2000 Summer Olympics cauldron

About

The 2000 Summer Olympics cauldron is a heritage-listed former Olympic flame holder and now fountain at Cathy Freeman Park, near the corner of Olympic Boulevard and the Grand Parade, Sydney Olympic Park, in the City of Parramatta Council, New South Wales, Australia. It was originally designed by Michael Scott-Mitchell for the 2000 Summer Olympics with the design of the re-presentation in Cathy Freeman Park by Tzannes Associates. It was built from 2000 to 2010 by Engineers Tierney and Partners with the assistance of LUSAS Civil and Structural. It is also known as Olympic Cauldron at Sydney Olympic Park, The Cauldron, Sydney Olympic Games Cauldron, Millenium Games Cauldron and Sydney 2000 Games Cauldron. The property is owned by the Sydney Olympic Park Authority. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 10 September 2010.

The Sydney 2000 Games, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad or the Millennium Games, was an international multi-sport event which was celebrated between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney. It was the second time that the Summer Olympics were held in the southern hemisphere (the first being the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne ).

The Sydney 2000 Games was considered to be a big sporting event and national success story: 'From the moment the first stock horse and rider galloped in to the centre of the opening-ceremony stage...the public sentiment became one of overwhelming confidence. The weather remained friendly....The venues, the crowd control and the public transport system were perfect, the volunteers a delight....For 17 days, from opening to closing, the whole experience had an almost other-worldly quality to it. To be in the streets was to be surrounded by a smile....The mood of mutual enjoyment was infectious and at times a little dream-like....Like all Olympic Games, Sydney 2000 showcased heroes and heroines and yielded lifetime memories that encapsulated proud and improbably spectacles, as well as performances that prickled our deepest emotions....10,561 athletes from 200 countries competed for 300 gold medals... (Gordon, 2003, p191-3)

Juan Antonio Samaranch, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) famously stated at the conclusion to the games: "You have presented to the world the best Olympic Games ever".

The Sydney Olympic Games opening ceremony

At sunset on Friday, 15 September 2000, approximately 110,000 spectators and over 12,000 performers celebrated the opening of the 27th Olympiad in Sydney, Australia. Four billion viewers joined them worldwide.

Ric Birch, the Director of Ceremonies and David Atkins, the artistic director, produced an epic pageant of Australian culture. From a lone rider on a chestnut stallion to the 120 stock horses and riders who started the show at a gallop, to the 11 minutes corroboree, Awakening, where 900 indigenous citizens created the most haunting segment of the opening ceremony to the performers who breathed flames to recreate a bushfire, the audience saw a visual tapestry of this country.

In Deep Sea Dreaming, 13-year-old Nikki Webster floated amongst giant luminous jellyfish, seahorses, and anemones above the arena, while the sea floor flickered with schools of human fish. Dreamtime spirits represented by Djakapurra Munyarryn and hundreds of clan members filled the stadium with images of the original Australians, which led into a magical wildflower carpet, with people dressed as honey myrtles, waterlilies, banksias, and Sturt Desert peas, with waratahs glowing a vibrant crimson. Hundreds of students sprouted petals and leaves.

Captain Cook's First Fleet arrived, then Ned Kelly came out in force in Tin Symphony, which paid tribute to Australia's rural beginnings. Then, "Arrivals" introduced the many people from every continent who have chosen to call Australian home, culminating in a thunderous tribute to industry in the form of Adam Garcia 's large troupe of tappers, who made the sparks fly. They were then joined by many of the 12,600 performers for a huge finale before welcoming to the arena a 2,000 piece marching band with participants from around the globe. Their stirring renditions of " Waltzing Matilda ", " Chariots of Fire " and the LA Olympic fanfare and theme introduced the athletes who were to follow.

A seemingly endless parade of 12,000 athletes and coaches, from 200 countries - the largest representation of any Olympic games. North and South Korea marched united for the first time in nearly a century, and a wave of emotion swept the stadium, but nothing compared to the roar that greeted the Australian team.

Herb Elliott, 1,500m gold medallist at Rome, ran with the torch into Stadium Australia and handed it to Betty Cuthbert, whose wheelchair was pushed by Raelene Boyle. Dawn Fraser, Shirley Strickland de la Hunty, Shane Gould and Debbie Flintoff-King then carried the flame in tribute to 100 years of women's participation in the Olympics.

