Over 50 Canadian athletes, including two-time Olympian marathoner Bruce Deacon, did not make the COC's "top 12" cutoff despite achieved the international qualifying standards in their respective sports.

After 2004 the COC scrapped this policy but still maintains additional hurdles beyond international standards to ensure that athletes are in shape for the Olympics.

[2] Canada left Athens with a total of 12 medals (3 golds, 6 silver, and 3 bronze), the lowest in Summer Olympic history since 1988.

Manager: 12 – Ernie Whitt Coaches: 42 – Denis Boucher, 7 – Marty Lehn, 10 – Greg Hamilton, 21 – Tim Leiper.

Canada's most notable success was Benoit Gaudet defeat of Thai former champion Somluck Kamsing and Andrew Kooner who made it to the quarter-final in the Bantamweight class.

While the Canadians did well, with a number of finals appearances, only one group won medals the men's fours of Cam Baerg, Jake Wetzel, Thomas Herschmiller and Barney Williams won the silver medal in the men's four rowing final, losing to Great Britain by only 0.08 seconds.

This led to calls for the resignation of head coach Dave Johnson by a number of former swimmers, most notably Barcelona gold medallist Mark Tewksbury.

There were a few bright spots, including Rick Say making it to the finals of the 200 m freestyle, considered by many to be the premier event of the 2004 Olympics, and a number of Canadian records were set.

Rick Say created a minor controversy after the 4×200-metre freestyle relay immediately in the post-race interview which was aired live on national television, when he said that he was "pissed off at not being able to make up for my teammates' mistakes".

The other three team members - Brent Hayden, Brian Johns, and Andrew Hurd - expressed disappointment not in the effort, which broke the Canadian record by over 3.5 seconds, but only in the 5th-place finish which was out of the medals.

Canada had a strong triathlon program, including the defending men's gold medallist Simon Whitfield, who won surprisingly in Sydney.

The women's race was something of a disappointment, as top-ranked Canadian Jill Savege, who came out of the water in fifth place, crashed in the bicycle stage and only finished 39th.

Losing the other two games in the preliminary round put Canada in last place in the pool and eliminated the team from medal contention.

The cable channels TSN & RDS won the rights to broadcast some parts of the games, mostly team sports that CBC and Radio-Canada decided not to cover.