Italy at the 2004 Summer Olympics the nation's best finisher four years earlier, dropped one place in the rankings. However, the two Olympic rookies both placed better than Gemignani had in the first race. Italy at the 2004 Summer Olympics Italy competed at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, from the 13th to the 29th of August 2004. This nation has competed at every Summer Olympic games in the modern era, except for the sparsely attended 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis. The Italian National Olympic Committee (Italian: "Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano, CONI") sent the nation's largest ever delegation in history to the Games. A
Bids for the 2020 Summer Olympics of the host city selection process was approved by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) executive board as follows: Six cities were put forward by their respective National Olympic Committees (NOCs) to apply to host the Games initially, but Rome withdrew its bid shortly before the applicant files were due. The bidding cities come from two continents, Europe and Asia (Istanbul is considered to be located on the border between Asia and Europe). In 2020 it will be twelve years since an Asian city hosted the Summer Olympics (Beijing 2008) and eight years since a European city hosted the Summer Olympics