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
2010 Winter Olympics opening ceremony to the large Chinese population in Vancouver, as did the United States, which received the loudest ovation before Canada entered two minutes later. Nelly Furtado and Bryan Adams, both themselves Vancouver residents performed "Bang the Drum", which was written by Adams and producer Jim Vallance as a tribute to the Olympic athletes present. The cultural section of the Opening Ceremony was titled "The Landscape of a Dream" whose purpose was to celebrate the diverse geography and people of Canada. It was directed by David Atkins and the narration was provided by Donald Sutherland, himself one of the Olympic flag bearers.