Athens 2004 Olympic Games

The 2004 Athens Olympic Games (officially called the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad) were held in Athens (Greece) from August 13 to 29, 2004, although the soccer tournament began two days earlier, on August 11. After its conclusion, the XII Paralympic Games were held, which began on September 17, being held in the same city, and ending on the 28th of the same month.

The sporting event featured 301 events in 28 sports, which brought together delegates from 201 countries and more than 10,625 athletes. The official mascots were Athenà and Phèvos (Αθηνα and Φοίβος), named after the gods Athena and Apollo, ancient protectors of the city.

The symbol of the event was the laurel wreath, given its meaning in ancient Greece and in its first Olympic Games; For this reason, a similar crown was imposed on the three medalists of each test.

Background

Candidacy

After losing the Centennial Olympic Games to Atlanta of the United States, Athens found itself in the process of being chosen to host the Olympic Games. In September 1997, in Lausanne, Switzerland, one year after Atlanta 1996, Athens beat the city of Rome, Italy by 66 votes to 41, being chosen to host the XXVIII Olympic Games. Cape Town in South Africa, Stockholm in Sweden and Buenos Aires in Argentina, were eliminated in previous rounds.

106th Session of the International Olympic Committee 5 September 1997, Lausanne, Switzerland
City		Country	Voting
	Athens	Greece	32	-	38	52	66
	Rome	Italy	23	-	28	35	41
	Cape Town	South Africa	16	62	22	20	-
	Stockholm	Sweden	20	-	19	-	-
	Buenos Aires	Argentina	16	44	-	-	-

Other cities that applied to host the Games but did not make the cut were Istanbul (Turkey), Lille (France), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), San Juan (Puerto Rico), Saint Petersburg (Russia) and Seville (Spain).

Olympic Torch Relay

Tour of the Olympic Torch

The Olympic torch from these games visited 26 countries on all inhabited continents in 35 days. In total, it passed through 33 cities around the world (including all the previous venues of the Summer Olympic Games) plus its long journey through numerous Greek towns.

Olympic torch

The Olympic fire was lit, as is tradition, on March 25 in Olympia and after a week of traveling through Greek lands and remaining in a special cauldron at the Panathinaiko stadium for 64 days, it traveled to Sydney where it began its international tour, on June 4. After traveling around the world, on July 9 he arrived again in Greece and after visiting various cities he arrived on August 13, the opening day of the games, at the Olympic Stadium in Athens.

11,360 relievers covered 86,000 kilometers following this route:

• GreeceGreece: Olympia, Athens.
• Australia: Sydney, Melbourne.
• JapanJapan: Tokyo
• Seoul
• ChinaChina: Beijing
• India: Delhi
• EgyptEgypt: Cairo
• South Africa: Cape Town
• BrazilBrazil: Rio de Janeiro
• Mexico Mexico: Mexico City
• United States: Los Angeles, San Luis, Atlanta, New York.
• CanadaCanada: Montreal
• BelgiumBelgium: Antwerp, Brussels.
• NetherlandsNetherlands: Amsterdam
• SwitzerlandSwitzerland: Lausanne, Geneva.
• France: Paris
• United KingdomUnited Kingdom: London
• SpainSpain: Madrid, Barcelona.
• ItalyItaly: Rome
• GermanyGermany: Munich, Berlin.
• Sweden Sweden: Stockholm
• FinlandFinland: Helsinki
• Russia Russia: Moscow
• Ukraine Ukraine: Kiev
• TurkeyTurkey: Istanbul
• BulgariaBulgaria: Sofia
• CyprusCyprus: Nicosia
• GreeceGreece: Heraclion, Thessaloniki, Patras, Athens.

Opening

Olympic call at the opening ceremony

The opening ceremony of the XXVIII Olympic Games took place on August 13, 2004, at the Olympic Stadium in Athens, before more than one hundred thousand spectators. After an introduction on the maritime character of Greece, the main court was filled with water simulating a large swimming pool. From this great lake the five Olympic rings arose in flames, beginning a huge staging of hundreds of actors in floats recounting the history of Greece, counting from ancient mythology to the present day.

The parade of nations brought together almost 11,000 athletes from 202 nations, to the music of Dutch DJ Tiësto. The Afghan delegation, absent from the Olympic Games since the Taliban movement came to power, was warmly received as was the Iraqi delegation; On the contrary, the United States delegation was received with hooting as a form of repudiation of that country's actions in the Iraq War. Delegations from the two Koreas symbolically marched together as their delegations are participating separately. Kiribati marched for the first time, after being accepted into the Olympic Committee, while East Timorese representatives marched under their flag for the first time. Icelandic singer Björk sang at the end of the ceremony, before the Olympic flame was lit.

