Athletes kick back, relax at SI parties

Gatherings getting increasingly wild, star-studded

updated 9:33 p.m. ET Aug. 25, 2004

ATHENS, Greece - Ian Thorpe surrounded by TV cameras. Richard Jefferson surrounded by beach volleyball dancers. And the whole crowd surrounded by the pounding of one-hit-wonder ’80s tunes.

It could only be a Sports Illustrated party.

Planners had promised that the magazine’s series of soirees would grow increasingly wild and star-studded throughout the Olympics, and they didn’t lie.

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Besides the aforementioned athletes — Thorpe, the gold medal-winning Australian swimmer, and Jefferson of the U.S. basketball team — were U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps, winner of eight medals, including six golds, and the champion U.S. softball team, partying Tuesday night and into the early hours Wednesday.

And somewhere, if you looked down among the crush of humanity at the chic beachside Akrotiri Lounge along the Athens coast, was American Carly Patterson, the all-around gymnastics champion.

But the people who seemed to be having the best time of all were a little less famous. They were the members of the Slovenian handball team, who ended up in 11th place.

Dressed in matching red golf shirts emblazoned with the team logo, team members flirted and posed for photos with pretty women and jumped up and down on the couch cushions as a cover band played the Venga Boys’ summer techno anthem “We Like to Party.”

“We’re partying because we are finished with our competition,” said Luka Zvizej, who could be the twin brother of Backstreet Boy (and former Paris Hilton paramour) Nick Carter. “It’s awesome, dude!”

The cheerleaders who liven up the sand at the beach volleyball venue — a group called Personal Plus, from the Canary Islands — showed up in itty-bitty minidresses and danced to ’80s ditties including Toni Basil’s “Mickey” and “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves.

And of course, besides the beautiful people, there was the mind-boggling array of food, just like the last SI party: Rows of sushi, including tuna, salmon, kingfish and shrimp. Lobster ravioli and vegetarian orecchiete. Sausage and saganaki, a flaming Greek cheese. And a dessert they called a banana split, which consisted of banana slices, cream and fudge in an espresso cup, topped with a pie-shaped sesame cracker wedge.

U.S. softball player Natasha Watley surveyed the scene and said, “It doesn’t feel real. Ever since we won the gold medal, everything seems to be moving in slow motion.”

Everything except the party going on around her, which was just getting started.

And there’s still one more to go before the games end.