurdles champion Ludmila Engquist of Sweden, and Americans Butch Reynolds (former 400 world record-holder), Lance Deal (hammer thrower), Joetta Clark Diggs (women's 800) and Connie Price-Smith (women's shot putter-discus thrower).

 Those caught on drugs during the year included Germany's Dieter Baumann, the 1992 Olympic 5,000 champion; Ukraine's Inessa Kravets, the women's triple jump world record-holder, and Ukraine's Alexsandr Bagach, one of the world's premier shot putters.