Athens 2004: Games that will be remembered for scandals

After 108 years, the Olympic Games returned to their original location - Athens. The capital of Greece, which was left without a host on the centenary of the modern OI in 1996 (Atlanta won), at the IOC session only in the fifth round surpassed the competition and received the right to organize the world's largest exhibition.

The main argument of the organizing committee, headed by a politician Jana Angelopoulos-Daskalaki (then declared one of the 50 most powerful women in the world on the Forbes list), was precisely history - the Hellenes emphasized that Greece played the most important role in the formation of the Olympic movement and that the Games meant more to them than anything else. After such a lamentation, the candidacies of Rome, Cape Town, Stockholm and Buenos Aires had no chance...

And instead of proving to the IOC how wrong it was to choose Atlanta for the 100th anniversary of the Games (the official explanation was that the infrastructure of Athens could not be ready in time), the Greeks proved that they are true Balkans - after numerous delays, some facilities were finished just before the opening of the Olympic Games, and on some of them even the construction of the roof was abandoned. Luckily it didn't rain...

The Games, not counting the renovation of the city, cost Athens an incredible 8,95 billion euros. A mitigating circumstance, if you can call it that, were security costs, which after the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, rose to as much as 1,08 billion euros.

Greece has never recovered from these costs. The Games were the catalyst for the overall economic crisis, which is shaking the entire country. Debt as Greece, the catchphrase that became famous after World War II due to great poverty, is now relevant again...

The man around whom everything revolved in Athens was Michael Phelps. The then 19-year-old American swimmer came to Athens with the desire to reach and, if possible, overtake his compatriot Marko Špica, who won seven gold medals in Munich in 1972.

That to him, as well To Mat Bjondi In 1988 in Seoul, it didn't work out, even though he was just one step away from making history - he climbed to the top step of the podium six times and added two bronzes.

He succeeded four years later, when he grabbed eight of the brightest awards in Beijing, but with a big stain, because it was proven that Milorad Čavić was the first to touch the button at the finish line in the final of the 200 meter butterfly race.

American Natali Kaflin won two golds, two silvers and a bronze, and another one of her and Phelps' compatriots excelled - Aron Pirsol triumphed in both backstroke races (100 and 200 meters) and was a member of the relay team that won gold in the 4X100 medley in a new world record time.

The most interesting athletic discipline was, as usual, the men's 100-meter race. He deserved to sing the American national anthem Justin Gatlin, which equaled the then world record Liroja Barela (9,85). In the best race of all time, the silver and bronze winners were divided by one hundredth - the Portuguese Frensis Obikvelu crossed the shortest section in 9,86, and Gatlin's compatriot Moris Grin in 9,87 seconds!

The Americans confirmed their superiority in the sprint, as they won all six medals in the 200 and 400 meters, as well as the gold in the 4X400 relay. Their dominance was only spoiled by Great Britain, which triumphed in the 4X100 final with a time of 38,07, just one hundredth ahead of the USA.

Ten kilometers before the end of the marathon race, a Brazilian Vanderlej Lima had a big advantage over its rivals. He was slowly riding towards the greatest success in his career, but then an Irishman entered the scene Cornelius Horan, who pushed him into the audience!

Lima lost the advantage, so the gold went to the Italian Stefan Baldini, and silver to a naturalized American Mebratomu Keflezigiju. The Brazilian had to settle for bronze and a special "Pierre de Coubertin" medal, awarded to him by the IOC.

The "crazy Irish priest" made a similar incident a year earlier, when in the middle of the Formula 1 race, at the Silverston track, he went out onto the track in a kilt carrying a banner that read: "Read the Bible. The Bible is always right."

Not counting the Games in Moscow, in which they did not even participate, as well as Munich in 1972, where they were brutally robbed in the final, American basketball players did not win gold at the Olympics only in Seoul in 1988.

The failure in South Korea forced the Americans to send a dream team to Barcelona in 1992. They strolled to gold there, as they did four years later in their home Atlanta. In Sydney 2000, however, they showed that they are no longer untouchable.

They were first started by the Argentines at the World Championship in Indianapolis in 2002, and finished off by Yugoslavia with a victory in the quarter-finals (81:78). Tim Duncan, LeBron James, Allen Iverson, Dwayne Wade, Carmelo Anthony... and before leaving for Athens, the comrades were full of stories that they would take revenge and prove that they are the best.

It was, however, evident that something was not right - in the group they were surpassed by Puerto Rico and Lithuania, and Argentina dealt them the final blow again, this time in the semi-finals (89:81). Manu Ginobili, Luis Scola and company in the final overcame Italy (84:69), and the dream team was consoled with bronze.

At the basketball tournament, the great generation of Yugoslav basketball, which at that time performed under the name Serbia and Montenegro - puleni, definitely came to an end. Željko Obradović they were only in 11th position, and only Angola was behind them!

Apart from the basketball players, football players from Serbia and Montenegro also got dressed in Athens. The selection, which was then the current vice-champion of Europe, ended the tournament with three defeats and a goal difference of 3:14!

The Blues were first beaten by Argentina (6:0), then by Australia (5:1), and the disastrous performance was rounded off by a loss to Tunisia (3:2). In that selection were former national team members of Montenegro Marko Baša, Simon Vukčević i Andrija Delibasic, To Nikola Nikezic i Srđan Radonjić. The team included Miloš Krasić, Milan Biševac, former player of Grblje and Mogren Igor Matic...

Jasna Šekarić won a medal at her fourth Games (she skipped Atlanta in 1996), this time silver in her favorite discipline - air pistol shooting from 10 meters. The same success was achieved by the water polo players, who gave gold to the Hungarians in the final of the tournament (they led 3:0 and 7:5, but lost 8:7).

He was an assistant in that team Petar Porobić, but Novljani played Predrag Jokic i Vladimir Gojkovic, while Boris Zlokovic hurt just before going to Athens.

The Greeks didn't get tired only in the organizational field, but also in the sports field. Sprinters Catherine Tanu i Konstantinos Kenteris they didn't show up for the doping test, and just a few hours later they ended up in the hospital, because they reported that they had a motorcycle accident.

The scandal "broke", Tanu and Kenteris eventually gave up participating in the OI, and were later punished several times and released from responsibility. The entire process was completed only on May 9 last year, when the Greek tandem was sentenced to a 31-month suspended sentence, and the judge wrote in the explanation that the accident never happened. Tanu won silver at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

After it was discovered that Marion Jones was doped, the International Olympic Committee decided that her gold would remain unallocated, and that Tanu would receive silver. It was not like that in the other disciplines, she subsequently became the Olympic champion in the 200 meters Polin Dejvis-Thompson from the Bahamas, and the bronze in the long jump went to a Russian woman Tatiana Kotova.