2004 Summer Olympics opening ceremony 2004 Summer Olympics opening ceremony The opening ceremony of the 2004 Summer Olympic Games was held on August 13, 2004 at the Olympic Stadium in Maroussi, Greece, a suburb of Athens. 72,000 spectators attended the event, with approximately 15,000 athletes from 202 countries participating in the ceremony as well. It marked the first-ever international broadcast of high definition television, undertaken by the U.S. broadcaster NBC and the Japanese broadcaster NHK. The opening ceremony began with a twenty-eight second countdown—one second per Olympics held since Athens last hosted the first modern games—paced by the sounds of an amplified heartbeat played by
Independent Olympic Athletes at the 2012 Summer Olympics Independent Olympic Athletes at the 2012 Summer Olympics Four Independent Olympic Athletes competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, in the United Kingdom. These were athletes from the former Netherlands Antilles, and from the newly formed state of South Sudan. This was the third time that athletes had competed as independent participants in the Olympics. None of the athletes have won an Olympic medal. The Netherlands Antilles Olympic Committee, which had planned to continue functioning after the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles in October 2010, had its membership withdrawn by the IOC Executive Committee at the IOC session of