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
Parade of the Athletes own remix of Samuel Barber's piece by the same name (the remix was also influenced by William Orbit's original electronic remix of the song in 1999), and "Athena", which is also a remix of Adagio in G minor, a piece often attributed to Tomaso Albinoni, but actually composed by Remo Giazotto. The album contains 8 new tracks composed exclusively for the Olympic Games Athens 2004 Opening Ceremony, and 4 other well-known tracks ("Traffic", "Lethal Industry", "Adagio for Strings" and "Forever Today"). An unmixed version was also released. Parade of the Athletes Parade of the Athletes is a retrospective mix by