By Frank Malley, PA Chief Sports Writer, Sydney

It's over and the world will never be quite the same again.

At least that's what the experts are telling Australians after the 27th Olympiad ended here in a blaze of fireworks, an orgy of back-slapping and a premonition of doom.

Pregnancies are set to soar, they warn, because of the flood of testosterone surging through excited Aussies over the last 17 days.

Divorce rates could rise, careers be wrecked and depression soar as rocketing fuel prices and a plunging dollar replace gold, silver and bronze in the minds of perhaps the most sports-mad people on the planet.

They are calling it the worst case of Mondayitis the world has ever seen.

And you can't help thinking what a dreadful legacy that would be after a sporting festival which will go down surely as the best of all time - Games which were dripping with drama, brimming with emotion and which saw Britain, with 11 gold medals, achieve its best Olympic performance for 80 years.

More than medals, however, these have been the 'Friendly Games' - at times the 'too damned friendly Games'.

You have barely been able to walk out on the streets of this city, and certainly not Olympic Park, without being accosted by an excrutiatingly happy face leaping out in the blue and yellow uniform of Olympic volunteers intent on assisting at all cost.

A local radio station tested out this phenomenon in what is regarded as one of the world's most healthily cynical cities and their man, dressed as an American tourist in check pants, US flag and an Akubra hat, took an average of just one minute, six seconds to be offered help.

Indeed, one third-generation Australian of Chinese descent, fed up of being approached with what she imagined to be a few words of 'helpful' Cantonese from assistants clearly on more 'happy pills' than some of the athletes, took to wearing a T-shirt saying: 'I live here - please don't help me'.

But after the plotting, planning and scheming of the last seven years that can be put down to desperation to show the world that Australia is a great place to be.

And it is. No-one who has sampled the delights of Darling Harbour, marvelled at the sheer majesty of one of the world's great waterways and experienced the overt friendliness of the Australian people for the last fortnight could argue with that.

Yes, on occasions things grated. Such as having your bag searched endlessly by septuagenarian security staff, many of whom gave the impression they might have struggled to distinguish a bomb from a water melon.

Being asked constantly by immigrant taxi drivers for directions to places as 'obscure' as the Opera House.

Being bombarded by images of the unofficial and ubiquitous Olympic mascot, the Fat-Arsed Wombat.

And, perhaps worst of all, that infernal chant of "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi" - the mindless equivalent of "We are Leeds" - wherever you went.

But they were mere irritations which barely grazed the gloss of the real reason for being here.

From the moment Cathy Freeman, in that dazzling all-white body suit, lit the Olympic cauldron Australia simply wallowed in an ocean of triumph and tears and revelled in deeds both great and gracious.

The fans packed Stadium Australia each morning and every night, they flocked to taekwondo and Greco-Roman wrestling and discussed avidly the intricacies of handball.

In short, they demonstrated the old adage that Australians are quite happy to watch two flies crawling up a wall so long as they are in different coloured shorts and shirts.

And along the way they reaffirmed the Olympic ideals. Not just the one about 'Faster, Higher, Stronger' - in these days of rampant commercialism that more than often equates to 'Richer and Meaner'.

But the ones which say taking part and doing your best is the true achievement and representing your country the highest honour to which a sportsman can aspire.

So we saw that engaging chap from Equatorial Guinea, Eric 'The Eel' Moussambani, who swam as if thrashing a bush fire with a blanket and took the best part of an afternoon to complete his heat.

And we saw England's Chris Maddocks finishing last in the 50km walk, arriving in the stadium one hour and 10 minutes behind Poland's Robert Korzeniowski and receiving perhaps the most prolonged and rousing cheer of the entire Games. Why? Because he had fought through the pain and the anguish when it would have been easier to drop out anonymously at one of the further flung corners of the course.

For every valiant loser, however, there is a winner - and among the myriad of images of Sydney several are seared into the memory.

In the pool there was Australia's own Ian Thorpe, a 17-year-old freak with the wingspan of an albatross, the feet of a Yeti and a languid stroke which ate up the water with the ease of a prowling shark.

Thorpe won three golds in this country's national obsession, his second coming in the 4x100m relay in a last leg race-off with America's Gary Hall which for drama and excitement was as good as it gets in a sport which so often hides personality under wetsuit, cap and goggles.

