The 2004 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad and also known as Athens 2004, were an international multi-sport event held from 13 to 29 August 2004 in Athens, Greece. The Games saw 10,625 athletes compete, some 600 more than expected, accompanied by 5,501 team officials from 201 countries, with 301 medal events in 28 different sports. The 2004 Games marked the first time since the 1996 Summer Olympics that all countries with a National Olympic Committee were in attendance, and also marked the first time Athens hosted the Games since their first modern incarnation in 1896 as well as the return of the Olympic games to its birthplace. Athens became one of only four cities at the time to have hosted the Summer Olympic Games on two occasions. A new medal obverse was introduced at these Games, replacing the design by Giuseppe Cassioli that had been used since 1928. The new design features the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens rectifying the long-running mistake of using a depiction of the Roman Colosseum rather than a Greek venue. The 2004 Games was the first of two consecutive Olympic games to be held in Southern Europe since the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, and was followed by the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.
Kallithea is a suburb in Athens agglomeration and a municipality in south Athens regional unit. It is the eighth largest municipality in Greece, as well as the fourth biggest in the Athens urban area. Additionally, it is the 2nd most densely populated municipality in Greece and one of the most densely populated cities in the world, with 20,240/km2 (52,400/sq mi). The municipality has an area of 4.749 km2 (1.834 sq mi).
Handball at the 2004 Summer Olympics included a men's and a women's team competitions with the preliminary rounds taking place in the Sports Pavilion at the Faliro Coastal Zone Olympic Complex. From the quarter final stage onwards, the women's event moved to the Helliniko Olympic Indoor Arena, a part of the Helliniko Olympic Complex, with the men joining them there for their semi-finals and final.
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 men's beach volleyball event at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, was held at the Olympic Beach Volleyball Centre located at the Faliro Coastal Zone Olympic Complex.
The Women's beach volleyball event at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, was held at the Olympic Beach Volleyball Centre located at the Faliro Coastal Zone Olympic Complex. The gold medal went to Kerri Walsh and Misty May who had a perfect record in the tournament, losing not a single set. The reigning champions from the 2000 Olympics, Natalie Cook and Kerri Ann Pottharst, both had new partners for Athens and coincidentally met at the last sixteen stage where Cook's team took the honours. Adriana Behar and Shelda Bede repeated their 2000 Olympic result, taking silver.
The women's tournament in volleyball at the 2004 Summer Olympics was the eleventh edition of the event, organised by the world's governing body, the FIVB in conjunction with the International Olympic Committee. It was held at the Peace and Friendship Stadium located at the Faliro Coastal Zone Olympic Complex between 14 and 28 August 2004.
The Faliro Olympic Beach Volleyball Centre is a stadium in the Faliro Coastal Zone Olympic Complex that hosted the beach volleyball competition for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. The stadium holds a total of 9,600 individuals, though the public seating capacity was limited to 7,300 during the Olympics. The stadium was officially opened on August 2, 2004, a few weeks before the Olympics, though test events were held at the site a year earlier.
The Asian Volleyball Confederation, commonly known by the acronym AVC, is the continental governing body for the sports of indoor, beach, and grass volleyball in Asia and Oceania. It has 65 member associations, located in the Asia-Pacific region, but excludes four transcontinental countries with territory in both Asia and Europe – Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, and Türkiye – along with Armenia, Cyprus, and Israel, which are members of the CEV.
Volleyball competitions at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing were held from 9 to 24 August 2008. Indoor volleyball events were held at Capital Indoor Stadium and Beijing Institute of Technology Gymnasium. Beach volleyball competitions were held from 9 to 22 August 2008 at the Beach Volleyball Ground at Chaoyang Park.
The men's handball competition, one of two events of handball at the 2004 Summer Olympics, in Athens, took place at the Sports Pavilion during the preliminary round and quarter-finals, and at the Helliniko Olympic Indoor Arena during the semi-finals and medal matches. A total of 180 players, distributed among twelve national teams, participated in this tournament.
Handball competition at the 2004 Summer Olympics for women took place in the Sports Pavilion at the Faliro Coastal Zone Olympic Complex for the preliminary competition. From the quarter-final stage onwards the women's event moved to the Helliniko Olympic Indoor Arena.
The FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships is the double-gender world championship for the sport of beach volleyball organized by the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) the sport's global governing body. The first official edition of the event was held in Los Angeles, United States in 1997 and tournaments had been awarded every two years since then. Before 1997, ten unofficial championships not organized by the FIVB were all held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil between 1987 and 1996. The most recent World Championships took place in Rome, Italy in 2022
Beach volleyball was introduced at the Summer Olympic Games in the 1992 Games as a demonstration event, and has been an official Olympic sport since 1996. The United States is the only country to win medals in every edition.
The Peace and Friendship Stadium, commonly known by its acronym SEF, is a multi-purpose indoor arena that is located in Piraeus, on the coastal zone of Attica, Greece. The arena is mostly known for being the home to EuroLeague team Olympiacos, and is the central venue of the Faliro Coastal Zone Olympic Complex. It opened in 1985 and its design was inspired by Palasport di San Siro.
The Faliro Sports Pavilion Arena, which is part of the Faliro Coastal Zone Olympic Complex, is an indoor arena in the suburban town of Palaio Faliro, Greece. It is nicknamed "The Little Peace And Friendship Stadium", due to its similarity in design and close proximity to the Peace and Friendship Stadium.
The volleyball tournaments at the 2012 Olympic Games in London were played between 28 July and 12 August.
For the 2004 Summer Olympics, a total of thirty-five sports venues were used. Athens hosted the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, which used venues such as Panathinaiko Stadium and the city of Marathon for which the long-distance race would be named. From the end of the 1896 Games until the late 1970s, Greece underwent numerous political changes that included the Balkan Wars, two World Wars, a civil war, and a military coup that resulted in a junta that lasted from 1967 to 1974. A change in democracy in 1975 resulted in Greece's admission into the European Economic Community in 1979.
The volleyball tournaments at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro was played between 6 and 21 August. 24 volleyball teams and 48 beach volleyball teams, total 386 athletes, participated in the tournament. The indoor volleyball competition took place at Ginásio do Maracanãzinho in Maracanã, and the beach volleyball tournament was held at Copacabana Beach, in the temporary Copacabana Stadium.
