We sail back in time to Sydney 2000! Alison explores the origins of the official Olympic mascots, Syd, Millie, and Olly, and the Paralympic mascot Lizzie. But Sydney doesn’t stop with the mascot fun–the hosts of the Sydney 2000 recap show The Dream brought us Fatso, who stole the athletes’ and fans’ hearts….and caused some controversy along the way.
The Dream was to Sydney 2000 what Francs Jeux was to Paris 2024, except it was humor-based. Hosted by Roy and HG, it became a huge hit and brought about an unofficial mascot, Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat. While there are See one of Fatso’s best moments here:
Then Jill heads across Sydney Harbor to the sailing competition to revisit the men’s sailing competition, specifically the Two Person Keelboat (Star) and One Person Dinghy (Laser). Much like we discovered in our look at sailing at Seoul 1988, death plays a part in these Games as well. It looms in the background of both of these competitions, the fat lady eventually sings, and karma says g’day.
[SPOILER ALERT] Ben Ainslie wasn’t losing a second Olympics. Check out his race tactics against Robert Scheidt. Ainslie may also have the best line of the competition:
Find our full source list here, and let us know your favorite moments from Sydney 2000!
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
TRANSCRIPT
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386-Sydney 2000-Set Sail with the Mascots
Jill Jaracz: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to another history episode of Keep the Flame Alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. If you love the games, we are the show for you. I’m your host, Jill Jaracz, joined as always by my lovely co-host, Alison Brown. Alison, hello, how are you? Good day.
Alison Brown: I sound so stupid when I say that.
Jill Jaracz: I know. I think, I think a lot of Americans do.
Alison Brown: You know, a lot of people do this thing when you’re talking about something that used to be, or we used to do this, and people say, oh, you know, 25 years ago, it was like that 25 years ago was 2000.
Jill Jaracz: You gotta reorient your brain, right? Right. Oh, it’s really creeped up on us. But we are celebrating the 25th anniversary of Sydney, 2000 this year. All year long. We’ve got stories from the games.
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first we would like to say thank you to our [00:01:00] patrons, especially new patron, Gabriela.
Thank you Gabriela. patrons and donors keep our flame alive. The show does have expenses and it takes a significant amount of time to research our history episodes. Oh, you would not believe how much time I spent and I wanted to do a lot more than I did, and I just had to say, stop. You have to stop. but there may be blog posts.
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yeah. I will be putting up a conversation between me and Producer Ben about seeing September five, the movie. If you have not seen it, I know it’s streaming on Paramount now, which is tough because it’s another service to subscribe to and it’s such [00:02:00] a good movie. I wish I could find a better, bigger platform.
I don’t know, maybe, maybe Paramount Plus is bigger than I think it is, but also look at your libraries. Maybe they’ve got it. I don’t know, but it was so, so good. so we’ll have, uh, that coming up, I’m still taking care of my jarris, so it’s taken me a little while to get to a lot of stuff, but you’ll find that soon.
Alison Brown: I am writing, something for our patrons about, a peek inside Alison’s notebook. Ooh. From the figure skating world. So I’m actually gonna post pictures and.
Transcribe some notes. So if you enjoyed the World Figure Skating Championship Show and the ridiculousness, that is my report, I’ve got much more. So take a look at, Patreon and help us out a little bit because that we could only go to the World Figure Skating Championships because of the support that our, our patrons and donors have, have given us over the years.
So thank you so much for that. And you’ll see my little [00:03:00] notes.
Jill Jaracz: Excellent. That will be cool. again, flame live pod.com/support.
Sydney 2000: The Mascots
So this is our monthly history episode in which we look back at one particular games all throughout 2025. Those games will be Sydney 2000 As as it’s the 25th anniversary of them.
Today we are talking mascots and the Olympic sailing Regatta. And I will say it was the first year for parasailing as well, which is now out of the Paralympics and keeps trying to get back in. Could not get to that because the Olympic sailing had a lot of stories, but it’s still on my list, so don’t worry.
If you’re into parasailing, we will look at that too. You’ve got mascots.
Alison Brown: We’ve got three of ’em. I’ve got MAs, mascots and, and no, we actually are gonna talk four ’cause we’re gonna talk the three Olympic. Actually we’re gonna talk five. We got three Olympic. We’ve got an unofficial and we’ve got a Paralympic.
