Greece

Greece is the home of the Olympics, the Ancient Olympic Games having been held there from at least 776 B.C. through 393 A.D. The Modern Olympic Games were revived and first held in Athens in 1896. Prior to 1896, several attempts at revival of the Olympics were contested in Greece, notably the Zappas Olympics of 1859, 1870, 1875, and 1889. Since 1896, Greek participation has been continuous at all Games of the Olympiad. In honor of being the ancestral home of the Olympics, at the Opening Ceremony, the Greek athletes always march first into the stadium. Greece has also competed at the Olympic Winter Games, first appearing in 1936 and missing only the 1960 Squaw Valley Olympics since. Greece hosted the Games of the Ist Olympiad in Athens in 1896, the Intercalated Olympic Games of 1906, and the Games of the XXVIIIth Olympiad in 2004. Greek athletes have won 146 medals in the Olympics (39 gold), with 80 of those occurring in 1896 and 1906, and 16 medals and six gold won in 2004. Pyrros Dimas leads the Greek medallists with four medals and three gold medals in weightlifting. He is the only Greek to win three gold medals, although he is an ethnic Albanian, but both Kostas Tsiklitiras and Nikolaos Georgantas won four medals in the early years of the Modern Olympics.

In 1961 and again in 1971 the Olympic Committee of Greece was awarded with the Count Alberto Bonacossa Trophy. In 1978 the Olympic Committee was awarded with the Olympic Cup.