America's hopes of salvaging its badly bruised Olympics pride suffered a major setback on Tuesday when for the first time in history their men failed to qualify for the 100m freestyle swimming final.
The blue riband event of the pool had been expected to provide some solace for an American squad still smarting from shattering defeats to its basketball squad and swimming ace Michael Phelps.
Instead, Jason Lezak managed just the 21st-fastest time in the heats while Ian Crocker limped home in 17th.
"It's not what they wanted, not what they expected. It's the worst case scenario," admitted coach Eddie Reese. Eleven golds were up for grabs on the fourth day of competition and one of those was claimed by Sheikh Ahmed bin Hashr Al-Maktoum who won a historic first Olympic gold for the United Arab Emirates in the men's double trap shooting.
Al-Maktoum, a member of Dubai's ruling family, became the first athlete from the UAE to win an Olympic medal of any colour.
Later Tuesday, Phelps, whose hopes of equalling or even smashing Mark Spitz's record of seven golds in the pool are now over, will look to recover from his loss in the 'Race of the Century' to Ian Thorpe.
The 19-year-old Phelps, beaten into third place by Thorpe and Pieter van den Hoogenband in the final of the 200m freestyle, will go for two golds in the 200m butterfly final and the 4x200m freestyle relay.
Meanwhile, the USA's collection of multi-millionaire NBA superstars face a volatile atmosphere as they take on hosts Greece looking to recover from their shock opening 92-73 loss to Puerto Rico.
The Americans currently lag behind in the medals table lying in fourth place with three golds while China, who picked up five of the 14 on offer Monday, lead with 10.
Having lost for the first time in 25 outings since the Barcelona Games, the US basketball team need only finish in the top four in their six-team group to reach the quarterfinals.
"We're not going to hang our heads though because we know we can still win the gold medal," NBA Rookie of the Year LeBron James said. "We just have to keep bouncing back."
Greece are coming off a 76-54 rout of Australia and will be backed by 12,000 passionate home supporters, anxious to forget the doping scandal surrounding sprinters Kostadinos Kenteris and Ekaterini Thanou.
Kenteris, who faces expulsion from the games after missing a drugs test last week, broke his silence on the controversy as he left hospital where he had been undergoing treatment following a mysterious crash. The disgraced star insisted Tuesday he is not a drugs cheat.
Extra security at Olympic venues was ordered on Tuesday after an embarrassing breach at the diving when a spectator dressed in a tutu and clown shoes, mounted one of the boards and plunged into the water Monday evening.
He stayed in the pool for several minutes before officials realised he was not supposed to be there and pulled him out of the water. He was taken away by security staff and handed over to the police.
Simitsek meanwhile said ticket sales had exceeded those of the 1988 Seoul Olympics and Barcelona Games. He said over 3.21 million had been sold.
The sales had earned the organisers 183 million euros.
But there was better news for China's basketball team, which saw NBA star Yao Ming lead his team to a 69-62 win over New Zealand after a disappointing opening defeat against Spain.
In the football tournament, half of the quarterfinal placings will take shape with South Korea and Mali facing each other in Salonika with both nations virtually guaranteed a spot in the last eight.
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