Australia competed at the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens, Greece. It was Australia's 12th year of participation at the Paralympics. The team included 151 athletes (91 men and 60 women). Australian competitors won 101 medals (26 gold, 39 silver and 36 bronze) to finish fifth in the gold medal table and second on the total medal table. Australia competed in 12 sports and won medals in 8 sports. The Chef de Mission was Paul Bird. The Australian team was smaller than the Sydney Games due to a strict selection policy related to the athletes' potential to win a medal and the International Paralympic Committee's decision to remove events for athletes with an intellectual disability from the Games due to issues of cheating at the Sydney Games. This was due to a cheating scandal with the Spanish intellectually disabled basketball team in the 2000 Summer Paralympics where it was later discovered that only two players actually had intellectual disabilities. The IPC decision resulted in leading Australian athletes such as Siobhan Paton and Lisa Llorens not being able to defend their Paralympic titles.