Greg Lewis Lewis returns sadly, as he is
without the pet echidna that would have made his apartment
complete. If you have an extra one, e-mail [email protected]
If Sydney was a basketball team, it certainly would have been
coached by John Wooden.
Before I left, I referred to my 10 days in Australia, as
“my trip to the Olympics.”
Now, it’s “my trip to Sydney.” As a sports
fan, I never thought that would happen. I did not think some city
where the toilets flush backward would be more memorable than
watching the fastest man on Earth one day, and a gold medal
softball game the next.
After all, the Olympics are the essence of sports. How could
they compete with a city known for its Opera House?
But Sydney is just like a Wooden team. Everything about it
works.
The first step the Australian Olympic Committee took to walk the
walk in making 2000 the best Olympic games yet was actually
offering spectator-friendly events.
Sit in row 35, and there’s an empty seat in row 20? No
problem. Just sit there. At the USA-Australia softball gold medal
game, I moved up from row 38 to row 1.
See your favorite athlete on the wrestling mat, and you are
stuck in the far corner? Run right down to the floor and take a
snap shot.
This is a far cry from UCLA game management, where they cane you
if you look at a seat two rows down.
Step two by the AOC ““ Olympic event tickets doubled as
passes to ride the Sydney rail system for free.
The Sydney buses were an event in themselves. Three times I rode
a bus, three times I heard the whole bus singing in harmony. The
songs “Waltzing Matilda,” “The Star Spangled
Banner” and “The wheels on the bus go round and round
…” were the most popular.
Another quirk that many travellers noticed and nicknamed
“Aussie advice” was the sometimes troublesome
politeness of the Sydneysiders.
If you ask an Australian for advice, they will be more than
happy to give it. Unfortunately, they are not always right. Getting
directions to something that turns out to be right around the
corner can be much more complicated than necessary.
After exploring the city for eight days, I was on my way to
Darling Harbour to watch wrestling. Two rather large men wearing
Estonia National Team jackets appeared lost, so I asked them where
they were trying to go.
One responded by waving his arms around for several seconds,
pantomiming a giant bear hug, before finally picking out the right
word ““ “Rassling,” he said.
After I pointed him in the right direction, I felt that I knew
the city better than most of the people who lived there.
That’s the other thing about the Olympics. The athletes
are people. Although the Dream Team demanded to stay in a luxury
hotel, most athletes were walking around the city, looking just as
much like a tourist as any other vacationer.
I sat next to the Slovenian delegation at the world’s
largest IMAX and talked about their efforts to field an Olympic
team despite a horrible national economy.
On more than one occasion, I ran into United States athletes
shopping for CDs or picking out a boomerang to bring home to their
family.
After gold-medal wrestler Rulon Gardner’s semifinal match,
we struck up a conversation, and he asked if I wanted a picture
together.
Athletes were all over the place ““ in bars, in museums at
the Opera House, climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Watching all the competitors have the time of their lives at the
closing ceremonies, this much was obvious:
“This was the best Olympic games ever,”
International Olympic Committee Chairman Juan Antonio Samaranch
said.
What really made the Olympic games great was Sydney.
Sports Illustrated’s Rick Reilly was right. He wrote,
“I know where the 2008 Olympics should be. Sydney. The 2012
Olympics? Sydney.”
Besides live events, the one thing you cannot possibly find out
from NBC is how perfect a city Sydney is.
The pictures on the television are nothing compared to reality.
The city is almost perfectly clean, every building is different and
more creative than the one next to it. Every street is bright, a
pleasure to walk down.
Bondi and Manly beaches are beautiful white sand expanses,
enclosed on both sides by cliffs that rival any Mediterranean
island.
After a train ride of less than an hour (and over 100 murals of
Ian Thorpe), you can pet koalas, kangaroos and echidnas in the
wild.
I guess I have to admit the Olympics were not perfect this year.
Just ask the Russian gymnasts who scoffed at the results of the
vault after it was set to the wrong height.
Also, NBC failed in their part to show the games to the
world.
On Saturday, Sept. 27, I watched Ato Bolden and Marion Jones win
their heats of the 200-meter at 10:30 a.m., Sydney time. My plane
left at 6 p.m.
The flight, plus the delay, took 16 hours. Customs and finding a
ride home from the airport took another two hours.
When I finally got home, I flipped on the TV to watch more
Olympics. A few hours later, I saw the same races I had watched in
Sydney 24 hours before.
And NBC exec Dick Ebersol wonders where the ratings went. If
viewers respond as slow as NBC, he should check the next ratings
period.
But back to the Games. Some have speculated that if Athens
cannot get back on schedule with its planning for the 2004 games,
Sydney should be the default city because it last hosted the
Olympics.
Anybody who was in Sydney this time around won’t be able
to help wondering exactly when is Greece’s deadline.