Two gods were added to the Pantheon yesterday.

Synchronized springboard divers Thomas Bimis and Nikolaos Siranidis gave Greece its first gold medal of the Athens Games, capping a series of bizarre events that saw the favorites committing unthinkable mistakes. It was Greece’s first diving medal in 100 years of Olympic competition.

Prior to the Greek heroics, China had dominated diving at Athens, capturing three gold medals in three events. The Chinese synchronized springboard duo of Wang Kenan and Peng Bo had never lost a major meet, most recently winning the 2004 World Cup in the Athens Olympic pool. Even their names seemed to point to a golden destiny: Bo means “fight, struggle, never give up.” Kenan means, “to conquer all difficulties.”

Their major rivals coming in were the Russian pair featuring Dmitry Sautin, the most decorated diver in Olympic history. Sautin, competing in his final Games at age 30, won four of his six medals in Sydney – one in each event.

He and Aleksandr Dobroskok are the reigning world champions and 2000 Olympic silver medalists in this event. Sautin had made his international debut in Athens in 1991 and was hoping to finish his career with a victory where it all began.

As for Greece, its divers had never finished higher than fifth at a major world meet, and that was back in February in home waters. The fifth place had qualified Bimis and Siranidis for the Games outright (instead of using an automatic berth granted to the host nation). The result was encouraging and historic, but did not preordain greatness – until yesterday, the host nation was expecting weightlifting and gymnastics to produce its next sporting immortal.

Yesterday’s competition consisted of eight teams performing five dives each. Bimis, 29, and Siranidis, 28, had the best dive of the first round, but athletes perform their easiest dives first, so the lead was expected to vanish.

After the second dive, Greece dropped to second place behind Russia. After the third dive, Greece had fallen to fifth place and with one dive to go, China held a 12.48 lead over the U.S., followed by Australia, Greece, and Russia.

Then came the unthinkable. On the final dive, China’s Wang literally became lost in space and landed on the back of his neck. It was deemed a failed dive and received a score of zero.

Peng said in a press conference afterward, “This sort of thing can happen to any team. Usually it happens to other teams, now it happened to us. We will come back and work hard for the single events.”

Germany, the 2003 World Championship bronze medalists, made visible errors. Then the Greeks executed an inferior dive, but earned enough points to take the lead with five teams remaining. Australia and Cuba were unspectacular. Suddenly, it was anyone’s game.

Another uncharacteristic mistake – this time by Sautin – dropped Russia to the rear, just ahead of China. Then came the American duo of brothers Troy and Justin Dumais, who hoped to redeem the heartbreak of Sydney (Justin had failed to make the team in 2000 and subsequently decided not to make diving the center of his life; Troy competed with David Pichler and finished fourth).

In their final dive yesterday, the Americans performed the same maneuver as the Russians, and met a similar fate: Troy Dumais had a poor takeoff and broke form in the air. This left the gold medal to the Greeks, who were enveloped by song, dance, and flags.

Bimis, who said in February that his parents wouldn’t be attending because he didn’t want them to watch, told reporters, “We hope this is just the start and there are more medals.” Bimis will also compete in the individual springboard event on August 23 and 24.

Siranidis, who had fared no better than 26th at the past two Olympics, could hardly speak.