JEFF POWELL: Critics of the Athens 2004 Olympics were expecting 'a building site Games' but Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki ensured that Greece produced a modern miracle There had been expectations that the Athens 2004 Olympics would be a failure However, Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki helped ensure it was anything but that By Jeff Powell Published: 19:35 EDT, 24 July 2024 | Updated: 19:35 EDT, 24 July 2024 e-mail View comments It was 3am of a moonlit night in Athens, just one week before the opening ceremony for the 2004 Summer Games, as the First Lady of the Olympics put on a hard hat and set out to spur on construction workers as they raced to beat that deadline. This was by no means the first - nor the last - of the many times Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki delivered flasks of coffee and her patriotic message to men and women working around the clock to deliver what a mocking world was calling ‘impossibly Greek.’ Her objective on this particular occasion was to inspire a sprint finish to completion of the new Tram line, which would carry the crowds from the city centre to the Olympic Stadium.
The track was still a kilometre or so short of the final stop, which itself was not quite finished. She stood on a stack of rails and issued an exhortation which translated to: ‘We may be tired but let’s do this for Greece. For our great culture, our people, our national pride.
’ Her audience knew the unspoken subtext: ‘And to prove the critics and the doubters wrong.’ Thoug.