PUTTING CYNICISM ON HOLD
SYDNEY–Being a journalist at the Olympics is about four parts exhilaration and one part exhaustion. Or is it the other way around? Working hard is never so much fun.
The time difference left me about two free hours in the afternoon. Some days I would catch a few innings of baseball, or a game or two of badminton or team handball. Other days my trek from the stale air and tired food of the Main Press Center took me no farther than a bandshell next to the baseball stadium.
It was there that Australians celebrated being Australian. The military bands would play every sentimental song about Australia I never knew. The day after track started, near the skirt of the stage, were several children crouched down in a track pose running back and forth.
That’s it, I thought. Maybe that’s what the Olympics are all about. The mimicking of heroes, the innocence of youth, the ability to dream and hope that one day you can hear your national anthem played while you stand on top of a gold-covered platform.
And if you can’t do that, to celebrate the accomplishments of others. You know, being alive is a pretty good thing. It’s OK to put the cynicism button on hold every once in a while. It’s OK to celebrate accomplishments.
— John Cherwa
(John Cherwa, associate managing editor/sports, has been involved with every Summer Games since 1984.)
DISBELIEF, ALAS, EVER-PRESENT
SYDNEY–I heard the roar, “the noise so loud even the moths flew off in shock,” as Katharine Merry of Britain would put it after she had finished third to Australia’s Cathy Freeman in the 400 meters. The roar of 112,524 people as one rumbling, earth-shaking voice briefly riveted my attention to following Freeman as she fought off a challenge from Jamaica’s Lorraine Graham and took command of what the Australian papers headlined as “the race of our lives.”
And then I thought back to the story that had occupied my attention that day and the next and the next and the days before as well.
When the race ended, Freeman was sitting on the ground with her legs stretched in front of her and her face expressionless, as if the self-described “shy thing” was searching for an answer to what all this meant. I had watched her finish without seeing it, listened to the roar that swept her down the straightaway without hearing it, mentally noted her being the first Aborigine to win an individual gold medal without considering it.
My mind and my mind’s eye had been focused only on the developing saga of the drug case involving Marion Jones’ husband, C.J. Hunter, and all the other drug cases that had come before and would follow. Suspension of disbelief no longer seems possible. Suspension of belief now comes with the credential to cover the Olympics.
The first Olympics of the new millennium are over. Drugs without end, amen.
— Philip Hersh
(Philip Hersh is the Tribune’s Olympic writer. This was his 10th Olympics.)
LIKE BEING IN WONDERLAND
Those who saw them through the warped prism that is televised Olympics may not remember Nancy Johnson, Vic Wunderle, Michael Bennett or Rulon Gardner years from now. But I will.
Being in the same arena with competing Olympians is like stepping through the looking glass compared with watching them on TV. What is immediately stunning is how different each environ and its buzz is from another.
There was Johnson shooting for an air rifle gold medal, standing at a counter not unlike that at a carnival, except that it ran the length of a building to accommodate dozens of competitors standing in a row. She won the gold. There was Wunderle before a hushed crowd in a U-shaped outdoor stadium, trying to shoot arrows into a grapefruit-sized bull’s-eye three-quarters of a football field away. He won the silver.
Bennett and Gardner boxed and wrestled before frenzied crowds, each taking on a storied giant in his sport. Bennett could not upset Cuban heavyweight boxer Felix Savon, but Gardner pulled off one of the biggest upsets in Olympic history, holding off Russian Alexander Karelin, the huge three-time Olympic gold medalist who had been unbeaten in international competition.
Gardner’s heroics came at the ultimate moment, a gold-medal match.
— Michael Hirsley
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(Michael Hirsley is a general assignment reporter. This was his first Olympics.)
AN INDELIBLE BAPTISM
SYDNEY–There was no warning, no preconceived notion that I’d think the Olympics were anything more than a 2 1/2-week event I’d view like most Americans, I suspect, with passing interest. Certainly I did not anticipate that track and field would be a moving, spiritual experience the way some writers told me it would be, as I have pretty much considered running and the viewing thereof akin to watching someone stretch.
