Weightlifting concludes today with its final and most compelling act: the men’s super-heavyweight division. Over the past 11 days, the sport delivered all the drama it promised, even though the endings often strayed from the script.

Yesterday, an unsung Russian, Dmitry Berestov, right, lifted 935 lbs to win the 105kg division and capture his first major title. The runner-up, Ferenc Gyurkovics of Hungary, was even less well-known before the competition began, but managed to beat his personal best by an astounding 33 pounds to earn the silver.

For the major Greek characters, nothing went according to plan. One local favorite, Leonidas Sampanis, became a hero and a villain in a matter of days; Sampanis captured the bronze medal at 62kg, then had to relinquish it after a positive doping test. Another Greek, Kakhi Kakiasvilis, was supposed to deliver a fourth consecutive gold medal, but bombed out by completing only one of his six lifts in the 94kg competition. And the other man who tried to four-peat his way into immortality, Pyrros Dimas, came up short in the 85kg division, settling for bronze.

Dimas, at least, was showed nothing but love by the home fans. Like the venom spewing throngs at Monday’s gymnastics fiasco, the weightlifting enthusiasts also delayed events after Dimas’s performance. But in this case, the amorous outpouring simply left the silver and gold-medalists waiting to mount the podium.

The Americans, too, failed to live up to expectations. Defending Olympic gold medal winner Tara Cunningham and her abs of titanium (after surgery to repair a torn stomach muscle, she now competes with 21 metal screws in her belly) placed 10th in the 48kg division, after falling to the ground on one of her lifts. Super-heavyweight Cheryl Haworth, who won the bronze at Sydney, ended up in sixth place after feeling “crunching in both of my elbows” while hoisting her opening lift of 275 pounds.

The only athlete who succeeded as planned was Halil Mutlu of Turkey. He, like his retired countryman, Naim Suleynmanoglu (“Pocket Hercules”), won a third consecutive gold medal – becoming just the fourth man ever to do so. Mutlu is expected to return in 2008 to accomplish what no man was able to do in Athens.

The curtain closes today as Iran’s super-heavyweight superhero, Hossein Rezazadeh, tries to defend his gold medal. If the final scene plays out as expected, he will be challenged by Qatar’s Jaber Saeed Salem (a Bulgarian formerly known as Yani Marchokov).

Americans will be cheering for the witty Oklahoman Shane Hamman, as he attempts to lift the bar six times over his gut and past the delicate braid jutting out from his chin. Hamman is not expected to capture a medal, but he has already accomplished the heroic. At the 2003 World Championships, with one final lift, he managed to boost the U.S. high enough in the standings to qualify three male lifters for Athens.

That, too, was not in the plot.