Living the Dream...
FEELING GO - LIVING IN THE SHADOW OF THE DREAM
(REMEMBER: IF YOU'RE MENTIONED BY NAME ITS COS I LOVE YOU DEARLY. IF YOU'RE NOT, ITS ONLY TO PROTECT MYSELF IN THE LIBEL COURT)
THE OLYMPIC GAMES: It may come round once every four years, but the chance to be in an olympic city whilst the games are in progress is rarer... Luckily, I've been here in Sydney for the 2000 games. Here's some of my personal highlights...
Living the Dream...
THE OPENING CEREMONY
Seen from behind the ducking and dodging heads of about forty thousand people on Martin Place in downtown Sydney was not the ideal viewing conditions for the audio visual spectacluar that was the Opening Ceremony. My most vivid memory of it all was when a large sheet was passed down the stand and out onto the field, where The Dove Of Peace was projected onto it. Everybody around me went "Ahh..." and cheered the uniting of man for two weeks of sports, peace and friendship. It was just at that moment that two metres over to my left the pie seller layed into the two youths he had been forced to drag off the roof of his stall after several requests for them to come down of their own free will. How refreshing to see the message on the screen carry so far and for so long, all of two seconds...
THE JOB
Quitting the newspaper job on a whim I took my work contingency plan and embarked on a three week stint at the Darling Harbour Convention Centre, venue for some of the sports of the 27th Olympiad.
I was working for the logistics team, those backroom boys responsible for supplying athletes with clean towels, taking away the dirty ones, keeping journalists stocked up with soft drinks, and generally thinking up any excuse we could to take one of the fleet of golf buggies we had at our disposal for a razz around the Convention Centre. The car I seemed to be continually lumbered with was a red pick up, very much in the style of a Postman Pat's van, and had a pace slower than a snail on an uphill stretch of glue and treacle.
LEFT:Me, pulling rank and brandishing my authority, thus averting a potential sweaty towel related olympic diplomatic incident from the comfort of my mobile command unit.
RIGHT:Me, calling your pint a puff in the Olympic Wrestling Arena.
The other 'perk' of the job was the uniform. Despite reading in the press that some people had been offered up to $5000 (Australian) for their complete uniforms, the best I was offered was from the Italian boxing coach who wanted to swap mine for his own sweaty polo shirt, which at the time, seemed like a poor exchange, but thinking back was probably the best I could hope to get for my own sweaty athlete's towel, soft drink, golf buggy battery oiled stained rag.
THE GAMES
Being at the venue inevitably meant being at The Games. I was able to go and view what I wanted during my breaks, and I took full advantage of the prevailage. I saw Fencing, which was a real 'blink and you miss it ' sort of thing. The same could be said for the Judo. I waited all week to see this huge mountain of a man from the Ukraine fight in the heavyweight category. The other competitor spent three minutes trying to throw over the Ukranian but without any success. With just a few seconds to go the Unkranian turned on his opponent and belly-flopped him, pinning him to the ground and thus winning the bout! Tactic-tastic!
Wrestling was a bit beyond my comprehension. but I was able to see the Heavyweight final of the Weightlifting where the Iranian bloke (forget his name now) lifted a phenomenal amount of weight putting himself in the book of world records and onto the gold medal podium in the process. I fulfilled a lifetime ambition to see someone break a sporting world record.
However, the best moment of the Games at Darling Harbour for me was to be sitting ringside when Audley Harrison won Gold for Great Britain in the boxing! Marvellous, the first time I've felt patriotic in a long time. Those of you who stayed up to watch the fight may have heard our chants of "AUD-LEY! stamp-stamp-stamp AUD-LEY! stamp-stamp-stamp". I'm not saying that the giddy shouts of "Finish him Audley!", "Go on Audley! Unleash The Fury!" and "Go on Audley! Eye Of The Tiger!" from me and fellow countryman and co-worker Nathan decided the bout, but I'm sure they helped him on the way to Olympic Glory! On Yer, Audley!
Audley Harrison,Olympic Super Heavyweight Gold Medalist.
Outside of Darling Harbour I got to see some Three Day Eventing (???) , and Track & Field. I was able to witness the debacle that was the GB men's 4 x 100m relay qualifiers first hand. I'm a firm believer in the old adage about if you can't say anything good... We all have our off days but that was just too much. I went to the Cuba vs USA baseball game. Most entertaining to see so many people dressed up as Fidel Castro. It was hard to tell whether all the support in the ground was pro-Cuban or just anti-American. To those of you subscribing to the latter, I suggest you go and meet them on their own turf. Remember, sweeping generalisations about a race is how Hitler got started...
MORE OLYMPIC GAMES PICTURESTHE CLOSING CEREMONY
Sorry, got pissed and missed most of that...
Next on the cards is a move on from Sydney and further south to Melbourne and Tasmania.
BACK TO THE TOP OF FEELING GO?