During the Parade of Nations portion of the 2004 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, athletes from each country participating in the Olympics paraded in the arena, preceded by their flag. The flag was borne by a sportsperson from that country chosen either by the National Olympic Committee or by the athletes themselves to represent their country.
Contents
Parade order
The national team of Greece, as both the host nation and original host of the Olympic Games, entered the stadium last, breaking the tradition that the Greek national team enter first in every Olympic opening ceremony as a tribute for being the original host of both the Ancient and the Modern Olympic Games. However, in a nod to tradition, the Greek flag and flag bearer Pyrros Dimas entered at the beginning of the parade ahead of Saint Lucia. Dimas also led the Greek national team when they entered last. Following tradition, other countries entered the stadium in name order in the language of the host country (Greece), which in this case is Neo-Hellenic.
Kiribati and Timor-Leste competed for the first time at these Olympic Games, whereas Afghanistan returned from its eight-year absence after the national Olympic committee had been suspended under the Taliban regime since 1999.
Announcers in the stadium read off the names of the marching nations in Greek, French, and English (the official languages of the Olympics) with the music, performed and played by Dutch musician Tiësto, accompanying the athletes as they marched into the stadium.
Notable flag bearers in the opening ceremony featured the following athletes: Three-time Grand Slam champion and tennis player Roger Federer (Switzerland), NBA basketball player Yao Ming (People's Republic of China), six-time Olympians and Star sailors Colin Beashel (Australia) and Torben Grael (Brazil), triple Olympic weightlifting champion Pyrros Dimas (Greece), show jumper Ludger Beerbaum (Germany), two-time Olympic sprint freestyle champion Alexander Popov (Russia), four-time rowing champion Elisabeta Lipă (Romania), decathlon champion Erki Nool (Estonia), and rings gymnast Jury Chechi (Italy). As of March 2015, three of the flagbearers were tragically killed in road-related accidents after these Games: Aly Ibrahim (Egypt) in 2010, Meamea Thomas (Kiribati) in 2013, and Mbulaeni Mulaudzi (South Africa) in 2014.
List
The following is a list of each country's announced flag bearer. The list is sorted by the order in which each nation appears in the parade of nations. This table is sortable by country name (in Hellenic), the flag bearer's name, and the flag bearer's sport. The names are given in their official designations by the IOC.