East Timor
East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-west ...
(Timor-Leste) competed at the
2004 Summer Olympics in
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
,
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...
, which was held from 13 to 29 August. The nation's appearance at the 2004 Athens Games marked its official debut in any Olympic event and also the Summer Olympics.
Two track and field athletes,
Gil da Cruz Trindade and
Agueda Amaral, were selected to represent the nation via wildcards, as the nation had no athletes that met either the "A" or "B" qualifying standards in their respective events, the
Men's and
Women's marathons. At 32 years and 88 days, Amaral became the oldest athlete to represent the nation at the Summer Games, which still stands today. She was also selected as the nation's first
flag bearer
A standard-bearer, also known as a flag-bearer is a person (soldier or civilian) who bears an emblem known as a standard or military colours, i.e. either a type of flag or an inflexible but mobile image, which is used (and often honoured) as a f ...
for the
opening ceremony.
Ultimately, neither athlete won a medal in their events, with Trindade not even finishing his marathon. This therefore meant that East Timor won no medals in the Athens Games.
Background
Although this was the official Summer Olympics debut for East Timor, East Timorese athletes had competed as
individual Olympic athletes in the 2000 Summer Olympics in
Sydney,
Australia.
Because the athletes did not win a medal at the previous Olympics, no athlete from the nation had won a medal prior to the 2004 Athens Games.
The
National Olympic Committee of East Timor (NOC) selected two athletes via wildcards. Usually, a NOC would be able to enter up to three qualified athletes in each individual event as long as each athlete met the "A" standard, or one athlete per event if they met the "B" standard.
Athletics
;Men
;Women
References
External links
*
*
{{Country at games navbox, East Timor, Olympics
2004 in East Timorese sport
2004
Nations at the 2004 Summer Olympics