He was absolutely thrilled with the bronze. He said that if the BOC manages to get the IOC to award two golds (one for the italian and one for him), it'd be great.
The thing is, Vanderlei was already in auto-mode (he's kinda famous for that). He had a 46 second lead on the chasers when he got attacked by that irish bastich. Between staggering when seeing the attacker, being thrown on the curb, being rescued my spectators (way to go, greek police!) and starting to run again, he lost about 20 seconds. Then he had to struggle within himself to find the resolve to keep on running (which is the reason he's getting the Pierre de Counertain medal). But his rythm was entirely lost.
Baldini (the italian who won), seeing that Vanderlei was _right ahead of him_ (after being so far away that he lost sight of him) gained much energy from the possibility of catching up with Vanderlei. Same with the Eritreian-turned-American who won silver.
And let's remember that this happened mere 6km from the finish line. So yeah, it was quite possible that Vanderlei could have won the gold if not for the Irish Madman. Silver, at the very least.
As a sidenote, Cornelius Horan, the Irish Madman, was sentenced to 1 year in prison, paid 3000 euros and is alread free, because he had no previous offenses in greek soil (according to the police dept.).