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 Τhe
ATHENS 2004 Olympic Games was a great celebration, when for 17 days
the games returned to the country of origin.
More
than 21.500 representatives of the Mass Media covered the Games and
four billion viewers all over the world watched them on television. They all saw Modern Greece, inside and outside the
stadiums.
These Games broke many records: Athens hosted 11,099 athletes, the
largest number ever and also the most women athletes ever.
Representatives of 202 countries took part, more than any other sport
event. The Olympic flame with a message for peace and universal
brotherhood traveled for the first time to all continents and it was
welcomed in New Delhi as well.
India, which
had produced only three individual
bronze medals in Olympic history — Khashaba Jhadhav in Helsinki 1952,
Leander Paes in Atlanta 1996 and Karnam Malleswari in Sydney 2000 —
sent her athletes with high expectations, but the team from the
world's second most populous nation returned home once again with a
solitary medal.
Army major Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore
became a national hero when he finished second in the men's double
trap-shooting event. The 34 year-old army man's score of 179 (135 in
qualifying and 44 in the final round) gave him a silver medal, India
first individual silver in Olympics. Elated with his performance,
Rathore said, "It doesn't give me
satisfaction that I am the first one or something like that. I think
there are many, many more medalists and I hope in future we will
produce many more medal-winners.”
 A pleasant
surprise to India came from the 2004 Athens Paralympics, when javelin
thrower Devendra Singh won gold with a world record. Weight-lifter
Rajinder Singh Rahelu also won bronze. India’s
23-year old Devendra improved his own world mark to win the
country’s first gold medal in the javelin throw, category F44/46.
Devendra had lost his hand in a childhood
accident but what he didn't lose was his will power to win a gold
medal.
Read also:
Mr. Chazhur V.
Gangadharan, an Indian engineer and founding member of ELINEPA, who
was working in Athens at that time, narrates his first hand experience
from the preparation, expectations and final performance of the Indian
team in the
ATHENS
2004 Olympic Games.
(To
read his article press
HERE).
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