Cathy
Freeman lights the Olympic Flame and sets Australia ablaze
Sean Wallace-Jones for IAAF in Sydney
15 September 2000 - To enthusiastic roars from the 110,000 crowd packing the Sydney Olympic Stadium, Australian icon Cathy Freeman lit the Olympic flame and fired the climactic finish to a spectacular Australian extravaganza lasting over four hours.
The crowd had thrilled to a magnificent show that had run the whole gamut of the Aussie experience, with symbolic references to the original homesteaders and the building of the Australian. Opened by a cavalcade of hundreds and proceeding through a surrealistic "deep sea dreaming", the ceremony featured the greatest assembling ever of the various Aboriginal tribes and a medley of music ranging from the ethnic to the popular.
The traditional parade of the athletes achieved particular significance as the two Koreas entered the stadium hand in hand and under a common flag for the first time since the bitter division of the Korean war and brought the whole stadium to its feet amid tumultuous applause. Repeated when the three athletes from East Timor entered the stadium under the Olympic flag.
And then came the Flame.
In a special tribute marking a hundred years of women’s participation in the Olympics, six great Australian women Olympians - Raelene Boyle, 3 silver medals in the 100m and 200m pushed in Betty Cuthbert winner of 3 gold medals in 1956 and a fourth in 1964; Dawn Fraser who won three golds in the 100m freestyle in 1956, 1960 and 1964, Shirley Strickland de la Huntey, gold in the 80m hurdles in 1952 and 1956 and in the 4x100m relay also in 1956; Shane Gould hundred metre freestyle gold medallist in 1972 and Debbie Flintoff-King, 400m hurdles gold medallist in 1988 - bore the torch in its final circuit of the Stadium prior to the lighting of the Olympic Flame that will burn throughout the sixteen days of this XXVII Olympiad.
And then the stadium, rose to its feet with a roar as Freeman, the 27 year-old silver medallist from Atlanta and reigning World Champion in the 400m, received the torch from Flintoff-King and ascended to plunge the torch into what appeared to be a pool of water, creating a ring of fire that rose about her and became the flaming cauldron of the Olympic Flame that will light the Olympic venue for the duration of the Games.
Few in Australia would argue with the choice of Cathy Freeman as recipient of this singular honour in Sydney: she is without a doubt the greatest hope for Australian gold in Athletics, the leading Olympic sport. She is a woman and representative of the new generation of sports people in which Australia has invested much in terms of effort and hard cash in recent years.
Last and far from least, Cathy is an Aborigine and the most highly publicised symbol of the native people of this land, an inspiration and a force for the unity and equality that is one of the fundamental principles of our sport and the whole Olympic movement.