As fireworks for 2004 Olympic Games explode during the opening ceremony, the Olympic rings are lit up in the sky of Athens at that night.

Away from its ancient birth place for 108 years after its revival, the Olympic Games is home.

Four hundred drummers made the sound of a human heart-beat across the stadium before a flame raced across the stadium’s 80-meter-high roof later that night to light the logo of the modern Olympics – the five interlocking rings – on a man-made lake in the arena, symbolizing the Aegean Sea.

When the Athens Olympics lifted its curtain on Friday evening, August 13, 2004, a success seemed to be in the making just as the organizers promised as all the unpleasant memories of long debates and construction delays fades out in the spectacular opening ceremony.

President Stefanopoulos and International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge, as well as the Athens 2004 chief Gianna Angelopoulos Daskalaki, greeted the chosen child boy carried by a boat gliding across the lake at the end of the event.