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Emotional moments from past Olympics
Each Olympics brings out some memorable emotional moments and Athens should not be any different. A sample of several of the outstanding memories.
Sydney 2000 - Cathy comes home to Olympic glory
Dressed in a bodysuit, Cathy Freeman handled the pressure unbelievably in front of her Australian compatriots as she stormed home to take the 400m gold amid the roar of the crowd and the lights of thousands of flashbulbs as they tried to capture the moment their Aboriginal darling seized Olympics glory.
She sank to the track in stunned disbelief as she sought to take in exactly what she had achieved - nothing could ever be the same again. It wasn't. She took a year out to help her then husband recover from cancer, had a turn at commentating for the BBC before returning to sample relay gold in the 2002 Commonwealth Games.
She then separated from her husband and finally announced her retirement last year. None of that though will ever take away the iconic moment of the Sydney Games.
Mexico City 1968: Smith and Carlos, the gloved crusaders
American athletes Tommy Smith and John Carlos were outstanding 200m runners and proved it by taking gold and bronze at the Mexico Olympics.
However, both men staged a remarkable protest on the medals podium. Both wore one black glove at the medals ceremony - 24-year-old Smith on his left hand and Carlos, 23, on his right - and raised their arms in protest at the lack of rights for blacks in the United States.
They also wore no shoes to reflect the poverty of blacks and beads as an image of the lynching of blacks.
Their protest outraged the white head of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) Avery Brundage who had them stripped of their medals and sent home.
But they inspired a whole generation of black athletes - even the silver medallist, Australia's Peter Norman showed solidarity by grabbing a sticker which stood for Olympic Project for Human Rights so he wouldn't look out of place on the podium.
Smith and Carlos went on to coach athletics to students and the former remains unrepentant. "Would I do it again? Sure I would."
Los Angeles 1984 - Not so darling Budds of May
South Africa-born Zola Budd had enough pressure on her slender shoulders after having her British citizenship rushed through thanks mainly to a campaign by then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's favourite newspaper, the Daily Mail.
In the final of the 3000m, she was up against American darling Mary Decker Slaney.
The barefooted, pacesetting Budd stumbled and in the process brought down Decker-Slaney allowing Romanian athlete Maricica Puica to win.
Budd carried on but failed to land a medal as she was heckled and booed by the partisan crowd and was rebuffed by a tearful Decker-Slaney, who was carried from the track by her giant of an English husband.
Budd, won two world cross country titles but never really fulfilled her talent, returned to South Africa whom she represented in the 1992 Games.
Decker-Slaney carried on running failing to qualify for the 2000 Games aged 42. However, her image was tarnished when she failed a drugs test and was banned for two years.
