[an error occurred while processing this directive] |
 |
|
Top that, Salt Lake!
The closing ceremony fireworks for the Summer Games light up Sydney Harbor Bridge and Opera House on Sunday. Despite pre-Games jitters, Australian organizers are widely credited with pulling off a superb Olympics.
Ravell Call, Deseret News |
In the wake of Sydney's stupendous, colossal, fabulous, would've-been-perfect-but-it-rained-one-night, picture-postcard, no-worries Olympics, the Olympic movement now moves on to Salt Lake City 2002. But first, just one question.
Is it too late to give it back?
We follow that?
Whose idea was it for Salt Lake to host the Olympics anyway? Why, we oughta haul them into court.
I'm just kidding. Of course we want the Olympics.
But if the Aussies aren't doing anything a year from February, maybe they could come and give their mates in Salt Lake a hand.
I just spent 17 straight days in Sydney as they kept insisting they'd never hosted an Olympics before. Well, it didn't show. They acted like they host one every weekend.
They were just so good at it. So obliging.
Like the night the lines were stacking up in the harbor. Huge Olympic-going crowds were lined up at the ferry gates, at which point the operators lifted the barriers and shouted, "This one's on us, mates," and let everybody ride for free.
Aussies party up a storm
Priestesses perform a ceremony to hand over the Olympic flag from Sydney to Athens, Greece. Athens has been selected to host the Summer Games in 2004.
Ravell Call, Deseret News |
If you didn't know that Australians prize their irreverence toward authority before the closing ceremonies of the 2000 Summer Games, you did by the time the extravaganza billed as as the world's biggest back-yard barbecue was over.
Yet despite the show of what Australians call "larrikinism" Sunday night, organizers heard the coveted words, "best Games ever" from International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch.
"These are my last Games as president of the IOC. They could not have been better. Therefore, I am proud and happy to proclaim that you have presented to the world, the best Games ever," Samaranch told a cheering crowd.
Michael Knight, the government minister who heads Sydney's organizing committee and is Australia's answer to Mitt Romney, received the highest honor from the IOC, the Olympic Order "as an expression of our gratitude for a perfect organization."
More memories than medals for Utah
Taylorsville's Natalie Williams became only second Utah native to win gold.
Ravell Call, Deseret News |
By the end of the Sydney Summer Olympics, a gold medal and a silver medal had been draped around the necks of two Utah natives, while gold was gleaned by a trio of baseball players who had played professionally in the Beehive State and Natalie Williams, the former three-sport star at Taylorsville High School and WNBA all-star with the Utah Starzz, won a gold with the United States women's basketball team on the next-to-last day of competition.
And Courtney Young Johnson, who swam and played soccer at Skyline High School, received a silver medal after the U.S. team suffered a one-goal loss to host Australia in the Olympic debut of women's water polo.
Another athlete with local ties took home a gold medal while shocking the wrestling world. Rulon Gardner, the former Ricks College standout who hails from Afton, Wyo., upset three-time Olympic champion Alexandre Kareline in the finals of Greco-Roman's 130-kilogram division.
Utah: You're next
Crowds of fans throng a boulevard in Sydney. The crowds -- and the expectations -- will shift to Salt Lake City in 2002.
Ravell Call, Deseret News |
Imagine you lived here.
The Olympics would be just about over — already an unprecedented success in the eyes of the world. Even the most critical journalists have had trouble finding something bad to say about your city, raving instead about how friendly and helpful Sydneysiders and Australians have been.
Your biggest concern, at least according to the local press, could be the coming baby boom — a result of the surge in testosterone coming from the excitement of Australia's success at the Games.
In fact, now it's someone else's turn to preen, party — and lay their community's pride on the line.
Wake up, Utahns, that's you: organizers, Games employees, volunteers and the host citizenry at large.
After Sydney, "The bar is very high," said Thomas Bach, an IOC member from Germany who was just named an IOC vice president.
Mitt Romney, Salt Lake Organizing Committee's president, and Bob Garff, the committee's chairman, are impressed but unafraid.
| | |
