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,
Taekwondo at the 2004 Summer Olympics champions. Hadi Saei, Huang Chih-hsiung and Pascal Gentil also won medal for the second time. A total of 124 taekwondo jins from 60 nations competed at the Athens Games: Taekwondo at the 2004 Summer Olympics Taekwondo at the 2004 Summer Olympics were held in the Sports Pavilion at the Faliro Coastal Zone Olympic Complex in Athens, Greece where 124 competitors competed in eight events, four each for men and women. The host nation Greece failed to add to the gold won by Michalis Mouroutsos at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, though Alexandros Nikolaidis and Elisavet Mystakidou both won silver.