Sydney Olympics: The unbelievable secret plans that won the officials over
As IOC officials drove through Sydney to decide whether the city was up to hosting the 2000 Olympics, a miracle of biblical proportions happened – the red sea of traffic lights parted. And it was just one of many tricks our very own Moses – John Coates – pulled to win the historic bid.
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Moses may have parted the Red Sea but Australia’s 2000 Olympic bidders can lay claim to an equally astonishing feat … they parted Sydney traffic.
It seemed like the greatest magic act of a fierce bidding war but like most magic acts, it wasn’t real.
When International Olympic Council officials came to Sydney, they would get an endless sequence of green lights from the airport to the city and would remark how Sydney’s traffic “flowed like a mountain stream’’.
What they didn’t know was it was a cleverly co-ordinated plan between police and Olympic bidders to paint a false nirvana.
Long before Olympic president Juan Samaranch claimed “the winner is Syd-er-ney’’ in Monte Carlo at 8.28pm on September 23, 1993, Sydney’s bid to host the 27th Summer Olympics was constructed on the basis of a series of bold public proposals and some devilishly clever, rule-pushing behind-the-scenes moves.
They ranged from having Greg Norman and Don Bradman signing bats and caps for sports loving IOC members to rugby union videos of Australian games sent to Western Samoa’s rugby loving IOC member Paul Wallwork, and the 11 African countries being offered training facilities in Australia in a bid for precious votes.
Had a single one of the plans backfired, Sydney would not have hosted the Games for it feathered out Beijing 45-43 in the vote which triggered a wave of hysterical celebration across Australia.
Bid chief Rod McGeoch, who worked closely with Australian Olympic boss John Coates in orchestrating the plan, reveals how Sydney called in old war veterans, an opera boss, police traffic experts and many others for special favours in a secret plot which featured ...
GREEN LIGHT BLISS
TRAFFIC snarl. What traffic snarl? One of the hidden gems of the Sydney Games bid was the way they secretly diffused Sydney’s notorious traffic problems when it mattered.
By chance one day when taking IOC members around Sydney they took them to the traffic control room in York St and police officials said: “If ever you need green lights just let us know and we will give you a smooth ride.’’
“So we did and we turned the traffic lights green over 100 times on request so it looked as if the traffic was flowing perfectly,’’ McGeoch said.
“We would have a police escort on a motor bike linked to the traffic management room and he would call the lights green as we came to the intersection.
“IOC members would say, ‘So you have four million people but never have traffic problems?’
“We’d say, ‘No’.
“Thankfully they never looked left or right to see how far the traffic was banked up.’’
BROTHERS IN ARMS
IF there is one way to reach the heart — and win the vote — of a prisoner of war it is to reconnect him with the men who suffered beside him.
This was one of Sydney’s smartest and most emotional plays. When Norway’s IOC delegate Jan Staubo, a former WWII pilot who spent several years as a prisoner of war in Germany, came to Sydney bid delegates knew there was not much point showing him Taronga Park Zoo.
“We flew all of the Australians who had been in camp with him in for a reunion lunch. He just broke down and cried.’’
Staubo later said: “How could I now not vote for Sydney?’’
FRONT, BACK AND INSIDE
THE Sydney bid team knew years ahead the date of their final bid presentation in Monte Carlo and hatched a cunning plan to steal the limelight when it mattered most.
They contacted Monte Carlo-based former Australian batsman Bob Cowper with the message “we are coming in two years so book out the best restaurants so no other bastard can get them.’’
They also booked out a wraparound spread on Sydney in the International Herald Tribute which was delivered to the delegates hotel rooms on voting day.
“We even bought the rights to a wraparound the day before just to stop anyone else doing it,’’ McGeoch said.
LOBBY LOBBYISTS
THEY called themselves the lobby lizards and their craft was a subtle one which involved more patience than fly fishing.
Sydney’s “lizard legion’’ would wait in the foyers of hotels where IOC members were staying in the hope of a meeting and a potential sales pitch.
At hotel breakfasts the key was to get a table in the middle of the room so a glance from an IOC official could come from any direction and allow you to make contact.
NIGHT AT THE OPERA
EVEN the Phantom of the Opera would have to stay hidden in his lair when bid chiefs demanded it.
One of the four nights IOC voters visited Sydney invariably involved a night at the Opera House where boss Donald McDonald, also a member of the Sydney bid team, agreed never to start the show until the bid group had arrived and taken their seats even if it meant delaying the show.
HATS OFF
LAST week in Noosa, McGeoch had lunch with fellow Olympic official Kevan Gosper who turned up wearing the Sydney bid’s straw akubra hat that was a master stroke promotion at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
“We knew Barcelona was hot and we went to the swimming where, at one stage, every IOC member had our Sydney bid hats on,’’ McGeoch said.
“That might seem a little thing, but if the Games proved anything it was little things matter.”
Originally published as Sydney Olympics: The unbelievable secret plans that won the officials over