OLYMPIC GAMES – ATHENS

Motif: Stylized discobolus After a period of 108 years, since the first Olympic Games of the modern age were held in Athens in 1896, Athens will host the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad from the 13th to 29th August 2004. Along with Paris, London and Los Angeles, Athens, too is the city where the Olympic Games will be held for the second time. With a population of 10 million inhabitants, Greece is the smallest country hosting the Olympics. The opening and closing ceremonies of the Games will take place at the Olympic Stadium with 75,000 seats that is within the Olympic Sports Complex (O.A.K.A.). This will also be the venue for 6 sports competitions: basketball, athletics, tennis, swimming, diving, water polo and cycling. This year’s Olympic Games, on account of the nine eleven terrorist attack, demand huge security preparations, and NATO is also included in the protection measures of the Games. Sportsmen from 202 countries will participate in the Athens Games, three times more than in the previous Games in Sydney, with 10,500 sportsmen competing in various sports events. There will also be 5,500 team officials and 21,500 members of the media from all over the world are expected to come. All of them will be accommodated in the Olympic Village below Mount Parnitha to the north of Athens. The Croatian sportsmen in Athens will participate in the Games for the fourth time under the internationally acknowledged symbols of our country, following the ones in Barcelona in 1992, Atlanta in 1996, and Sydney in 2002. So far, 84 Croatian sportsmen have satisfied the Olympic standard: in athletics, boxing, weightlifting, sailing, canoe/kayak, equestrian events, swimming, handball, table tennis, shooting, tae kwon do, tennis, water polo and rowing. Since appearing in Barcelona in 1992, Croatian sportsmen have won seven medals for Croatia in the Olympic Games. In Barcelona the basketball team won the silver medal and Goran Ivanišević and the double Prpić-Ivanišević won two bronze medals. In Atlanta the handball team won the gold and the water polo team the silver medal. In Sydney Nikolay Pechalov won the gold in weightlifting, and the eights-boat won the bronze. It is expected that the Croatian Olympic sportsmen will add to the number of medals already being won. Our hopes lie with rowers Siniša and Nikša Skelin in double sculls, water polo and handball teams, weightlifting champion Nikolay Pechalov, the two tae kwon do women fighters Nataša Vizmar and Sandra Šarić, woman table tennis player Tamara Boroš, sailer Karlo Kuret and tennis players Mario Ančić and Ivan Ljubičić. For other sportsmen, the women athletes Blanka Vlašić and Ivana Brkljačić, swimmers Duje Draganja and Gordan Kožulj, table tennis player Zoran Primorac, the four-oar and the markswoman Mirela Skoko Ćelić, reaching the placement in the finals would be a great success, and in the finals a surprising outcome can always happen. It is nuances, millimetres, a thousandths part of seconds and, naturally, sports luck – all of these play an important role.