Celebrating with the world ... Cameroon after their win
in the men's football final. Photo: PHIL CARRICK
3:27PM, Oct 01
It was hard to know where you really wanted to be - inside the modern, sun-lit, stadium witnessing a fooball miracle before your eyes, or thousands of kilometres away in the semi-darkness of a west African dawn, rejoicing in the greatest sporting moment of the people of Cameroon's collective lives.
Either way, it was a truly great day to be from Cameroon, and there's not too many of them. A country of 15 million people, 40 per cent of them living below the poverty line, a life expectancy of just over 51 years of age, if you are male.
But as a nation gathered around its 500,000 television sets in the early hours to watch the Olympic final, all the hardship was forgotten, and forgiven. In Cameroon, the only sport which truly matters is football. And on this day, it mattered most of all.
Three African championships, the most recent earlier this year, were a cause for celebration. But a decade after the ''Indomitable Lions'' shocked the world by making the quarter-finals of the World Cup, Cameroon had been unable to sustain a lasting impression on the global stage.
Until now, that is. Almost 100,000 people gathered inside the Olympic stadium on Saturday afternoon to watch Cameroon take on Spain for the gold medal. Back home, the streets of Yaounde and Douala were deserted as a nation stayed glued to its TV sets in the hope of witnessing history. Never before had Cameroon won an Olympic gold medal, in any sport. Would this, at long last, be their moment of glory?
It would. After perhaps the best game of football ever played on Australian soil, Cameroon completed a miraculous comeback to claim their first world title. And what worthy winners they were.
Down 2-0 at half-time, they clawed back the deficit with two goals in five minutes early in the second half. Spain, by now reduced to nine men, courageously hung on.
Striker Samuel Eto'O, who plays his club football in Spain, might have put them away, but was first denied by a stunning save from keeper Aranzubia, and then the offside flag of the linesman as the ball hit the net in the last few seconds of extra time.
It was down to penalties, and few expected Cameroon to hold their nerve against the battle-hardened European professionals. But they did. Amaya missed for Spain, and Pierre Wome wrote his name into folklore by dispatching the penalty which won gold for Cameroon - 2-2 at full-time, 5-3 on penalties.
Pandemonium. Everywhere. The stadium went mad. Back home, the streets filled with cars honking their horns, people dancing, singing, crying. A businessman who had made his fortune in beer promised the players a $68,000 windfall to share. Was everyone drunk with excitement? Absolutely.
Officials of the world body, FIFA, made no attempt to disguise their delight. A fantastic men's final coming two days after an equally memorable finale to the women's competition. What a way to end a truly phenomenal football competition.
Over 1 million fans, stadiums packed from Brisbane to Melbourne to Canberra to Adelaide. An organisational triumph. No game ending scoreless. Hugely popular winners in Norway and Cameroon. An experience-of-a-lifetime for the teams. If you don't believe the players care about the Olympics, take a look at the expression of Ivan Zamorano, perhaps the only established superstar to come to Australia, when he received his bronze medal as captain of Chile. A player coming to the end of a long and decorated career struggling to hold back the tears.