The news that the first runner was approaching the Olympic stadium came with a cannon shot. The 100,000-strong crowd drew its collective breath and hoped against expectation for a home victory at last.

Then the sight of the sweat-soaked Spyros Louis stepping first onto the track sent a roar into the Athens sky as Greece heralded her first Olympic athletics champion for more than a millennium.

For French nobleman, Baron Pierre de Coubertin - the man credited with reviving the Olympics in Athens in 1896 - it was the crowning moment of the first modern Games.

Extraordinary spectacle

"At his entry into the stadium it seemed that all of Greek antiquity entered with him," Coubertin later recalled in his memoirs.

"Cheers went up such as have never been heard before. This was one of the most extraordinary spectacles of which I have any memory," he wrote.

Now, after an idle 20th century in which Athens was overlooked in favour of the world's other great cities, Olympic champions will return to the hallowed marble of the Panathenean Stadium next summer.

What they will find is a very different Games in a very different city.

When Louis, a shepherd with no previous experience as a runner, triumphed in the first marathon he was awarded a silver medal and crowned with an olive wreath.

Second-placed Harilaos Vassilakos received a bronze medal and a crown of laurel, as did all runners-up. A third place finish earned nothing more than an honourable mention and there were no gold medals in sight.

The thousands of female athletes that will converge on modern day Athens would have been a shock to the crowds at the revival Games which were a strictly men-only affair.

The modest total of 231 male athletes that competed in 1896, would scarcely constitute a mid-sized national team for 2004.

Men Only

However, the medal table would look familiar to modern sports fans as the U.S. dominated with 11 winners, while the hosts had the largest haul with 45.

But the final standings are confused by the fact that there were no national teams and many competitors were either tourists or bystanders. A mixed nationality team even picked up a medal.

The first Olympic champion in 1527 years was Harvard Law student James Connoly who paid his own trip to claim first in the triple jump, second in the long jump and third in the high jump.

The first Olympiad was less of a sprawling affair than the 28th will be and boasted just four venues.

The stage for all events, bar cycling, swimming and fencing, was the Panathenean Stadium, or Kallimarmaron as it is known to most Greeks.

It was built on the site of an ancient stadium on a timetable that would make todays organizers blush. With the help of a USD3.2 millon grant from George Averoff, a wealthy Greek living in Alexandria, the project was completed inside 18 months.

One-hundred and eight years later the elegant marble horseshoe will host only the archery and the marathon finish and has been replaced with the modern Olympic Stadium, named after Spyros Louis.

It stands in the northern neighbourhood of Maroussi, once home to the long distance hero and his grazing sheep but now a heavily built-up area favoured by multinationals for their Greek headquarters.

Surprisingly the 70,000 capacity at the state-of the-art venue only outstrips its antique counterpart by 10,000. With standing room on surrounding hills some estimates put the crowd for the marathon finale at over 100,000.

Horses for courses

While spectators in 2004 will follow the leading 26-milers on giant screens, their 1896 counterparts relied for news on the starter who galloped the distance from the start line in the village of Marathon to enter narrowly ahead of the runners.

Security measures at the revival Games would appear draconian even to modern planners. Soldiers armed with rifles were positioned at the entrance to each row in the stadium. But organizers fears were more to do with overcrowding than international terrorism.

Those who earned their fame in the water did so in a more modest setting. Australian superstar swimmer Ian Thorpe would be unlikely to relish the task that awaited his forebears. They were ferried out to sea from the port of Piraeus and told to swim back.

Alfred Hajos, dubbed the Hungarian dolphin, would later recall that it was fear of drowning that spurred him to a memorable double victory in the 100m and 1,200m freestyle rather than thoughts of glory: "I must say that I shivered at the thought of what would happen if I got a cramp from the cold water. My will to live completely overcame my desire to win."

The commercial spoils - in the form of bonuses and endorsements - that await modern-day victors dwarf the prizes on offer to their amateur forebears but it would be hard to match marathon-man Louis for style.

As he variously staggered or strode to the line, depending on whose witness you believe, the shepherd was flanked by two Princes, while courtiers rained jewellery on him from the VIP stand.

One delirious wealthy citizen attempted to offer the shepherd a cheque for 10,000 French francs but according to Coubertin he was refused. Such generosity is unlikely to be shunned when the biggest show on earth returns to its birthplace next year.