"My friend," Clarke said to an American journalist seated alongside at National Olympic Stadium, "here in Beijing, the Stars and Stripes are at half-mast."

A day later, at a U.S. Olympic Committee news conference, executive director Jim Scherr characterized the American team's overall performance as "one of the great successes in U.S. Olympic history."

Now that these 2008 Summer Games have concluded, it seems clear the truth about the U.S. performance lies somewhere in the middle.

The Americans collected 110 medals, their best showing in a full-participation Games, 10 more than the host Chinese. Their 36 golds matched their total from Athens in 2004. Swimmer Michael Phelps became these Olympics' signature performer, winning eight gold medals. U.S. men's basketball was back atop the world. And, so far, no American athlete in Beijing has failed a drug test.

Still, as the twilight last gleamed yesterday on these spectacular 2008 Summer Games, it was clear the American Olympic banner wasn't being hailed so proudly.

"Americans did really well here, but we won't be happy," said Brenda Villa of the women's water-polo team, which won a silver medal, "because we don't like to finish second in anything."

The U.S. track team couldn't get a single gold in the 100- and 200-meter sprints or 4x100-meter relays, and the only runner to win a medal at a distance beyond 400 meters was Shalane Flanagan, who took a bronze in the women's 10,000.

The track and field squad ended up with 23 medals but not enough to dispel a disturbing trend: The United States is getting squeezed at both ends - in the sprints by the Jamaicans and others from the Caribbean and in the distance events by African runners.

"It's been a great performance," said U.S. men's track coach Bubba Thornton. "We've had a couple things happen, but it wasn't that we weren't performing."

The U.S. softball and baseball teams, which won't be back in 2012, could manage only silver and bronze, respectively. There were no gold medals in boxing, once a U.S. strength, and rowing, diving and kayaking were disappointments.

"Any time you have 600 athletes competing in 31 sports, you're going to have disappointments, and you'll have surprises along the way," Scherr said. "We may have been disappointed based on the outcomes, but we're not disappointed in any team or individual."

The biggest black cloud, one that looms over America's Olympic future like the Beijing smog, is China.

The Chinese put their money where their dreams were. They completed their rapid athletic ascent by running away with the gold-medal race, collecting 51 to America's 36. That nation's ongoing, enormous commitment to sports threatens to produce an even greater disparity in future Games.

"China has been systematically targeting every single available medal, and we're going to have to do that in the future," USOC president Peter Ueberroth said. "The resources that they put toward their Olympic team and the population base and the dedication is fantastic."

China's authoritarian government, political will, 1.3 billion people, and limitless funds lend it an enormous advantage over an American Olympic program that must beg for backing from corporate sponsors and gets little direct government funding.

"You have a question of unlimited need and limited resources," said Scherr of the American dilemma. "We need our country to support our team."

That's not a problem in China, which spent an estimated $40 billion on the Olympics. According to scholar Xu Guoqui, who has written a book on the history of Chinese sports, $1 billion of that went toward athletic development.

"China's progress in sports has mirrored its economic growth," Xu said. "They have a lot more to spend now, and they like spending it on sports."

By comparison, the USOC's total annual budget is $150 million.

Ueberroth, who will step down this fall when his term is up, said the United States was only fifth or sixth in terms of expenditures per athlete, exceeded even by 2012 host Britain.

Britain finished a surprising fourth in the medal count, behind the United States, China and Russia, with 47 medals, 19 of them gold. That improvement was fueled by a government-funded commitment to athletic development, $1.1 billion over six years.

"There are only so many medals," said Steve Roush, the USOC chief of sports performance, "and more and more countries are winning them. There are only so many to win. If [the Chinese] are winning more, someone's winning less. And here in Beijing, we didn't step it up like they did."

While China showed across-the-board improvement, even in sports with which it had little tradition or history - weightlifting, sailing, beach volleyball - the U.S. emphasis was on improving team sports.

It worked. The United States took both golds in basketball and beach volleyball, a gold (men) and a silver in volleyball, two silvers in water polo, a gold in women's soccer, and the silver and bronze in softball and baseball, respectively.

But each of those sports produces only a single medal, though Scherr suggested strangely that because each team member gets a gold, adding them up would put the United States far ahead of China.

China, meanwhile, put extra emphasis on individual sports rich in medals like weightlifting, in which it captured 10.

"Team sports are extremely popular in America and because of our culture, it's where we place our emphasis," Roush said. "We're always going to be committed to them.

"But it's far easier and less expensive to train one individual than it is 30 or 18 in a team sport."

Roush said the United States would assess its entire Olympic program in October. Asked which sports likely needed assistance, he pointed to kayaking, diving, fencing and shooting.

When it comes to using its influence to lobby for new rules or new sports with the International Olympic Committee, the United States is in an even weaker position.

Ueberroth said he was disappoined that former U.S. soccer captain Julie Foudy was not elected an IOC athlete-representative. That means there are only two Americans on the 115-member IOC, Anita DeFrantz and Jim Easton.

"It's a very weak position for the U.S., but our two IOC members are very special," Ueberroth said.

at ffitzpatrick@phillynews.com.