Finally the Torch was handed to Cathy Freeman, Australia's favourite who was given the honour of lighting the cauldron, in a magnificent display of fire and water against a backdrop of the seventy-metre waterfall'.

The lighting of the Olympic Cauldron at the Sydney 2000 Olympics

On 10 May 2000 in Olympia, Greece, the 2000 Summer Olympics torch relay was commenced with a flame which would be carried by various means of transport across the world to Australia. In Australia the torch followed a circuitous 27,000 km journey around the country visiting many towns and communities, starting in Uluru and ending in Sydney. the Torch relay ceremony became characterised by "a blend of pride, enjoyment, wonder and bonding - a reinforced sense of national identity" (Gordon, 2003, p144).

The final lap of Stadium Australia with the torch offered not only the opportunity to for the 110,000 crowd to salute a magnificent medley of six Australian women who had between them won 15 gold medals. There was a "kind of crossing-off process" in solving the identity of the person who would light the Olympic Cauldron. The relay had begun with young indigenous woman Nova Peris, and ended with another in Cathy Freeman. The Freeman culmination, at the end of a ceremony that had emphasised Aboriginal heritage and addressed the issue of reconciliation, amounted to a quietly eloquent statement about the kind of nation Australia aspired to be. It underlined itself boldly as a significant moment in the nation's history.

Freeman ascended four flights of stairs carrying the torch before walking across a shallow circular pond to an island in the centre, where she dipped the torch low and swept it around her to ignite a ring of fire. The pond concealed a submerged ring-shaped cauldron which slowly rose around Freeman as fire burned around the 150 gas-fed nozzles around the rim. The concealed cauldron concept was the brainchild of Ric Birch; he had nursed it since he first took it to engineers and project managers in 1995. The submerged cauldron as it appeared on the night was conceived by the cauldron designer, Michael Scott-Mitchell. He designed the sequence with Freeman in mind four years earlier but was only informed that she would indeed light the cauldron in the early hours of the day of the Opening Ceremony. Freeman stood motionless as the flaming cauldron rose around her, however the cauldron conveyor mechanism tripped an emergency sensor which caused the cauldron to remain in place above Freeman, at the base of the conveyor designed to move the cauldron to the roof of the stadium. Freeman stood beneath the flaming cauldron for approximately three minutes, holding a pose of the torch raised above her as the two attendant engineers, Teter Tait and Rob Ironside scrambled to re-start the conveyor. The cauldron was successfully restarted and reached its destination at the top of the stadium.

Despite the temporary glitch, the television footage of Cathy Freeman lighting the cauldron was declared "the sporting image of the year" by Sportel, a major international sports television convention held annually in Monaco, which awarded its coveted "Golden Podium" award to the Sydney Olympic Broadcasting Organisation for the cauldron lighting sequence.

Catherine Astrid Salome Freeman, OAM (known as Cathy Freeman ) (born 16 February 1973) is an Australian Aboriginal sprinter who is particularly associated with the 400 metres running race. She became the Olympic champion for 400 m in the 2000 Sydney games, at which she lit the Olympic Flame. Freeman was born in Slade Point, Mackay, Queensland, where the local athletics track is named after her.

Freeman's first coach was her stepfather, Bruce Barber. By her early teens she had a collection of regional and national titles, from competing in the 100 metres, 200 metres and high jump. In 1990, Freeman was chosen as a member of Australia's 4X100 m relay team for the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, New Zealand. The team won the gold medal, making Freeman the first Aboriginal Commonwealth Games gold medallist, as well as one of the youngest, at 16 years old. In 1992, Freeman competed in her first Olympic Games, reaching the second round of the 400 metres. Competing at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Canada, Freeman won gold in both the 200 m and 400 m. At the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Freeman won the silver medal behind France's Marie-Jose Perec in an Australian record of 48.63 seconds. In 1997 at the World Championships in Athens, Freeman won the World title in 49.77 seconds and in 1999, successfully defended her World title.

Freeman was the home favourite for the 400 m title at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, where she was expected to face-off with rival Perec. This showdown never happened, as Perec left the Games after an encounter with an Australian photographer. Freeman won the Olympic title in a time of 49.11 seconds. After the race, Freeman took a victory lap, carrying both the Aboriginal and Australian flags, despite the fact that unofficial flags are banned at the Olympic Games.