Nevertheless, there I was, about 20 meters from the finish line (that would be not too many yards in the American vernacular) and about 15 rows up from where Marion Jones would soon whiz by in her first race–the 100 meters.
It was my Olympic moment, the one that veteran Olympic watchers say you will have, the one I doubted until the gun went off and 100,000 flashbulbs popped and the race started and eight women took off at a pace only slightly slower than the cars that zoom through my neighborhood and came running toward me (well, not really me, but you get the idea) and then past me, and I think I might have cheered although sportswriters are not supposed to do such things, and maybe even jumped up and down (OK, I’m exaggerating).
And then it was over, in 10-some seconds. Oddly, it seemed much longer, a real-life freeze frame of Jones in repose as she crossed the line, young and powerful and graceful and gifted. And etched in my mind forever.
— Melissa Isaacson
(Melissa Isaacson covers the Bears. This was her first Olympics.)
A FINE, SILLY MOMENT
SYDNEY–In a sparsely attended late-night news conference you likely never saw nor read about, Adam Nelson arrived with silver and struck pure gold.
It’s very refreshing to find a serious athlete who can laugh at himself, especially at these globally important Games. News conferences can be mundane, rarely shedding any light on anything, but when athletes loosen up, good things can happen.
At one media mosh pit, someone asked U.S. sprinter Maurice Greene if the large moths at Stadium Australia bugged him. They don’t. Moments later, someone asked Trinidad and Tobago’s Ato Boldon why he wore sunglasses in a race held at night. “The moths,” Boldon replied. From then on, he owned the room.
But the finest moment came when U.S. shot putter Nelson, tired and sweaty but a surprise silver medalist, shuffled in to talk to the equally haggard American TV crews not employed by NBC. Nelson had been up all day, andwith a bouquet of microphones in his face, he plopped down in the chair, then saw me standing nearby squinting past the bright, hot lights.
“How’s my hair look?” he deadpanned.
No worries.
— Chris Malcolm
(Chris Malcolm is executive producer of ChicagoSports.com. This was his first Olympics.)
LIVING VICARIOUSLY
SYDNEY–The magnificent opening night of track and field competition at the 110,000-seat Olympic Stadium gave me chills.
Witnessing American sprinters Maurice Greene and Michael Johnson set up in the starting blocks for their respective events, awaiting the starter’s commands as the crowd fell silent in anticipation, transported me back 26 years.
As a sprinter in high school and college, and later a high school track coach in Ohio, it was a vicarious thrill and a sentimental moment to sit 10 rows back of the finish line at the 2000 Summer Olympics.
The spirit of American athletes is alive and thriving, whether it was the women’s basketball team defending its championship against Australia, the men’s basketball team hanging on for a two-point victory over Lithuania in a semifinal game, or the U.S women’s volleyball team taking South Korea to five sets in their tense quarterfinal match.
— Fred Mitchell
(Fred Mitchell is a general assignment reporter. This was his first Olympics.)
AN ANTIDOTE FOR JADEDNESS
SYDNEY–If you pay attention to sports at its highest levels, you probably have noticed that they’re often populated by self-absorbed athletes who, deep down, care very little about anything but their stock portfolios.
The Olympics are the perfect antidote for those of us who have become a bit jaded about the games adults play. You have to look hard to find your faith again, but it’s there.
I found it at a news conference after the U.S. women’s softball team had beaten Australia to get to the gold-medal game. Dot Richardson, Lisa Fernandez and Michelle Smith are among the best players in the world, but it was obvious from the way they interacted with each other that they have learned to blend their talents for the good of the team, even if it meant less individual glory. One would start a sentence and the other would finish it.
But it was more than that. It took me a while to figure out what was so different, and then it hit me:
They genuinely care about one another. They genuinely like one another. Coaches always talk about creating a family atmosphere, but most of the time it’s just that–talk. This particular team was a family.
How that happened, I don’t know and I don’t care. It was nice to see it, 10,000 miles from home.
