ATHENS, Greece – Three got medals and Paul Hamm got mad.

The United States upped its gymnastics medal haul to seven yesterday, the most since the Americans won 16 at the boycotted Los Angeles Games in 1984.

And they might not be finished yet.

Hamm is in two event finals tonight while Courtney Kupets, all-around champ Carly Patterson, Mohini Bhardwaj, and Morgan Hamm are in one each.

“I think it was a pretty awesome finish,” U.S. women’s coach Kelli Hill said. “We like seeing three girls compete today and three girls walk away with hardware.”

Terin Humphrey won silver on the uneven bars, finishing behind France’s Emilie Lepennec. Kupets won the bronze. Annia Hatch’s silver came on the vault, where she was runner-up to Romania’s Monica Rosu. Anna Pavlova of Russia was third.

Greek fans had something to cheer about, too. Dimosthenis Tampakos sent the Olympic Indoor Hall into a frenzy on the final event of the night, winning gold on still rings. Tampakos was the first of eight competitors, and the hometown fans – including local games chief Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki – roared each time a score was posted and Tampakos maintained his hold on first place.

Jordan Jovtchev of Bulgaria won the silver, and Italy’s Yuri Chechi took the bronze.

“It was the best moment for my life, and thank God for it,” Tampakos said as music from the movie “Zorba the Greek” played in the background.

When the Greek national anthem played, it sounded as if the entire arena was singing, and many stuck around after the medals ceremony for an impromptu party.

Svetlana Khorkina wasn’t one of them. The Russian diva’s Olympic career ended with a thud, when she fell off the uneven bars, and she quickly stalked out of the arena. Khorkina didn’t even stick around to watch the final bars performance, leaving before Humphrey went.

Paul Hamm failed to medal in either of his events, finishing fifth on floor and sixth on pommel horse. But he was more upset with the International Gymnastics Federation, which acknowledged Saturday that a scoring error wrongly gave him the gold in the all-around over Yang Tae-young of South Korea. Though FIG says it cannot change the results, the South Koreans plan to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in hopes of getting a duplicate gold medal.

“The people I’m a little bit upset with is the FIG because this matter should have never even come up,” Hamm said. “Reviewing videotape isn’t even allowed in the rules. Rules can’t be changed after the competition is over. Right now, I personally feel I shouldn’t even be dealing with this.”

The Americans would, of course, prefer to bask in the glory of all those medals.

They left Sydney red-faced four years ago, failing to win a single medal for the first time since 1972.They promised things would be different in the future, and they were right.

The U.S. men won a silver in the team competition, their first medal since the Golden Gang of 1984. The U.S. women also won a silver; it could have been gold if not for some sloppy mistakes.

Paul Hamm became the first U.S. man to win the Olympic all-around, and Patterson became the first woman since Mary Lou Retton in 1984 to win gymnastics’ biggest prize.

“That makes us just so excited to start raking them in,” Kupets said. “Hopefully, we’ll keep that going.”