2004 Summer Olympics opening ceremony the Opening Ceremonies, for example in the last Olympics before that, in Salt Lake City, where banners of the previous 18 Winter Olympics entered Rice-Eccles Stadium at the beginning of the ceremony. This would also be seen in Vancouver during the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics and on the Televised version of the Olympic Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games. The first speech came from Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, the chief organizer of the Athens 2004 Olympics and the first female chief organizer of an Olympic games. She told the athletes: "Welcome home!" and "Greece is standing before
Independent Olympians at the Olympic Games Independent Olympic Participants. Macedonian athletes could not appear under their own flag because their National Olympic Committee (NOC) had not been formed. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) was under United Nations sanctions which prevented the country from taking part in the Olympics. However, individual Yugoslav athletes were allowed to take part as Independent Olympic Participants. 58 athletes competed as Independent Olympic Participants, winning three medals. The former Soviet Union competed under the Olympic flag at the 1992 Winter Olympics and 1992 Summer Olympics as a Unified Team. At the 2000 Summer Olympics, four athletes from East Timor