The ceremony ended after the lighting of the Olympic flame, by the windsurfing medalist of the Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games, Nikolaos Kaklamanakis.

Highlights

• The Greek velocists Konstadinos Kederis and Ekatherini Thanou decided to withdraw from the Games, after allegedly suffering a motorcycle accident that had them hospitalized and by which they avoided passing an anti-doping control.

• When he was leading the marathon masculine test less than 10 kilometers to finish, the Brazilian Vanderlei of Lima was attacked by Irish priest Cornelius Horan being dragged into the crowd. From Lima he recovered winning the bronze, and later he received the Pierre de Coubertin medal for his sports.

• British athlete Kelly Holmes won the gold at 800 and 1500 meters.

• Liu Xiang won gold in the 110-metre fences matching the 1993 Colin Jackson world record, 12.91 seconds. This was China's first gold medal in male athletics.

• The Athens Games assumed the return of Afghanistan to the Olympics since 1999 (their participation was prohibited due to the extremist attitudes of the Taliban regime towards women, but the ban was over in 2002).^{[chuckles]required]}

• Moroccan athlete Hicham El Guerrouj won gold in the 1500s and 5000 meters. He is the first person to achieve this feat at the Olympic Games since Paavo Nurmi in 1924.

• Argentina won a surprising victory over the United States in semifinals of the masculine basketball, then defeat Italy in the final (84-69).

• The athlete Félix Sánchez won the first Olympic gold medal for the Dominican Republic, beating in the 400-metre fences.

• The German kayaker Birgit Fischer wins gold at the K-4 500 meters and silver at the K-2 500 m. Thus, she became the first woman in any sport to win gold medals at six different Olympic Games, the first woman to win gold with 24 years of difference and the first person in Olympic history to win two or more medals at five different Games.

• The American swimmer Michael Phelps wins eight medals (six gold and two bronze), becoming the first athlete to win eight medals at the non-boyish Olympic Games.

• Chilean tennis players Nicolás Massú and Fernando González won the gold medal in the double competition, while Massú won the gold and González the bronze medal in the individual competition. The double medal, became the first gold in Chilean Olympic history, dating from Athens 1896, while Massú's 2 medals make it to this day (Tokio 2020) as the only tennis player to win gold in singles and doubles in the same edition of the Olympic Games.

• Iraq's football team won the fourth place in a remarkable performance, considering that for years the Saddam Hussein regime "killed" the team members.^{[chuckles]required]}

Closing

Olympian fire ignition ceremony

The games ended on August 29. The closing ceremony was held at the Olympic Stadium in Athens where they were inaugurated 16 days before. An estimated 70,000 spectators attended the closing ceremony.

The ceremony began with the participation of Greek musicians, including Anna Vissi, Marinella, Haris Alexiou, Elefthería Arvanitáki, Chronis Aidonidis, Dimitra Galani, Giórgos Ntaláras and Sakis Rouvas; at the same time thousands of actors were performing quite humorously on the stadium grounds. Immediately afterwards, the awards ceremony for the last event of the games, the men's marathon, was held.

Then each participating country was represented by an athlete carrying their respective flag, followed by the rest of the athletes with all the delegations intermingled.

After the closing speeches, the anthems of Greece and China were heard. The mayor of Athens passed the Olympic flag to the mayor of Beijing. After a short presentation by Chinese actors, the 2004 Athens Olympic Games were officially declared closed.

Sports

The Athens'04 Olympic program included 37 disciplines grouped into 28 sports. The following list shows the 28 sports mentioned, for which a total of 301 events were played:

Participating countries

Medal table

Host country (Greece)

No.	Country				Total
1	United States (USA)	36	39	26	101
2	People ' s Republic of China (CHN)	32	17	14	63
3	Russia (RUS)	28	27	38	92
4	Australia (AUS)	17	16	16	49
5	Japan (JPN)	16	9	12	37
6	Germany (GER)	13	16	20	49
7	France (FRA)	11	9	13	33
8	Italy (ITA)	10	11	11	32
9	South Korea (KOR)	9	12	9	30
10	United Kingdom (GBR)	9	9	12	30
15	Greece (GRE)	6	6	4	16

Offices

The works of the different infrastructures were a headache for the organizers.

Competition venues

Soccer stadiums

• Kaftantzoglio Stadium, Thessaloniki
• Karaiskakis Stadium, Athens
• Pampeloponnissiako Stadium, Patras
• Pankretio Stadium, Heraklion
• Panthessaliko Stadium, Volos

Non-competition venues

• Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport
• International Radio and Television Centre (IBC)
• Main Press Centre (MPC)
• Olympic Villa

Socioeconomic aspects

The costs of the games amounted to almost 9 billion euros. However, the long-term impact of the games has not turned out as planned. Many of the facilities have been abandoned and the country fell heavily into debt.