The games were a religious festival, spectators traveling to and fro were pilgrims, and that meant protection from harm under the Panhellenic "sacred truce" not a ban on warfare but usually an effective guarantee of safe passage through war zones for passing sports fans.
Yet later that day Mr Papandreou (pictured, above, with President Karolos Papoulias) was forced to withdraw Mr Petsalnikos's candidacy amid a threatened rebellion by backbenchers in his Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok).