The Olympic Games return home!

The event's successful outcome makes Greece, the host country, "the jewel in the crown!" Greeks experience collective euphoria. The Greek Olympic delegation was the largest in history (with 441 athletes, 223 men, and 218 women) since 1896 (with 240 athletes, all men). Greece won 6 gold medals, six silver medals, and four bronze medals. Two thousand five hundred volunteers, performers, and many support groups participate in the opening ceremony of the 28th Athens Olympic Games, the most beautiful ceremony in the history of the Games.

Dimitris Papaioannou directed the ceremony to the music of the most significant Greek composers. Singer Bjork makes a surprise appearance. The theme is a flashback in Greek history while a child in a boat crosses the water-filled 9,600 sq.m. Olympic Stadium. The ceremony concludes with Nikos Kaklamanakis lighting the Olympic Flame at the cauldron. For the first time in its history, the flame has crossed all five continents. Athens hosts 11,099 athletes, the highest number ever, from 202 countries while setting a new record for women's participation. After 1611 years, the Olympic Games return to the Stadium of Ancient Olympia, hosting the shot-put competition, even though the sport did not exist in the Ancient Olympic Games.

"There is another gold medal, which belongs to all Greek citizens," underlined Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki in her speech at the Closing Ceremony. "For 17 days, we all represented Greece, in athletics, swimming pools, and the sea, at the entrance gates and the Olympic lanes, at the parquets and on the mats, in the stadium seats, in Thiseio and Plaka, in Thessaloniki, Patras, Volos, and Heraklion, on the springboards and rings and in the Press-Center and the Olympic Village," said the President of Athens 2004.

"Dear Greek friends, you have won," said Jacques Rogge in his closing speech. "You have won by brilliantly meeting the tough challenge of hosting the Games," noted the, then, President of the IOC. He thanked the Greek authorities for their role in Athens' transformation, referring to the Olympic legacy developments.