Olympic medal began in 1896 medals started to be given to successful olympian competitors. However, gold medals were not awarded at the inaugural Olympics in 1896 in Athens, Greece. The winners were instead given a silver medal and an olive branch, while runners-up received a laurel branch and a copper or bronze medal. In 1900, most winners received cups or trophies instead of medals. The custom of the sequence of gold, silver, and bronze for the first three places dates from the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri in the United States. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has retroactively assigned gold,
Greece at the 2008 Summer Olympics Olympic Games, and in keeping with tradition, Greece entered the Beijing National Stadium first during the opening ceremony, led by the judoka Ilias Iliadis, who won a gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. The Greek team was originally awarded two silver and two bronze medals. In all four medal cases there was participation by athletes who were also medalists at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens (in the case of groups, at least one of their members was a former medalist). Alexandros Nikolaidis won a second olympic silver medal, Vasileios Polymeros was second after his third place