The Greece delegation held its flag-raising ceremony in the Olympic Village here on Thursday.

Greece is one of the two nations, along with Australia, that has competed at every Olympic Games and has hosted the Games twice, the inaugural modern Olympic Games in 1896 and also in 2004. The Games were hosted in Athens on both occasions.

Greece has won over 100 Olympic medals with the sports of athletics and weightlifting being the most successful.

Greece is traditionally strong in throwing events and dominated those sports in the early Olympic editions. It was a tradition that returned after a break of over 90 years at the 2000 and 2004 Games with both Anastasia Kelesidou and Mirela Manjani earning medals in the discus and javelin events, respectively.

One of the country's most revered Olympic athletes is weightlifter Pyrros Dimas who almost single-handedly inspired his nation's love of the sport with gold medals at the 1992, 1996 and 2000 Games. He missed out on a fourth Olympic title in Athens in 2004, finishing with a bronze medal, but was celebrated as a national hero.

"I noticed that you made great preparation for the Games, especially in volunteers working, matches, environment and traffic," said Liapis Michalis, cultural minister of Greece. "I have been to many Olympic Villages and this one of Beijing Games impressed me for most. I think you will do better organization works than we did in Athens and you all deserve a gold medal on that."

Michalis hoped that China would get good results in the matches and he couldn't wait any more to see the opening ceremony.

(Xinhua News Agency August 7, 2008)