Jill Jaracz: Wow. So,
Olympic Mascots: Syd, Millie and Olly
Alison Brown: oh yeah, we got a lot here. Sydney organizers wanted to avoid the controversy. Surrounding the mascot [00:04:00] from oh Atlanta, 1996. Sydney did not want anybody saying, what is it? So they wanted to focus on real animals, but they didn’t wanna have a kangaroo or a koala. They thought that was too typical and they wanted to highlight the diversity of the wildlife in Australia.
But this was the greatest little tidbit I came across. Brisbane had hosted the Commonwealth Games in 1982, and they had a live kangaroo as the mascot named Matilda. Oh, so Brisbane. In case you wanna use some historic elements here, go see if Matilda or her descendants are around. Just a thought. but they did wanna make sure that they could sell merchandise, so they wanted to go with cute and cuddly rather than [00:05:00] terrifying alien creature.
So, alright, as you will, you put out a call and have an open contest. So they got a sketch, uh, for what became Millie from a graphic designer named Matthew Hatton. So he was paired with Joseph Karus, I apologize if I pronounce that incorrectly. And they, as a team, developed what ended up being the first, trio of mascots.
Never had a trio before. So we end up with Ali, the kookaburra, Sid, the duck build, Platypus, and Millie, the kinna or spin eater. So Ali, his name is short for Olympics. He was a symbol of air representing the Olympic spirit of generosity, and his personality was described as a larrikin. Which I also had to look up.
It’s Australian slang for a mischievous, rowdy, but good natured sort.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. [00:06:00] I’m guessing they hang out at all of the sports bars and go and watch some footy.
Alison Brown: I would agree. Maybe some cricket, maybe some Australian rules. Football, probably some rugby. yeah, the larrikin, I got multiple definitions of some leading, uh, down the, the road of hooligan and some being like a, a good natured scam, so
Oh, those good nature scams. Exactly. Well, Sid, the, the buck, the duck build platypus is short for sydnee. He symbolized water representing the environment, activity, and energy of the Australian people, and he is described as laid back. Okay. Okay. Then we have Millie, the only girl of the group. Her name is short for Millennium.
She is symbolized, uh, with Earth and she represented technology and numerical data. They made her smart and she is described [00:07:00] as smart and witty. Alright, see this, this reminds me a bit if you’re a Harry Potter fan of kind of like Harry and Ron and, and, Hermione. They made Hermione the smart one. It’s like, why is the girl always the smart one?
Not that I have a problem with that, but it, it felt a little. Regressive, but it is 2000. It is a long time ago. So all three animals are native to Australia, and were selected to represent things that people probably didn’t know about Australia in terms of their wildlife. And they were named by Philip Sheldon from the Ad Agency Weeks Morrison Osborne, based on design ideas and name ideas collected in that open contest and the mascot’s colors echoed the red, yellow, and blue of the Sydney logo.
And as I mentioned, this was the first time we had a trio. So Calgary in 88 had had a pear Nano had your favorite, the four owlettes,
Jill Jaracz: love them.
Alison Brown: But we saw trios [00:08:00] twice more right away in Salt Lake City, 2002 and Sochi 2014. But this and Beijing are the only time that the Summer Olympics had multiple mascots.
Jill Jaracz: I will say that it’s a trend I do not like, even though I do love the outlets, I do not like having three mascots. I think it’s two too many.
Alison Brown: Yeah. The way that they’ve developed this sort of one Olympic and one Paralympic now is the trend that we’re seeing. But for a while in the mid two thousands, we kind of got all these multiples, you know, sell more, you got more, you got more merchandise.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. But, and, and I guess if you don’t like one, maybe you’ll like the others. But I also, one of the things that I don’t love about these is that they’re so, that cartoon realistic, you know, I feel like I’m gonna want a Saturday morning cartoon.
Alison Brown: Yes. That is one of the criticisms that when they showed up as costumes, it did not work.
[00:09:00] So, at their introduction event, they were described as funny, friendly, and thoroughly Australian, and they first appeared on t-shirts, not as dolls as we see the most now. Um, it was mostly that cartoon image that was used, and I think because when you translated it, it didn’t quite. Work the same way, but the three did tour the country in a full stage production with music and dancing.