On the track there was Freeman, the Aboriginal from sugar cane country, who was no longer just an athlete but as the woman chosen to light the cauldron a symbol of a nation's need for reconciliation for past injustices to its indigenous population.

Political manipulation cried the critics, seizing the moment said others.

But anyone who was inside Stadium Australia when Freeman scampered round the top bend in the 400 metres final, supported by a wall of sound of deafening proportions and with 100,000 flashbulbs popping, could not have doubted the outpouring of warmth and adulation for the nation's most famous athlete.

At the end, when the first individual gold by an Aboriginal was secured, Freeman sat on the track and gulped in air for a full three minutes, apparently overwhelmed by the weight of expectation and 200 years of history.

And then she intertwined the Australian and Aboriginal flags and set off on a lap of honour, which for respect and emotion can rarely have been matched.

A moment in time or the dawn of a new tolerant, more-equal nation? Only time will tell. Just as time, and science, hopefully will catch up with the drug cheats who gatecrashed Sydney with the contents of their medicine cabinet but thankfully did not spoil the party.

More than 20 competitors or coaches were sent packing from these Games, all protesting their innocence and proffering Christmas Cracker-type excuses such as their toothpaste was tampered with.

The one who caused most damage wasn't even competing, CJ Hunter, the husband of sprint queen Marion Jones.

Hunter was banned for having 1000 times the permitted amount of nandrolone in his system and in his defence employed the services of OJ Simpson's lawyer Johnnie Cochrane. From OJ to CJ - you really couldn't make it up.

The shadow cast over Jones's performances, however, as the first woman to complete the sprint double of 100m and 200m since suspected drug cheat Florence Griffiths-Joyner was real enough - a mirror, in fact, of the dark, questioning cloud which must hang over every athlete who achieves excellence these days.

That is the real scourge of drugs - and perhaps the true success of these Games was that they kept rising above those storm clouds to take us back to a place in the sun.

To the endearing innocence and joyful smile of Britain's Kelly Holmes, who returned from three years of injury torment to take bronze in the 800m - and no athlete has ever looked or sounded so happy.

To the dignity and understanding of Jane Saville, the Australian walker who was disqualified 250 metres from gold, in front of 100,000 cheering Aussies.

To the sheer genius of Michael Johnson, whose 400m gold was predictable but still perfection.

To Jan Zelezny, who once again denied Steve Backley sport's most precious metal with a javelin throw as wondrous in its execution as it was precise in its timing.

But, most of all, to Steven Redgrave, the rower who made history with the coxless fours on a shimmering morning on Penrith Lakes by winning his fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal.

In centuries to come sports aficianados will still be recalling that feat, marvelling at that thrilling finish with the Italians closing at every stroke, smiling at the memory of Matthew Pinsent clambering ungainly over Tim Foster to wrap Redgrave in a brotherly embrace before pitching backwards out of the boat with a comical splash.

That's what the Olympics are supposed to be about - courage, humour, steadfastness, dedication, sharing, sheer will-to-win.

And at the end joy and comradeship. It was a privilege to be there, just as it was when Britain, in the shape of Shirley Robertson, Ben Ainslie and Iain Percy, landed three sailing golds at Rushcutters Bay on two afternoons when Sydney's baking sunshine and spectacular scenery provided the perfect backdrop.

Just as it was when boxer Audley Harrison and pentathlete Stephanie Cook spectacularly made it double gold on Sunday to fan the dying embers of Britain's Olympic campaign.

You could not help noticing that as Britain's 11 gold medallists paraded one by one into their post-event conferences they were all singing from the same song sheet - the chorus of which went on the lines of "Thanks to Lottery funding".

It is a tune which surely must convince the powers-that-be of the importance of future budgets, even if our swimmers, hockey players and tennis stars did not exactly contribute to the pervading theme of optimism.

Even the pre-Games fears of transport problems never materialised - the system, admittedly at which the government had hurled cash, coping admirably with 600,000 daily visitors to Olympic Park.

Indeed, it took 17 days and much scouring to discover the one overt sign of negativity. It came in the message on a sign posted on a run-down apartment block on the outskirts of town which read: 'F*** the Olympics'.

We can only assume it was where CJ was holing up. For the rest of us Sydney 2000 truly was the greatest show on earth.