Athens, Greece ? The mistakes were so minor. The kind of errors only judges see.

Carly Patterson’s foot grazing the lower of the uneven bars. Courtney Kupets’ twirl ending here instead of there. Mohini Bhardwaj’s itty-bitty wobble on the beam.

Little things, but added together they cost the U.S. gymnastics team valuable fractions of points and, ultimately, an Olympics gold medal.

Done in as much by their own sloppiness as Romania’s sheer superiority, the Americans settled for silver Tuesday night.

“Things happen,” Kupets said. “It’s disappointing. But what are you going to do?”

Romania finished with 114.283 points, beating the Americans by more than a half-point for its second straight Olympic gold. Russia, never a factor even with diva Svetlana Khorkina prancing and preening, won the bronze.

Silver hardly is anything to be ashamed of. The U.S. men won one Monday night and were positively giddy. And it’s far better than leaving empty-handed, which the U.S. women did in Sydney for the first time since 1976.

But these women are world champions, winners of every international meet they’ve entered since 2002 and perhaps the best team the United States ever has put on the floor. This was supposed to be their coronation.

Instead, they watched somberly as the Romanians partied in the middle of the floor.

Mohini Bhardwaj of the United States competes in the balance beam. The U.S. women's gymnastics team won the silver medal Tuesday in Athens, Greece.

“I’m happy because these children have a crown, a medal,” Romanian coach Octavian Belu said.

There was nobody left from the Romanian team that won gold in Sydney, but the attention to detail carried over, an obsession with perfection right down to the last routine.

Patterson closed out the Americans’ night with a saucy, sassy floor routine that had the Olympic Indoor Hall rocking. But the Romanians, who finished second to the United States at last summer’s world championships, needed to average only 9.35 points per routine to catch the Americans.

Easily done.

Daniela Sofronie soared above the floor on her tumbling passes, flying so high fans sitting in the first few rows had to look up to see her.

Catalina Ponor, the final Romanian, brought the crowd to its feet with one of the finest routines of the night. Her teammates were already hugging each other and crying when her music stopped, and Ponor sprinted off the mat with a grin on her face. Even Bela Karolyi, whose wife Martha now is the U.S. team coordinator, had to applaud.

The Americans, meanwhile, sat glumly in their seats. A few clapped. Most simply stared ahead, perhaps thinking about all the wasted opportunities.

“We made small mistakes,” Bela Karolyi said. “Small mistakes are to be paid for. And we paid.”

This was supposed to be a team immune to imperfection. It was hand-picked by Martha Karolyi, who carefully chose what she hoped would be the right mix of power, grace, determination and steely nerves.

Last year’s world championship team won gold despite losing half of its squad to injury, an awesome display of resilience. With no setbacks, this year’s team should easily have been able to match that gold.

But these are the Olympics, and there are no guarantees.