Athens 2004: The miracle and the trauma

Greece's bid to host the 1996 Olympics on the centenary of the modern Games in Athens seemed so ludicrous, it even featured in the verses of a song written by Lina Nikolakopoulou and performed by Haris Alexiou, poking fun at the audacity of such an ambitious undertaking by a country still struggling to join modernity. It was regarded as a "national wager" and we ended up losing it to Atlanta.

However, a combination of wounded national pride led us, in an almost hypnotic state, to enter a new bid for the 2004 Games. When September 5, 1997 rolled around and the city that would be chosen to host those Games was about to be announced, the mood in Athens was almost as ludicrous as Nikolakopoulou's verse indicated. The scene at Zappeion Hall as former International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch stuttered out the name "Athens" was almost comical: a few dozen...