Greece’s bid to host the 1996 Olympics on the centenary of the modern Games in Athens seemed so ludicrous, it even featured in the verses of a song written by Lina Nikolakopoulou and performed by Haris Alexiou, poking fun at the audacity of such an ambitious undertaking by a country still struggling to join modernity. It was regarded as a “national wager” and we ended up losing it to Atlanta.

