Inside the scandals, gaffes, dodgy officials and cheating from the Sydney Olympics
Sydney 2000 is deservedly remembered as the best Olympics ever. But it was also one of the most controversial. Our Games were plagued by scandals, gaffes, dodgy officials and cheating. These were the biggest culprits.
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Sydney 2000 is deservedly remembered as the best Olympics and Paralympics ever.
But it was also one of the most controversial. The Games were plagued by scandals and gaffes for years – both in the lead up - and then more than a decade after.
These are the stories of cheating athletes, dodgy officials, sports politics and even Mother Nature.
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THE BIGGEST DOPES
MORE than a dozen medal winners from Sydney were stripped of their prizes for doping, including sport’s most notorious drug cheat Lance Armstrong.
The biggest cheat of the lot in Sydney was Marion Jones, one of the darlings of the Games who collected five medals including gold in the women’s 100m sprint.
It took her seven years until she finally admitted to using steroids after the BALCO scandal, and as well as losing her medals, she copped a six month jail sentence for lying for so long.
Armstrong was stripped of the bronze medal he won in Sydney more than 12 years after the event after he too finally confessed to cheating, joining Sydney’s hall of shame - which doesn’t include Jones’ husband CJ Hunter - who was banned from competing at Sydney for a positive drugs tests - or the 40 Chinese competitors who suddenly withdrew at the last minute, including seven who had been busted for using performance enhancing substances.
THE SPANISH INQUISITION
WHEN the Spanish intellectual disability basketball team arrived home with their gold medals from the 2000 Paralympics they were told to wear dark glasses, hats and grow beards.
They were not hiding from their new fame – they were trying to avoid being recognised because 10 of the 12 competitors were not disabled.
Undercover journalist Carlos Ribagorda, a member of the team, caused a global sensation when he wrote a withering expose for a Spanish business magazine Capital which revealed that most of his team-mates did not have the required tests to certify that competitors have an IQ of no higher than 75 and were, in fact, able bodied athlete .
The team was disqualified and ordered to return their gold medals.
OUT OF TOUCH
AUSTRALIAN Olympic delegate Kevan Gosper became public enemy No. 1 after creating a massive stink before the Games when allowing his daughter Sophie to be the first Australian to carry the Olympic torch after the flame was lit from the sun’s rays in Greece.
That honour was supposed to have gone to a young Greek-Australian schoolgirl, who had travelled to the torch-lighting ceremony with her classmates after being chosen to be the first Aussie recipient.
But in an act that was labelled as the worst of Olympic cronyism, Gosper - who was vice-president of the International Olympic Committee at the time - let his 11-year daughter to jump the queue - which triggered a huge public uproar.
The Daily Telegraph’s front page described Gosper as “Greedy, Obstinate, Selfish, Pompous, Egotistic, Reptile“ - forcing him into making a public apology and giving up his own chance of running with the torch at the Melbourne Cricket Ground - where he won a silver Olympic medal in the 4x400m relay in 1956.
BACKFLIP
ONE of the medals China did win in Sydney had to be returned 10 years later after it was revealed one of their gymnasts had lied about her age and competed while still underage.
Under the sport’s rules, gymnasts have to be turning at least 16 in the year the Olympics are held but Dong Fangxiao represented China when she was only 14, and won a bronze medal in the team event.
The breach was only discovered when she entered her correct date of birth to work as a technical official at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, prompting a lengthy investigation that resulted in her and her teammates being stripped of the team bronze medal they had won.
ROUGH JUSTICE
WHILE Jones, Armstrong and Dong waited years until they were punished, pint-sized Romanian gymnast Andreea Raducan incurred the full wrath of officialdom straight away - for a trivial doping ‘offence’ that even the investigators admitted was an injustice she didn’t deserve to lose a gold medal over.
Awarded the gold after winning the prestigious all-round title, Raducan was stripped of her title when she tested positive to a cough and cold medication that was given to her by a coach - even though it was proved to have no performance-enhancing benefits and the Court of Arbitration exonerated her of any personal wrongdoing.
But that was not even the most farcical part of the gymnastics competition in Sydney.
Incredibly, the apparatus for the vault competition was set 5cm lower than it should have been - which resulted in more than a dozen competitors messing up their qualifying because the equipment was faulty, with some crash landing so on the mats so heavily that they suffered injuries.
MOTHS TO THE FLAME
AFTER 16 days of incredible competition, there was one last unexpected glitch at the Closing Ceremony.
Attracted to the stadium’s bright lights, a swarm of bogong moths decided to make an unwelcome appearance at the grand finale.
Weather forecasters were the first to spot them coming when they spotted a giant blip on their radars, which they initially thought was an approaching rainstorm only to discover it was millions of flying insects on their way to the show.
The international visitors were horrified by the invasion but the locals took it all in their stride, including soprano Yvonne Kenny after one of the pests parked itself on her gown as she sang the Olympic Hymn.
MARCHING BAND BLUES
If you thought the 2000 member Olympic marching band, with its “wall of sound’’ made a roar at the opening ceremony it was nothing compared to the din which trailed it to the stadium.
A bitter legal wrangle broke out following a public protest over the lack of Australians in the band which originally included 1300 Americans, 200 Japanese and 500 Australians.
The Sydney Organising Committee voted to expel 300 American and 200 Japanese from the original cast as more than 400 Australians and musicians from 17 other countries were added.
Finally, drawn from 23 nations with Australia the largest, they got to the stadium and played their hearts out with the United Stated component cut down to 30%.
When they played a rousing rendition of “Ode to Joy’’ all was forgotten.
POISONED WATER
When you anoint a platypus as an Olympic mascot and he promises to rouse on anyone causing pollution there’s one thing you simply don’t want.
A poisoned water scandal. IOC bosses almost fell head first into Sydney Harbour when they arrived to headlines that, with 10,000 soon to land, Sydney’s water supply may have been poisoned.
Outbreaks of giardia and cryptosporidium caused several boiled water alerts and Olympic officials were beside themselves with concern for a crisis that never eventuated.
Olympics boss Juan Antonio Samaranch was given a personal assurance from SOCOG bosses the water crisis would be solved which it was … with not a moment to spare.
TICKET DRAMAS
Sydney Games marketeers boasted this would be the “people’s games’’ but they should have made that rich people.
Despite promoting the line that people would have equal access to the 9.6 million tickets, it never worked out that way. People were asked to fill out their first three events of choice but often got their third choice with no chance of a refund.
Eventually the truth leaked out that the Games organisers, striving to meet their Games budgets, had attempted to raise $100 million selling premium tickets to exclusive clubs, brokers or businesses.
More than 80 per cent of the top tickets to the best events were gone before the public had a chance to reach for their credit cards and the rage reached inferno levels when a marketing man said anyone could buy tickets so long as “the price is right.’’
Eventually Olympic minister Michael Knight apologised 16 times in a press conference which led to angry punters getting some refunds ... but no access to the better tickets.
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HERE AND GONE
There were drug scandals and ticket fiascos but for sheer dam-busting drama nothing quite matched the decision of Cathy Freeman’s arch rival Marie-Jose Perec to flee the country.
Claiming harassment by the local media and an unidentified man who knocked on her hotel door, French superstar Perec rushed to the airport and left the country, robbing the Games of the iconic showdown that beckoned between here and Freeman.
“I missed the most important rendezvous I ever had with myself … I cracked,’’ she said upon returning home. “I could only think of one thing: go, far away. Fast.”
Originally published as Inside the scandals, gaffes, dodgy officials and cheating from the Sydney Olympics