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Adam Pretty/Allsport

I KNOW WHAT you're thinking, American armchair athletes: You've just seen your compatriots sweat in them, cry in them, leap for joy in them, and kiss gold medals in them. And once the whole world clears out of a couple billion bucks' worth of shiny, enviro-friendly Olympic venues in Sydney, you'll be looking to follow in their cleated/spiked/webbed footsteps. While some of Sydney's glitzier sports palaces will be open only to local clubs and international competitors, even average stroll-up blokes like us can make our way to other locations.

Case in point: most of the campus of Sydney Olympic Village, west of downtown. The park is home to the Sydney International Aquatic Centre, where the swimming and diving competitions took place, plus Olympic venues for baseball, archery, track and field, tennis, and field hockey. All of it is expected to remain open for public use, with the Aquatic Centre the big draw. This galaxy-class, US$100 million facility, which was bloated beyond belief to host 17,500 swimming fanatics during the Games, reverts to its 4,500-seat former self. In water-happy Australia, this pool is likely to be even more popular after hometown heroes have done battle in it. Don't say you weren't warned about getting splashed for wearing your Team USA swim cap.

If faster water is more to your liking, head 30 minutes west of the city to Penrith, site of the whitewater canoe and kayak slaloms. When the Games first began to flirt with Sydney, it was pointed out—probably by some snooty Eskimo rollers—that the place had no local river suitable for whitewater fiends. Not a problem: Sydney organizers built one.

The $4 million man-made river, complete with grassy banks and big, bow-munching rocks, is a U-shaped waterway 1,000 feet long and an average of ten feet wide. It falls about 18 feet from start to finish, and is kept in motion at about 490 cubic feet per second by massive water pumps. Here's the best trick: River flow can be dialed up or down just like boom-box volume, making the course suitable for kayakers ranging from newbie to Olympian. No word on whether they're willing to shut it all the way off if you roll, but we're guessing that'll cost extra.

Right next door is the Sydney International Regatta Centre, a former rock quarry transformed into a lake for rowing and canoe and kayak sprints. After the Games, the venue reverts to—well, a $24 million lake, suitable for rowing by anyone willing to show up, rent a boat, and pull an oar.

To experience your own Olympic moments at Sydney's other venues, you'll have to get a little more creative. You can relive the water leg of the Triathlon by swimming across Sydney Harbour. Assume a fake Aussie accent with enough Crocodile Dundee in it to get you into a Sydney cycle club to ride the fabulously futuristic, $24 million Dunc Gray Velodrome at Bankstown, or onto a horse at the equally chichi Horsley Park Equestrian Centre (these two will occasionally be open to the public). Or just bring your own net, ball, and skimpy trunks to timewarp back to the volleyball finals on Bondi Beach.

But think twice before carting your new full-suspension Klein mountain bike all the way down here. More than a few riders complain that the 6.9-kilometer mountain-bike loop, built on a farm in the western suburb of Fairfield City, is less challenging than some Boulder, Colorado, driveways. We say give it a shot anyway. Push yourself hard enough, and you might wind up in the same position as the land Down Under: upside down and backwards. Contact Tourism New South Wales at 011-61-2-9931-1111; www.atn.com.au.  —Ron C. Judd