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Do you remember what it was like to watch the Olympics B.C. -- Before Computers? Me neither.

You may have noticed the supertitle on your TV screen when the swimmers are on the starting blocks or the gymnast stands poised to hurl her 96-pound body down the runway toward a vaulting horse as tall as she is: "For more information, log on now." With the advent of the Internet, Olympics-watching has gone interactive. A multitude of web sites are devoted to the standard Olympic fare -- scores, highlights, schedules, who's winning the medal race (US!) But even you want more from your Olympic experience than just reading information, allow me to suggest these virtual destinations:

E-mail the Olympic athletes From the official website of the Olympics (www.olympics.com) , you can e-mail any athlete, a whole team, all the athletes from one country, or all Olympic athletes. On the right side of the site, you'll see a link called E-m@il. The athletes have access to e-mail at the "Athletes' Surf Shack" (it's Australia, remember), and I understand that people do get replies. Imagine how you'll feel when Cathy Freeman writes you back and says, "Thanks for the message. I was afraid that cauldron would never rise, too." One word of caution: make sure you choose the right link. If you think you're e-mailing the U.S. swim team and you write, "Congratulations on a fabulous performance," you wouldn't want to accidentally send that to the gymnasts who fell on their faces or their derrières because the vault was too low. By the same token, if you're writing to the woman who took a spill during the cycling leg of the triathlon to say "Better luck next time," you wouldn't want to send it to the Chinese men's gymnastics team, which won the gold medal.

Let's chat Besides e-mail, you also have the option of chatting in real time with certain Olympic celebrities at olympics.com. U.S. Olympic baseball coach Tommy Lasorda was the chat guest on Friday, his 73rd birthday. Saturday's guest is Spanish tennis star Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario. Sunday's guest will be Eric Mossambani, the swimmer from Equatorial Guinea who drew a wild card entry in the men's 100 meters. Want to know what it's like swim alone after everyone else false-starts? Join the chat and ask Mossambani.

Commencez les jeux Olympiques! Read the Olympic website in French. You'll also find the link "Français" on the right side of the page at olympics.com. It's fun to read the list of events in French. "Haltérophilie," accurately described as "un sport simple," is weight lifting. "Escrime" is fencing. Some names are more recognizable, such as "tennis de table." See if you can guess what these Olympic sports are (e-mail me, and I'll send you your score):

1. Plongeon
2. Tir à l’arc
3. Natation
4. Cyclisme
5. Athlétisme
6. Lutte
7. Aviron
8. Volleyball de plage
9. Sports équestres
10. Football

Reading about the Olympics in other countries' newspapers is also fun. A good international directory of newspapers is available at www.newspapers.com or at About.com's newspaper site. Both are searchable by city and country. What are French newspapers printing about sprinter Marie-José Pérec's sudden departure from Sydney? Friday, Le Parisien led with the story "L'affaire Pérec: Le Rêve Bris´" (The Pérec Affair: The Dream Breaks). Le Figaro said "Marie-José Pérec s'est une nouveau volatilisée" (Marie-José Pérec blows up again"). Chinese newspapers were focusing on recent victories in badminton and table tennis on Friday. The top headline in China Daily read, "Gong Zhichao wins women's badminton singles title; China's gold tally rises to 14." There are plenty of English language papers such as the China Daily and the Shanghai Star, although you could have looked at the Chinese language papers Monday and known the men's gymnastics team won gold, even if you couldn't decipher the characters. (Photos need no translation.)

Get the Strine version Speaking of papers in English, The Sydney Morning Herald has perhaps the best overall Olympics site. It loads much faster than www.olympics.com, and includes neat features such as a daily Olympics trivia quiz and webcams from event venues. In addition, you can order prints of the Morning Herald's Olympics photographs. The SMH site also provides good coverage of the Olympics' impact on the city, an angle you won't get anywhere else. I recommend it highly, and I forgive the Morning Herald editors for making the headline, "Australians Win (Softball) Thriller Against the U.S" so big. ("Strine," by the way, is slang for Australian.)

Have a side order of culture At Encyclopedia Britannica's web site, I feel like I'm right back in Mabel Wing's 10th grade geography class. Using the "Around the World" link, I can type in the name of a country and get basic facts about its climate, languages, industry, etc. I can see a map and pictures of natives. Where exactly IS Equatorial Guinea, anyway, and what do the people there do for a living? Britannica is the place to find out. It's also fun to see how the United States is described in such directories. The picture intended to illustrate the country shows two guys at a small-town diner. (I hope people in Equatorial Guinea haven't gotten the impression that the entire U.S. is rural.) The U.S. entry focuses heavily on how American culture -- music, movies, TV shows, etc. -- has been exported to other countries. I was quite surprised to see that under "language," the U.S. listing was "English; Spanish."

The Britannica site includes several other links you'd expect to find in an encyclopedia. Having an argument about who won the all-around gymnastics gold medals in Munich? Check "For the Record," database of -- you guessed it -- Olympic records. The answers are Sawao Kato of Japan (men's) and Lyudmila Turischeva of the U.S.S.R ( the women's). How many medals did Jackie Joyner-Kersee win? You can look that one up yourself. Don't understand how the U.S. women are still in contention for the softball gold medal after losing three games? Read "Play by the Rules," a guide to the regulations governing Olympic sports. "Best Moves" is a neat animated feature illustrating various events (be warned: it requires that you download a plug-in).

Olympics-on- the-Go Too busy to visit web sites? Never fear! Many Olympic sites will actually send updates to you, on your computer or even your portable electronic device. The Sydney Morning Herald calls Olympic news via PED the "Handheld Olympics." You can get a daily summary of results and features from sites such as olympics.com and the Morning Herald, or you can have The New York Times e-mail you every time an American wins a record (keep in mind that these updates may ruin prime-time viewing for you, with an Olympics half a world away, brought to you on tape delay).

Don't forget to watch the set! Of course, while you're glued to your computer e-mailing athletes or reading about Equatorial Guinea, there's an Olympics underway, and you could be missing the pole vaulting. Don't get so caught up in the wonders of the electronic Olympics that you forget to enjoy it the old fashioned way -- on the sofa, cheering.