LONDON (AP) ― In one unforgettable night for a nation, the Olympic Games and host Britain were the best they can be.

Three British athletes winning three gold medals in Olympic Stadium in a delirious 44-minute spell produced the signature moment of the London Games. Barring catastrophe in the final week, this Saturday night of fever and fervor made sure the London Olympics will be remembered as a roaring success.

It was a night when the prefix “Great” before “Britain” suddenly seemed to make a lot more sense. It ended, so appropriately, with the massive crowd in the 80,000-seat stadium awash in the colors of the Union Jack’s red, white and blue and belting out “God Save the Queen” to celebrate sporting success beyond the wildest expectations.

The best Olympics need moments like these.

Beijing in 2008 had Michael Phelps eclipsing Mark Spitz’s iconic record with eight golds in the Water Cube and Usain Bolt getting three golds in three world-record sprints in the Bird’s Nest.

Sydney in 2000 had Aborigine Cathy Freeman, Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia and U.S. sprinter Michael Johnson conjuring up one of the most memorable nights ever on an Olympic track.

And at the midpoint of the 2012 games, London had hometown athletes Jessica Ennis, Greg Rutherford and Mo Farah winning one after another, whipping to a froth the stadium crowd that had lifted their champions to undreamt-of heights.

Ennis won the heptathlon, Farah the 10,000 meters. Rutherford, who won the long jump, was stunned: “I’m worried I’m going to wake up in a minute and this ain’t going to be real.”

It certainly was.

Before these games, Britons lamented that they had become a nation of gold-medal gripers. Olympic critics moaned about the $14.4 billion bill for the games, feared disruption for two weeks to London’s way of life and its traffic network and bemoaned the privileges accorded to Olympic organizers, visitors and sponsors.

All that was buried by the spellbinding drama from 8:02 p.m., London time, when Ennis clinched heptathlon gold, to 8:46, when Farah won the 10,000 and clasped his head in a disbelief. In between, Rutherford won gold with his leap of 8.31 meters into the long jump pit.

Oscar Pistorius steals spotlight

LONDON (AP) ― It began with a smile at the starting line.

Moments later, Oscar Pistorius took off and the click-click-clicking of carbon on the track was all but drowned out by the 80,000 fans on hand to watch him make history Saturday. The first amputee to compete in track at the Olympics, Pistorius cruised past an opponent or two in the backstretch of his 400-meter heat, and by the end, the “Blade Runner” was coasting in for a stress-free success.

Typical. Except this time, it was anything but that. “I’ve worked for six years ... to get my chance,” said the South African, who finished second and advanced to Sunday night’s semifinals. “I found myself smiling in the starting block. Which is very rare in the 400 meters.”

Yes, this sun-splashed day at Olympic Stadium was a good one for Pistorius, a double-amputee who runs on carbon-fiber blades and whose fight to get to this point has often felt more like a marathon than a sprint. He walked out of the tunnel, looked into the stands, saw his friends and family there ― including his 89-year-old grandmother, who was carrying the South African flag.