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G'Day! Sydney welcomes world with Opening Ceremonies
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Unveiling itself to a curious world, Australia inaugurated the 2000 Summer Olympics on Friday with a multicultural pageant of triumphs and tears. Its hearty message to the planet's signature sports spectacle: "G'day!" Teams from 200 lands strode into the newly minted Olympic Stadium, welcomed by 110,000 cheering fans and an expected television audience of billions. Athletes from Korea -- not North, not South, just Korea -- marched in under one unification banner, grinning, holding hands and basking in a warm standing ovation. As the 600-strong U.S. team entered in cowboy hats and bandanas, Chelsea Clinton stood and applauded. Australian Olympian Cathy Freeman, an Aborigine, carried the Olympic torch for its last leg -- up four sets of glowing white stairs -- and walked through a shallow pond of gleaming water toward a vast waterfall before she ignited the cauldron. In an extraordinarily intricate spectacle, columns of flame rose around her and ascended skyward. A choir's voices crescendoed and deafening orange fireworks illuminated Sydney's sky, introducing two weeks of excitement and indelible athletic memories.
Organizers said they structured the ceremony to show off Australia's best, without ignoring its darker chapters -- including its origins as a penal colony and the centuries-long subjugation of indigenous Aborigines. It began with depictions of the aboriginal creation myth and swept through a stylized rendition of history that introduced such diverse creatures as platypuses, English colonists and young women with exposed belly buttons. Smoke billowed. Fabric undulated. Performers in stilts stalked the stage in symbolic tribute to yesterday's Australia. The arena glowed with ethereal blues and angry oranges as deafening drums beat a tattoo. And the culture's most familiar tune, "Waltzing Matilda," sprang jubilantly into the air from the instruments of a 2,000-piece band. Figures real and mythic from the nation's past -- 12,697 performers in all -- introduced the flavor of an MGM musical epic. They tried to bring Australia into focus and transcend the kangaroo and Crocodile Dundee cliches that have circled the globe and irritated many of the country's residents. Freeman's majestic entry, in a sleek white bodysuit, fit this effort ideally. Putting the ultimate spotlight on her triple-threat identity -- as Australian, aborigine and athlete -- conveyed the desired message: that the social injustices and racism in her country's past are gone for good. The U.S. team, 600 strong, brought assembled luminaries to their feet -- Bill Gates, Muhammad Ali, Clinton cabinet member Donna Shalala. The first daughter, flanked by Secret Service agents, grinned as enthusiastically as they scowled. When the Australian team entered, golfer Greg Norman and publishing magnate Rupert Murdoch cheered. "This is your time -- enjoy it," Australian Governor General Sir William Deane told his countrymen. International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch, presiding over his final Games, issued a "special tribute" to Australia's aboriginal people and "those who have made Australia what it is today." "To all the athletes of the world, good luck!" Samaranch said before asking Deane to declare the Games open as the 11,000 competitors cheered.
And another shadow, one of the IOC's own creation. It is rebuilding its image after the biggest corruption scandal in its century-long history. Ten committee members quit or were expelled when investigators found they had benefited from the million-dollar vote-buying scheme to win Salt Lake City the 2002 Winter Games. Investigators also questioned Sydney's bidding practice but found no wrongdoing. The parade of athletes, always rousing, offered a special bonus this year -- idealism in action straight from the Korean peninsula. The sworn Cold War enemies for two generations marched in identical outfits. Though the Northerners wore lapel pins depicting their late leader, Kim Il Sung, it was hard to tell the groups apart -- which was exactly the point. "I was deeply touched," Samaranch said later. He called the entire proceeding "the most beautiful opening ceremony of my presidency." It featured pomp -- "March of the Olympians" and the Chariots of Fire theme -- and some decidedly odd circumstances as well. The Australian team was welcomed with, among other tunes, the offbeat 1980s Men at Work song "Down Under," which introduced a generation of American teen-agers to the word "vegemite." Notable, if only by their absence, were the inflatable kangaroos on bicycles that drew so much criticism in 1996 when Australia used them to introduce itself during the Atlanta Games' closing ceremony. The ceremony's director, Ric Birch, said he tried to fashion a "true portrait of Australia" that fairly depicted a people he described as passionate, creative, emotional and inclusive. "What we've tried to do is reflect our culture," said the ceremony's artistic director, David Atkins. NBC tracked the show with 60 cameras, including one in a blimp and another in a helicopter. The ceremony's head sound man knew what was up, too; he used to work for Elvis. In downtown Sydney, meanwhile, the promised aboriginal protests unfolded during the afternoon. About 800 slogan-shouting demonstrators marched through the city flanked by dozens of police who stopped traffic. And the drug problem, one of the IOC's chief banes, loomed as well. On Friday, the Romanian team withdrew a weightlifter after reports he had failed a drug test. But for one happy evening, that stuff was secondary. On Friday night it was Australia and the world, beginning their two-week dance of competition, partnership and pageantry. Xenofox Pliatsikas, a Greek immigrant from Sydney, approved of it all. He pronounced the ceremony -- and its star, the poised 13-year-old actress Nikki Webster -- "a bit of magic." "It is a great night tonight," Pliatsikas said, "and I'm looking forward to 2004 in Athens."
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