Greece hails Olympics’ return

ATHENS, Greece – In a vivid display of color and humanity, the 2004 Summer Games opened Friday night with athletes from 202 nations marching in a joyous procession that traced the path of Greek and human history – one that, for the moment, soothed years-long concerns about Olympic security.

Most of the 10,500 athletes set to compete in Athens paraded into Olympic Stadium to open the first Summer Games since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and the U.S.-led war on Iraq. Amid massive security, the event went off with no apparent problems.

“Welcome to a unique Olympic homecoming,” said Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, head of the Athens 2004 organizing committee, signaling the return of the Olympics to the nation where they began, 2,780 years ago in ancient Olympia.

The nearly four-hour ceremony featured some 8,000 entertainers, among them actors portraying the goddess Athena, the patron of Athens, as well as Aphrodite, Eros, Zeus and other mythical figures.

An infield pond served as the focal point of the half-hour cultural sequence: The Olympic rings were set aflame atop it; a young boy sailed across it; a centaur – the mythical half-man, half-horse – flung a lightning bolt over it; and an olive tree rose skyward from it.

Then came the parade of nations, with Greece positioned both at the front of the line – a tradition arising from its historic role in the ancient and modern games – and bringing up the rear as host.

The pageant featured stars and dreamers sporting suits and skirts, berets and olive wreaths, Bermuda shorts and red-checked headdresses, even a tie-dyed sarong worn by Sam Pera, a weightlifter who carried the flag for the Cook Islands, a remote Pacific atoll.

The U.S. team, the largest delegation with 538 athletes, was greeted with resounding applause from the crowd of 70,000. Iraq’s 25 athletes were met with a huge roar. So were the Chinese, led into the stadium by the tallest flag-bearer, Houston Rockets star Yao Ming.

Holding hands, competitors from North and South Korea entered together, reprising the joint Korean march first undertaken four years ago at the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney.

Some members of the Turkish team waved Greek and Turkish flags. The Greeks, 443 strong and last into the stadium, were met with a standing ovation and flashing lights, many of the athletes dancing as the crowd chanted, “Hellas! Hellas!”

For the next 16 days, some 10,500 athletes will compete in 28 sports for 300 medals. The 202 nations number more than take part at the United Nations General Assembly; 86 of the 202 have never won an Olympic medal, and for the athletes of many nations the opening ceremony traditionally marks a high point of the games.

Security for the event was pervasive, as it is throughout Athens and the outlying sports venues, with 70,000 Greek police and military authorities on alert for any irregularity after years of anxiety worldwide related to the games.

Greece was awarded the games in 1997. The International Olympic Committee was intrigued by the notion of returning the games to the nation of their origin, and after the commercialism that drew criticism at the Atlanta Games of 1996, to the ideals that have long moved the Olympic cause.

The games were first held in Olympia in 776 B.C. The modern Olympics were first staged in Athens in 1896, in the all-marble Panathinaikon Stadium.

At these Olympics, the archery events will be held at Panathinaikon. The men’s and women’s marathon will finish at Panathinaikon after starting in Marathon, 26.2 miles away. The men’s and women’s shot put will be held at Olympia on Aug. 18, the first time women will ever have competed on the ancient grounds.

At Olympic Stadium, members of the American team sounded caught up in the moment. “I really felt the passion and the dream,” said diver Laura Wilkinson, a gold medalist at Sydney.

And Rulon Gardner, the Sydney gold medalist in the superheavyweight division in Greco-Roman wrestling, said, “Now we’re here in Athens to have some fun.”

Whether they have that fun depends in large part on the games going off without incident. International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge was asked this week if he believed the $1.5 billion security plan would forestall trouble.

“Come back to me on the 29th of August,” he said.

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