ATHENS, Aug. 14 (Xinhuanet) -- The great success of the opening ceremony of the 2004 Athens Olympiad is a "really strong answer" to those who had criticized Athens for "behind-schedule Games preparations", Games chief organizer said here at an overnight press conference.

    "What is really important now is that we have achieved great success and have passed the difficult period. It is like that we have opened the door and is in a new stage," said Gianna Angelopoulos Daskalaki, president of the Athens Olympic OrganizingCommittee (ATHOC), shortly after the end of the Game's grand ceremony.

    The opening ceremony, especially its performance part, has promoted the history, culture and ancient civilization of Greece to the rest of the world through "modern and pioneering means", aswell as "in a way that they can be absorbed easily", said Angelopoulos.

    "Tonight we shared our culture and history with more than four billion people around the world. We have displayed an excellent image of Greece," she added.

    The ATHOC president said that she was "very very happy", "very very satisfied" about the opening ceremony and "very very proud" of all those people involved in it, especially the ceremony's chief designer and director Dimitris Papaionnou.

    Calling the opening ceremony a "once-in-a-lifetime experience" for himself, the modest Papaionnou claimed that it was actually not very difficult to do his job.

    "What we have expressed in our show is the art that belongs to the whole world, the art of love. We consider that all art createdin this land was created truly from love," he explained.

    Though the press conference, originally scheduled to begin at 1a.m., was delayed for nearly half an hour, more than 100 media persons waited with great patience in the press conference hall and paid tribute to the director, the ATHOC president and her aides upon their arrival with warm applause.

    However, the ATHOC president had refrained from making any comparison between the opening ceremony of this Games and that of the previous one in Sydney.

    "Each Games has its own character and each host city has its own culture and mentality," she said. "For Athens, what makes it unique is the home-coming of the Olympic Games." Enditem