SUMMER GAMES SPOTLIGHT : BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS / DAY 16 : ODDS AND ENDS AS ODDITIES END

Some closing bits and pieces:

--Could it be that tennis player Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, the heretofore darling of Barcelona, holds the honor of being the only Spaniard to lose twice in medal matches in front of both the king and queen of Spain?

--Normally, things like the Olympic Spirit Award get little mention, because they are so puffy and predictable and sponsored by some company that mostly wants to get its name in the paper. This time, it’s worth mentioning because the company, Maxwell House Coffee, and the voters hit it right on the head. The U.S. winner: Gail Devers.

--One of the more philosophic things to come out of the Games was the story by Theresa Grentz, U.S. women’s basketball coach, about how she dealt with her team’s upset loss that eventually resulted in a bronze medal, two notches below the expected gold. She said when she was in high school, her basketball team failed in its attempt to win its fourth consecutive state championship. The next day, her geometry teacher walked into the classroom, walked up to the blackboard, and wrote: “Some of God’s greatest gifts are His refusals.”

--Terry Liskevych, U.S. women’s volleyball coach, on what he has learned while coaching in his second Olympics: “In Seoul, we got all caught up in everything, in just being there. Here, I got better focused on what had to be done. I haven’t seen many other sports and I have about 100 postcards that still need to be done.”

--Patrick Ewing, U.S. basketball player, reflecting what many who have been here for three weeks or so are feeling: “I can’t wait to go home, to relax, to drive my own car, swim in my own pool, sleep in my own bed.”

This a daily roundup of Olympic-related items from reporters in Barcelona from the Los Angeles Times, Newsday and Baltimore Sun, all Times-Mirror newspapers.