— Rick Morrissey
(Rick Morrissey is a general assignment reporter. This was his third Olympics.)
GOOD SHOW, AUSTRALIA
SYDNEY–In the end, the Olympics remain only as series of flashbacks:
Cathy Freeman sitting on the track after winning the 400 meters, her eyes horrified by the roar from 112,000 spectators, her body language telling us how relieved she was that the weight she had carried for black and white Australia was finally off her shoulders.
The volunteer granny outside the equestrian venue guiding spectators to the correct gate for hours while insisting: “This is the greatest day in my life. I am doing this for my country.”
The Olympic media bus driver who got lost in Sydney and explained to his passengers: “Sorry, I am from Wagga-Wagga.” Children practicing the long jump in a back-yard sandpit the day after their local hero won a silver medal. The blind man carrying the Olympic torch on the outskirts of Sydney, guided by a boy in a wheelchair. A boy asking his Mum after a crippling fall by horse and rider during the cross-country equestrian event: “Mum, do horses go to heaven after they die?”
There was the Sydney Opera House changing colors like a chameleon at night and the policeman who whispered: “I wish it could be always as peaceful as this.” His phrase summed up the feeling most people took home from the Olympic Games in Sydney. You beaut, Australia.
— Uli Schmetzer
(Uli Schmetzer is the senior Asia correspondent based in Tokyo. This was his first Olympics.)
FILM OPTIONAL FOR IMAGES
SYDNEY–I can’t say I came to the Olympics for the sports aspect of it. Frankly, I wouldn’t go across the street to watch most of the sports, let alone travel 10,000 miles to Australia.
What intrigued me about coming to the Olympics was the scene. The convergence of people from many different nations. The atmosphere of languages mixing. On the night Cathy Freeman won the 400 (a truly special moment), I sat among a group that included athletes, representatives and fans from the Congo, Morocco, Greece, Belarus and who knows where else. Try doing that in Comiskey Park.
It was the entire world right in front of my eyes. A first-timer, I figured this is what the Olympics were all about.
I ran back to get my camera and feverishly snapped pictures. Or so I thought. After about 30 minutes I realized I had no film in the camera. There are reasons I’m not a photographer.
No matter. While I may not have pictures, the images will remain firmly in mind for a long time.
— Ed Sherman
(Ed Sherman is a sports media columnist. This was his first Olympics.)
UNAFRAID TO SHOW ITS WARTS
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SYDNEY–My greatest memory came while trying to escape the scorching sun overhead and the pressing bodies that clogged Olympic Park Boulevard. That’s when I saw the sign: Aboriginal Expo 2000.
Inside, the walls of the tent-turned-museum were covered with colorful ancient artwork, including vivid water-color paintings, beaded canvas wall hangings and hand-painted boomerangs. As beautiful as those items were, I was transfixed by the words accompanying the display, stunned by their bare honesty.
Words and phrases such as white Australians, children butchered. European paternalism. Deliberate, systematic disempowerment. Forced assimilation, decimation of culture. White barbarism. The words on the walls spoke frankly of Australia ‘s dark past. The Australians–both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal–had named names and put it on the walls for the entire world to see.
Some visitors were clearly disturbed by the display. As an African-American woman, I thought it brave. Yes, race has been debated in U.S. courtrooms, legislative chambers and on the burning streets of Los Angeles, but would America showcase and plainly lay out how white forefathers brutalized and disenfranchised Native Americans or blacks while playing host to the world? Probably not.
Australia has a struggle ahead to bring economic and social equality to all its citizens, but it seems destined and determined to get there. Walking back out in the blazing sunlight, I sadly reflected on how far we have to go.
— Lola Smallwood
(Lola Smallwood is a metro reporter in Orland Park. This was her first Olympics.)
A CANDY STORE DE LUXE
SYDNEY–Covering these Games was like being in a sports candy store with so many wonderfully flavored events that it was difficult to figure out which one tasted the best.
My favorite athlete of the Games was Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe, the “Thorpedo.” He won two gold medals and set a world record the first night. He represented everything great about Australia, swimming and the Olympics. Ah, to be 17 and on top of the world Down Under.
