The two big reasons for Sydney’s 2000 Olympic success
Steve Larkin |
One simple fact evidences the success of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Australia’s Olympic boss says.
The world could barely wait to give Australia another Games.
“The fact we were awarded the Brisbane Games only 21 years after running the Sydney Games was really a testament to how good those Games were in Sydney,” Australian Olympic Committee president Ian Chesterman told AAP on Monday.
“And to how much confidence the Sydney Games has given the global sports movement that Australia is a very safe pair of hands and that we will always put on a good show.”
Australia will host the Olympics in Brisbane and surrounds in 2032, aiming to replicate the triumphant Sydney Games, which opened on September 15, 25 years ago.
Only the United States (12 years) and France (24 years) waited less years between hosting summer Olympics.
Chesterman said there were two main factors for Sydney’s Games being such a raging success.
“One is the volunteers and the friendliness of the welcome, the genuineness of the welcome,” he said.
“The other pivotal thing was the success of the home team.
“We constantly repeat that the success of a home Games requires the success of the home team.
“That’s something which was understood back in 2000 – we saw a major step-up in government support for our Olympic sports leading in to Sydney 2000.
“The IOC (International Olympic Committee) understood that if you want to get the buzz of the crowd going, you have to be producing home-ground medals.
“We’re very keen to make sure people understand that. And that is the real setting of a successful home Games.”
In Sydney, Australians won 58 medals – the most at any Olympics.
“Leading into Brisbane, we need to be working very hard to make sure our athletes and our sports system is where it needs to be if we want them to be successful,” Chesterman said.
“Because if they’re not, that’s what people will remember.
“And if they are, then there is a whole lot of sins that can be forgiven.
“If you don’t get every other aspect of the Games right, well, that doesn’t become the focus if your team, if your athletes, are doing a great job on the field of play.”
Australian Olympic greats from the 2000 Games, including Ian Thorpe, attended Sydney’s Newington Public School on Monday to mark the 25th anniversary.
Swim legend Thorpe, who won three gold and two silver medals in 2000, noted the schoolchildren were about the same age out from the Brisbane Games as he was – 10 – when Sydney was awarded hosting rights in 1993.
“At that age and at that time, I actually didn’t think I would be old enough to go to the Olympics,” Thorpe told reporters.
“I didn’t think I would be a good enough swimmer, I had barely started swimming.
“So potentially, when we talk about kids this age, there’s future Olympians there that could be at the Brisbane Games.”
AAP
