With just days to go until the start of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, my memories are of a joyous time in the past, when I was living in a Summer Games host city and was treated to two weeks of spectacular sporting action and a nation brimming with pride. But it is not the London Games of 2012 that I find myself reminiscing about, but Sydney in 2000. In the summer of 2012, I was in Japan, on the other side of the world from the UK, very busy with work and in a time zone that made it very difficult to follow what was happening in my country of birth. I was able to enjoy seeing social media posts from my friends and family in the UK, all proud of the sporting successes of GB athletes and the spectacle that the UK was putting on for the world to see. And I could watch a few sporting highlights and news broadcasts to feel some of the atmosphere. But there was not a particularly strong connection in 2012, not like I had in 2000 in Sydney. Living in a host city is, I think, something special, a unique experience.
The Olympic journey for Sydney started in September 1993, 6 months after I had emigrated to Australia. In Monaco, the I.O.C President, Juan Antonio Samaranch, announced at 4:27am Sydney time “the winner is Sydney”. He couldn’t quite pronounce Sydney correctly, but everybody forgave him for that. The nation was nervously waiting through the night for the announcement, with Beijing being the clear favourites to win the right to host the 2000 Games. But it was Sydney that won and the massive crowds that had gathered in Circular Quay, in front of the Sydney Opera House, celebrated wildly through the night. I watched it on TV at home and then cycled into the city to start work at around 8 am and the party was still going strong. And it went all day long. This was a big day in Australia’s history, as then Prime Minister Paul Keating said “It’s a defining decision that marks out the Australian nation as one that can carry the greatest international pageant of our time: the Olympics.”
And then we waited 7 years for the Games to start. There were the usual discussions about it being a waste of money, no one will come all the way to Australia to watch it, the city’s transport system won’t be able to cope, etc etc, but basically, the country was behind the event in those years leading up to the Games. My Mum was keen to come over from the UK, so when tickets went on sale through the ballot, I applied and to my surprise managed to pick up two tickets for 2 days; my Mum’s choice, the cross-country in the equestrian eventing and my first choice, a night at the Olympic Stadium for Athletics. We had a great day out at the eventing, on a warm sunny Spring day just outside Sydney. But it was the night at the Athletics which made memories that will be with me for a lifetime. By chance, I had got lucky with the tickets I had won in the ballot, Monday 25 September, which came to be known as Magic Monday and to this day is widely regarded as one of the most thrilling nights in athletics history. Nine finals (3 field, 6 track), with the drawcard for Aussies being the Women’s 400m Final, featuring Australia’s Cathy Freeman, an Aboriginal woman from Mackay, North Queensland.
She was the poster girl of the Sydney Olympics, lighting the Olympic flame at the opening ceremony on a cold night. But the lead-up to the race was filled with controversy, with her main rival for gold, French woman Marie-Jose Perec, at the centre of it. The attention on Perec was acute, the drama reminiscent of a soap opera. She was harassed and hounded by the press and eventually controversially fled the country in mysterious circumstances, amid doubtful stories of intruders and threats.
Later, Perec said: “The 400m in Sydney was not a race against Cathy Freeman, it was a race against an entire nation. I was only prepared for a 400m.”
The expectation on Cathy was intense. My Mum and I were perched up high in the stadium, in the cheap seats! From the first final of the night, the inaugural Olympic women’s pole vault, the 112,000 crowd was captivated. Former rodeo rider Stacy Dragila took gold for the USA while Russian-born Australian Tatiana Grigorieva earned silver. Then the men’s triple jump featuring Jonathan Edwards got underway, right below where we were sitting. Edwards went on to win gold. Then it was the big one, the women’s 400m final. All eyes were on Cathy as she took off her tracksuit to reveal her unique Nike designed full body suit. That was a statement! The athletes on the starting blocks, total silence in the stadium, you could hear a pin drop. The gun fired and the decibel level soared. The energy in that stadium was like nothing I had experienced before. I had seen Manchester United play big games in front of big crowds, but this was something different. Freeman did not lead from the start to finish however. She entered the home straight third behind Jamaica’s Lorraine Graham and Great Britain’s Katharine Merry.
But midway down the home straight, she burst into the lead, her trademark long stride eating up the ground as she opened up a decisive margin on the field.
Moments after crossing the finish line, Freeman shut her eyes and let out several long sighs. The relief of winning was visible. She sat on the track and pulled off her shoes. Her victory lap was memorable, carrying the Aboriginal flag and the Australian flag. In 1994, she carried the Aboriginal flag after winning a race and it caused great controversy, but in Sydney in 2000 the same act was seen as a moment for the nation, symbolising the Australian people’s desire for reconciliation with Aboriginal people and pride in her Aboriginal cultural heritage.
Freeman may have been the highlight, but there was no anticlimactic feeling for the remainder of the evening. Fifteen minutes after Freeman’s gold, Michael Johnson destroyed the opposition in the men’s event to retain his Olympic 400m title.
In the next track final, Cuban Anier Garcia defeated world champion Colin Jackson and Olympic champion Allen Johnson to take the men’s 110m hurdles gold.
Gabriela Szabo and Ireland’s Sonia O’Sullivan then battled out a titanic women’s 5000m final while the penultimate track final of the night saw Maria Mutola came from behind down the home stretch to win a high-quality women’s 800m for Mozambique.
The night reached an almighty crescendo with the greatest men’s 10,000m final in history when Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie beat his Kenyan arch-rival Paul Tergot by 0.09s to conclude the perfect night.
Cathy Freeman brought Australians together that night and for me personally, I felt a true connection with and pride for my newly adopted country. I hope the Tokyo 2020 Games can leave some lasting memories for us all to remember.
Here is a link to a 30 minute video showing all the events that unfolded on Magic Monday. The Olympic organisation will not allow me to embed the video in this post. Boo to them. Just copy and paste the url below into your browser. Please bear with the monotone voice-over.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBjuhq__XPk
And I cannot write about Australia without mentioning Kylie Minogue. Here is Kylie singing Dancing Queen at the Sydney 2000 opening ceremony. Again, the Olympics control the official video so we don’t get to see her spectacular reveal on stage.