The five circles joined together as links in the chain of the five continents express the ingenious concept of the Olympic idea. The Olympic Games aim at uniting the people and inviting nations into a new circle of “poems” taking into consideration that life itself is a poem. Everybody who takes part in the game is praiseworthy as the real victory is participation itself.
The athletes competing for Greece in recent years honor the country with their dynamic presence. Their model inspires not only the Greeks that they represent but all the other people as well. Greece had important successes both in Atlanta in 1996 and Sidney in 2000. The starting point was Barcelona in 1992. The daily efforts of the Greek athletes behind the lights of publicity prompt us to honor them by writing a few words about them and bearing in mind the Greek Olympiad in Athens in 2004.
At regular intervals, tributes and interviews will be presented in this section. We start with a tribute to the great Greek Gymnast Ioannis Melissanidis, Olympic Winner in Atlanta.
The Greek presence in the Olympic Games of Barcelona was particularly important. 67 athletes participated as representatives of the Greek colours. The Olympiad in Barcelona is regarded by many as the revival of the Greek sports. The top event was the achievement of Voula Patoulidou who won the gold medal in the 100m hurdle event, the first gold medal in athletics since the time of K. Tsiklitiras (1912). In the Olympiad of Barcelona, the star of Pyrros Dimas rose in Weightlifting. He won the gold medal in the category of 82.5 kg.
In the Olympic Games of Atlanta, Greece achieved a miracle by winning the biggest number of medals since the first Olympic Games in Athens in 1896. The achievements were really great moving not only the Greeks but the rest of the world as well. Four gold medals, four silver ones, thirteen Greek athletes in the first eight positions, the National Team of Weightlifting called the Dream Team was first in the unofficial ranking, the National Team of Basketball was fifth and the National Team of Water Polo was sixth.
The Greek team came back from the Olympic Games of Sidney with 13 medals: four gold, six silver and three bronze ones –proof for one more time of the important work done in the field of sports in Greece and the commitment of the Greek athletes to the Olympic idea.
