"...in the spirit of the games..."

The Olympic Games are competitions between athletes in individual 
or team events and not between countries.  
They bring together the athletes designated for such purpose by their
respective NOCs, whose entries have been accepted by the IOC, 
and who compete under the technical direction of the IFs concerned.
The authority of last resort on any question concerning the Olympic 
Games rests with the IOC. The Olympic Games consist of the Games of 
the Olympiad and the Olympic Winter Games. Both take place every four 
years, subject to the provisions of the paragraph below.
The first Olympic Winter Games were celebrated in 1924. 
Starting from that date, they are numbered in the order in which they 
are held, the XVII Olympic Winter Games being, however, held in 1994. 
Those sports which are practised on snow and ice are considered as 
winter sports.

The Olympic Symbol

The Olympic symbol consists of the five Olympic rings used alone, in one 
or in several colours. The five colours of the rings are mandatorily blue, 
yellow, black, green and red. The rings are interlaced from  left to right.
The blue, black and red rings are situated at the top, the yellow and green 
rings at the bottom. The whole approximately forms a regular trapezium, the 
shorter of the parallel sides forming the base, according to the official 
design deposited at the IOC headquarters and reproduced below.
The Olympic symbol represents the union of the five continents and the 
meeting of athletes from throughout the world at the Olympic Games.

Olympic Flame: this is kindled in Olympia (Greece), under the authority 
of the IOC; it is carried by a torch; an Olympic Torch is a torch, or a 
replica thereof, on which the Olympic Flame burns. 

Olympic Anthem  : this was approved by the Session in Tokyo in 1958; 
it is by the Greek composer Spiros Samaras and words by the Greek poet
Costis Palamas; it was written in 1896 for the first modern Olympic 
Games in Athens (Greece). 

Games of the XXVIII Olympiad 2004

The interest in hosting the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad in 2004 was such 
that a record eleven National Olympic Committees nominated candidate cities. 
In view of the number of bid cities, the IOC maintained the procedure to 
select four or five finalist candidate cities from amongst the eleven. 
By the deadline of 10th January 1996, the IOC received eleven bids, from: 
Athens (Greece), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Cape Town (South Africa Republic), 
Konstantinople (Turkey), Lille (France), Rio de Janeiro (Brasil), Rome 
(Italy), San Juan (Puerto Rico), Seville (Spain), Stockholm (Sweden) and 
St. Petersburg (Russian Federation). 
The following stage in the selection process was for the IOC Evaluation 
Commission to evaluate the eleven bids and report their findings to the IOC 
members in February 1997. (The Commissions's report is made public). 
On 6th March 1997 each city made a presentation to the IOC Selection College 
in Lausanne, Switzerland.
On 7th March 1997, the Selection College announced the finalist candidate 
cities in accordance with a procedure decided upon by the 104th IOC Session 
in June 1995 and completed by the IOC Executive Board in December 1995. 
The College has designated 5 finalist cities, which are in alphabetic order: 
                  Athens 
                  Buenos Aires 
                  Cape Town 
                  Rome 
                  Stockholm 
The host city for the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad in 2004 had been elected on 
5th September 1997 during the 106th IOC Session in Lausanne, Switzerland. 

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