Back then I had noticed the heavy use of the theme in clues and answers both, and realized it was some sort of “salute” to the upcoming Olympics. Very glad I waited rather than rushed here for answers! I have already seen the praise and later comments scattered through the next few blogs after this one, one of the few puzzles I have seen have that effect on here – an afterglow effect, I suppose.

Thank you Brendan for going all out on this one, and Andrew for the blog, and a few of you others for listing the “rest” of the theme examples. I often use a highlighter on puzzles like this to track things, if I had done that while solving this I think every square would be bright yellow!

Pantheme? Where did this come from? I can’t find it anywhere – and would question it if I could!

Pangram [Pan [all] + gramma [letter] [all the letters]] is fine [and is in Chambers:'a sentence containing all the letters of the alphabet, eg the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog'] which we seem to have appropriated in crosswordland to define a grid which contains all the letters of the alphabet, which is fair enough, I think, since we all know what we’re talking about – but ‘pantheme’ = ‘all the themes’ doesn’t quite work, does it?

However that may be [or, as my grandchildren more succinctly say,'whatever'] this was a great example of whatever it is we are trying to define [more suggestions welcome!] – thanks again, Brendan!

Splendid construction and clues from Brendan, who is (re 24) at the very least among the best. Great stuff.