The final night of athletics at the Olympic Stadium produced a series of electrifying performances.
Britain's Kelly Holmes began it by adding 1500m gold to her 800m title, only the third woman in history to achieve the middle-distance double.
Holmes, 34, clocked a British record time of three minutes 57.90 seconds.
Shortly after, Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj was celebrating his own sensational double after victory in an absorbing 5,000m.
El Guerrouj, who came to Athens without a gold medal in two previous attempts, also triumphed in the 1500m on Tuesday.
In a thrilling finish, the 29-year-old outsprinted Ethiopian world record holder Kenenisa Bekele, who was trying to become the first man in 24 years to win the 5,000 and 10,000 in an Olympics.
World champion Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya had to settle for bronze.
As British fans in the Olympic Stadium drew breath from celebrating Holmes' victory, they watched their men's 4x100m team upset the United States to take a shock gold medal.
Mark Lewis-Francis held off a fast-finishing Maurice Greene on the line, taking victory by just one-hundredth of a second.
The Americans could not recover from a dreadful second handover between 100m champion Justin Gatlin and Coby Miller.
But the United States made up for that defeat with comfortable wins in both the 4x400m finals.
Britain finished fourth in the women's event, and were unlucky to miss out on a medal in the men's when last-leg runner Matt Elias was just overtaken on the line.
There was huge disappointment for Steve Backley as he bowed out of athletics.
Backley, who has won three Olympic medals but never gold, threw a season's best 84.13m but that was only good enough for fourth, with Andreas Thorkildsen of Norway taking gold.
In the second track final of the night, Yuriy Borzakovsky ran a tactically brilliant race to take 800m gold for Russia.
South African's Mbulaeni Mulaudzi took silver, while world record holder and three-times world champion Wilson Kipketer could only manage bronze.
The women's high jump produced a surprise when Russia's Yelena Slesarenko beat South Africa's Hestrie Cloete to the gold medal.
Away from the athletics, Argentina celebrated two gold medals on Saturday, their first since 1952.
Their basketball team followed up a semi-final win over the much-vaunted United States with a comfortable 84-69 victory over Italy to take the title.
The US 'Dream Team' salvaged something from a disappointing Games by beating Lithuania to bronze.
The American women's hoops team went some way to making up for the failure of their male counterparts by taking gold with a 74-63 win over Australia.
Earlier in the day, Carlos Tevez's goal gave Argentina victory in the men's football final.
It is the first time Argentina has won the Olympic football title, while Paraguay will take solace from winning their first-ever Olympic medal.
Ian Wynne won Great Britain's first medal of day 15, taking a bronze in the men's K1 500m kayak final.
Wynne, who injured his ankle stepping off a bus on Friday night, produced a strong finish to take third.
Adam von Koeverden of Canada took gold and Australia's double world champion Nathan Baggaley silver.
France's Julien Absalon took a superb gold medal in the men's mountain bike event, claiming a comfortable win ahead of Jose Antonio Hermida of Spain.
Liam Killeen finished out of the medals in a creditable fifth place - the highest-ever mountain bike finish by a British competitor.
But the day was marred by yet more positive drugs tests.
Hungarian weightlifting silver medallist Ferenc Gyurkovics and Puerto Rican wrestler Mabel Fonseca have been thrown out of the Games, taking the number of positive tests in Athens to 20.
It has also been revealed that world 200m champion John Capel did not run on the US 4x100m relay team on Friday because of a positive test for marijuana before the Olympics.
Back at the action, China's Jia Hu edged out Australia's Mathew Helm to clinch gold in the 10m individual platform diving, with Britain's synchronised silver medallists Peter Waterfield and Leon Taylor finishing fifth and sixth respectively.
In taekwondo, China collected their 29th gold medal of these Games when Luo Wei defeated Elisavet Mystakidou of Greece in the women's 67kg taekwondo.
But British medal hope Craig Brown was beaten by Daniel Trenton of Australia, and team-mate Sarah Bainbridge also lost despite a brave battle with Charmie Sobers of Holland.
On the water, Austria won the Olympic yachting Tornado class gold medal.
Canada took silver in the Star class ahead of France, with British pair Iain Percy and Steve Mitchell finishing sixth.
Brazil's Torben Grael and Marcelo Ferreira, who had already wrapped up the gold medal, opted not to take part in the final race.
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