LONDON -- The Olympic spirit had a bandage wrapped twice around the top of his forehead and then down from his left eye and across the bridge of his nose. He had several days stubble, blood seeping from his left eyebrow, cauliflower ears and a face that could have been carved from stone.

He dropped to his knees in anguish on the judo mat when three blue flags were raised Tuesday, then collapsed to the floor again as he took the three steps down from the stage to the floor, breaking down as he walked until his coach, Jimmy Pedro, literally lifted his chin, grabbed the back of his head and told him to hold it high.

In combat defeat, without a medal, Team USA's Travis Stevens brought the Olympics to life. And he wanted to hear none of it.

"I don't feel good about it," Stevens, 26, said, sweaty and shirtless, his lip still quivering when Pedro spoke about him after his Olympics had ended. "I've let everyone around me down -- my coach, friends, training partners, family. We came here to win a gold medal, nothing else."

That's how Stevens viewed it. Few others at the Excel Center, the combat home of the Olympics featuring not only judo but boxing, weightlifting, fencing and, uh, table tennis, came away with that as their lasting impression of the 178-pound judo semifinal.

"He's a true warrior, a true warrior in the Olympic spirit," said Pedro, a four-time Olympian and two-time bronze medalist. "At the end of the day, he earned it just as much as the gold medalist. So it's truly the agony of defeat."

For four years, working out seven hours a day in Boston, traveling to foreign training camps where he wouldn't speak a word of English for a month, Stevens every day thought about getting back and facing the German again. Ole Bischof beat Stevens in the early rounds at the 2008 Olympics, tactically forcing him into a penalty.

Stevens felt he wasn't beaten; more that he was played. He felt a gold medal had been taken from him. He thought that every day for four years.

His brow in a constant furrow, Stevens is the kind of guy who figures to embark on a mixed martial arts career after judo, not for the money or the fame, but in spite of those opportunities. He just craves the competition. And revenge. At an international competition in Germany last year, Stevens beat Bischof on the way to a gold. But that was only part of the payback.

Tuesday, Stevens and the German were back on the judo mat, just as Stevens had planned. In the last few months he sat out a few international events to manipulate the rankings, wanting to face the No. 1 seed in the quarterfinals, and Bischof in the semis.

The plan worked just as he hoped. Stevens won in the quarters, and Bischof was waiting. As the competitors stood just off the mat, "Hey Ya!" incongruously blasting on the arena speakers between bouts, Pedro wrapped Stevens in a bear hug from behind, then smacked his back and legs and shoulders. Stevens and Bischof stood just feet apart for minutes and didn't look at each other.

Then they were on the mat and at each other, attempting to get holds high on each other's bodies to set up falls or the chance to force a submission. Seconds in, as they grappled, Bischof, who looks a bit like the actor Greg Kinnear, cut Stevens over his left eye. As the blood started, a trainer was called. He wrapped the bandage around Stevens' head. For now, it was the Karate Kid.

Minutes later, the cut opened again, and this time the wrap went diagonal across Stevens' face, much more of a mummy look. Stevens said the wrap didn't bother him and all he wanted was the trainer to hurry up.

"I felt the German was getting tired and the doctor was trying to finagle some stuff, but I needed him off the mat so I could get my hands back on the German to keep wearing him out," Stevens said. "He was lucky there were two cuts in the match, and I felt that gave him a little break to get himself composed."

Don't forget the staredown. Between the blood, Stevens and Bischof went nose-to-nose for a brief moment in a sport seeped in traditional rules of etiquette. That was real. The two forced handshakes afterward were less so.

"We don't really see eye to eye," Stevens said. "That was nothing we haven't done in the past."

Stevens was prepared for a new future. Though neither athlete scored, Stevens felt he controlled much of the five-minute bout and the overtime period, so he went to the ground in the final minute, looking to grind out the clock and go to a decision. When it ended, Pedro pumped his fists. The referee grabbed a white flag and a blue flag for himself and the same pair for the two corner judges.

Then simultaneously, each of the three raised the flag of the man they felt had won. All three raised blue.

Stevens wore white.

"I was devastated. I was devastated," said Stevens, who thinks he saw relief on Bischof's face. "I was mentally and physically ready to win the gold medal. I don't feel like the German beat me, I feel like the refs took it away from me more than anything."

Kayla Harrison, Stevens' Team USA teammate and Boston training partner who goes for her own gold Thursday, said, "Watching him cry, it breaks my heart."

For Pedro, it was more anger.

"I was fully confident Travis won," the coach said. "The German coach apologized to me afterward. I think everyone in the room who really knows judo well thought Travis won. I had a lot of foreign people come up to me and say that. It was close. It could have gone either way, but nine times out of 10, Travis gets that match."

Pedro was disturbed that all three judges – from Slovenia, Romania and the Netherlands – were European.

"He was fighting a European superstar," Pedro said. "So I don't think that helped us any."

Admitting the semifinal drained him, Bischof went on to lose in the final, settling for silver. Bandaged and beaten, Stevens returned 45 minutes later and lost his bronze medal chance to a Canadian he's beaten many times before. It was no surprise. When he lost his gold, he had nothing left.

"The German just took it out of me today," Stevens said.

He'd put four years in. He couldn't come back in less than an hour.

"My grandfather died last year, and it pretty much felt the same way," Steven said. "Just like losing a family member, you've lost something you wanted your entire life. That's it. It's time to go home. There's nothing to be done."

But for those who saw it, there was something to be remembered.