Venues of the 2004 Summer Olympics Olympic Stadium in Athens served as host for the European Athletics Championships in 1982. This venue also served as host for the Mediterranean Games in 1991. In 1995, Athens submitted a bid for the 2004 Summer Olympics which it was awarded in September 1997. A month earlier, Olympic Stadium hosted the World Championships in Athletics. At the time of the bid in 1997, the venues to be used for the 2004 Games were available for 75% of the competition and 92% of the training locations. Venue locations were settled between 1998 and 2003. Construction funding started in 1998 with laws
Summer Olympic Games from a 42-event competition with fewer than 250 male competitors from 14 nations in 1896, to 306 events with 11,238 competitors (6,179 men, 5,059 women) from 206 nations in 2016. The Summer Olympics has been hosted on five continents by a total of nineteen countries. The United States has hosted the Games four times (in 1904, 1932, 1984 and 1996); this is more times than any other nation. The Games have been held three times in the United Kingdom (in 1908, 1948 and 2012); twice each in Greece (1896, 2004), France (1900, 1924), Germany (1936, 1972) and Australia (1956, 2000);