Second place not an option in U.S. sports

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Part IV of V

Medals. Medals by the fistful. Gold, silver and bronze. One hundred in all.

Such was the mission, the mantra hung over the entrance to the United States Olympic Committee training center in Colorado Springs.

Never mind improved competition, worrisome security, a mushrooming track-and-field drug scandal.

Three months before the Athens Games, USOC officials are sitting in the ballroom of a New York hotel, talking Grecian neckwear. Not the kind for sale on the Plaka.

Delusional optimism? Or insufferable braggadocio? Really, who could say?

"We believe that the team we put on the field can still achieve that [100-medal] goal," USOC executive Jim Scherr says. "Even if we lose a few athletes between now and the games."

Fast forward to Greece. The Dream Team flops. Marion Jones is shut out. USA baseball fails to qualify. The fastest man and woman in the world -- sprinters Tim Montgomery and Kelli White -- are left off the Olympic roster in the wake of the scandal surrounding doping at the Bay Area Lab Co-op (BALCO).

Oh, and American athletes finish with 103 medals, topping the gold and overall medal charts for a third consecutive Summer Olympics.