After a week of water I did track and field, where it was my job to photograph Maurice Greene and Marion Jones. It sounds as simple as running for 10 seconds. What could be difficult about that? Well, you don’t want to blink or you’ll miss it. After snacking on track I moved to the most unusual tasting candy in the store, the Greco-Roman section. In what seemed like the last match of the Cold War, Henry Kissinger was there to watch American Rulon Gardner beat Russian Alexander Karelin in a stunning upset. It was strange stuff.
But the funniest moment of the Games happened after the U.S. women’s soccer team lost to Norway. After the medal ceremony, where the Americans held back tears, Brandi Chastain spotted something unsual in the crowd. Two men from Pennsylvania stood proudly in black sports bras. She broke away from a horde of photographers to autograph the chest of one man, laughing about it. It was a true Olympic moment.
— Heather Stone
(Heather Stone is a photographer. This was her first Olympics.)
THE FACE OF ENTHUSIASM
SYDNEY–Over the course of the Games I saw brilliant athletes win gold medals and set world records. I saw Sydney shine like never before. I saw the excitement of Sydneysiders and international visitors alike when the Olympic flame came into view through the train windows every morning.
I even saw the race walk.
The track was pretty quiet on Friday morning; everyone seemed to be waiting for the last walkers of the men’s 50K race to straggle in. I had missed the first-place finisher–the first 38 finishers, actually–but in this case the old adage “save the best for last” was true. As Chris Maddocks approached the entrance to the stadium, “I would walk 500 miles” blared from the speakers and the crowd went wild–the type of wild that made me shiver. Maddocks crossed the line, his time more than an hour behind the first-place finisher, and let a standing ovation wash over him.
The expression on his face wasn’t disappointment, exhaustion or frustration with his last-place finish, it was one of relief, joy and excitement. This unscripted moment truly displayed the spirit of the Olympics, a spirit that is becoming increasingly hard to find beneath the commercialism.
Maddocks let the energy and passion behind sport shine through. He held up his arms in triumph, accepting the crowd’s appreciation with grace. Rightly so. After all, he had just competed in his fifth consecutive Olympics.
— Sophie Tyner
(Sophie Tyner, a student studying in Australia, was the bureau’s editorial assistant. This was her first Olympics.)
THIS DREAM TEAM IN FOCUS
SYDNEY–When I look back on the Sydney Olympics, one word will come to mind: karma. Coming in I knew we had a photo dream team. We had the mix of a two-time Olympic veteran and senior photographer Nuccio DiNuzzo, a top sports photojournalist in Phil Velasquez and an eager, creative first-timer in Heather Stone. I had a feeling the chemistry was there to make wonderful things happen.
After a long Friday night full of stunning Opening Ceremony images, the shooters headed to their venues early the next morning. Nuccio was on a barge in Sydney Harbor at the crack of dawn for the start of the triathlon. Heather had secured a prime position at swimming by using a mix of her charm and bribes of Tribune Olympic pins, and Phil would photograph our local athlete of the day, Nancy Johnson of Downers Grove, in women’s shooting.
Around 10:30 am, I got a call from Nuccio that the triathlon start went great, he was filing on deadline the first competition photos from the Olympics.
Moments later, Phil breathlessly reported that the first U.S. gold medal went to Nancy Johnson. The karma was with us.
Then another call. Heather was handing off digital discs to photo runner Sophie Tyner of a new Olympic record in the men’s 400-meter freestyle swimming preliminaries. The world was about to learn about Ian Thorpe, the “Thorpedo.”
As I look back 15 days later, the memories begin to flood together. Photos showing the thrill of winning and the despair of losing, most depicting the beauty and grace of sport, but others showing the ugly side as well. A collection of images to tell and preserve the history of these Games.
Almost without exception, we were there for the biggest stories with pictures that were second to none. Karma is indeed a wonderful thing.
— Chris Wilkins
(Chris Wilkins, the Olympic Bureau photo chief, is the foreign/national picture editor. This was his fifth Olympics.)