Please tell me some YouTube of this exists. I have not found YouTube of the music numbers. Just like brief seconds in other news reports. Right, right, right. The, I was like, oh, come on. There’s gotta be some news footage. There is. And it is as terrifying as you think. There was several news pictures of them as, uh, balloon blowups.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, okay.
Alison Brown: No, not okay. I am not okay. After seeing that. [00:10:00] So along with that, not translating into costumes, the, the other criticism was that they were over, that their personalities were overly bold. And I think more because they weren’t cute and cuddly. Oh, that they, ’cause you
Jill Jaracz: can have something that’s cute and cuddly and still be a scam and be bold, you know?
Alison Brown: But not a hooligan.
Jill Jaracz: No.
Alison Brown: And others found them sort of generic and bland and still, others were like, well, what’s wrong with a kangaroo? Everybody loves a kangaroo
Jill Jaracz: and a koala. And a wom band.
Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat
Alison Brown: Well, it’s funny you mention a wombat because Satis Roy Slavin and HG Nelson created a show for Channel seven called The Dream with Roy and hg, and the Dream was a sports comedy show and it became absolute must see TV during the Sydney Olympics.
Now, they were not pleased with the official mascots, [00:11:00] so they came up with their own named Fatso. The. Fat beep, beep wombat. And, and he was described as a chippy wombat.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, okay.
Alison Brown: Yes. So fatso was a huge hit and apparently more beloved than the official mascots. And throughout the Olympics and, and in the run up to the Olympics, there were segments on the show that featured an animated fatso competing in sports, but then they had a doll produced.
Only two of them ever produced, but once they had the doll, they included segments where Fatso the doll was competing with the official mascot dolls. The one I was able to find most easily was in diving. So this involved throwing the stuffed animals off the diving platform into the pool in front of judges and some fans.
So needless to say, fatso won that competition [00:12:00] and they would add in things like, oh look, even New Zealand scored highest for fatso. Like they would throw in these things and like the official Australian judge would give it a zero and give much higher scores to the official mascots. So they threw in the satire, but also fatso.
That’s hilarious. The, the fat beeped wombat.
Jill Jaracz: I would be so into fatso.
Alison Brown: You are not the only one. Australian athletes loved fatso so much, especially the swimmers. So Susie O’Neill and Grant Hackett carried Fatso onto the podium with them when they won the medals. As I said, there were two fatso dolls produced.
One stayed in the studio, one went to the athlete’s village. Faso’s fame continues on because Michael Clem, who was part of. The absolutely legendary four by 200 meter men’s swim relay. [00:13:00] I can’t wait to do swimming and tell you that story. He also brought fatso onto the metal stand. Well, the picture of the four of them, including Ian Thorpe, was made into an official stamp in Australia.
So Fatso is on the stamp. Get outta town.
Jill Jaracz: Oh my gosh.
Alison Brown: The only people not terribly happy with Faso’s popularity was the Australian Olympic Committee, and they were particularly upset that Australian athletes were increasing faso’s fame and exposure.
Jill Jaracz: Of course, of course. This is hilarious.
Alison Brown: So they issued a directive to their athletes not to be seen with fatso, not to, bring fatso onto the metal stand.
And to not pose with Fatso. Well, Australian athletes didn’t like that and the public didn’t like it because Australia freedom of speech. Right. You know what? Why? [00:14:00] Freedom of assembly. I wanna hang with Fatso. So the then Australian Olympic Committee President John Coates. Had to apologize publicly and rescind the attempted ban and say, Australian athletes we’re, we’re sorry.
We tried to restrict your freedom. Freedom of expression.
Jill Jaracz: Wow. John Coates backed down from something that, and, and a also O2. I feel so sorry for the poor underling who had to write that memo.
Alison Brown: You may be seen with Fatso and I think the, I, I didn’t see the actual memo, I just heard the reporting on it. I have a feeling fatso may not have been mentioned by name in the memo, like something generic, like it’s okay.
You can be seen with the unofficial mascot, but that’s just my speculation. So if, if I find the official memo, I will share it on our Substack newsletter [00:15:00] because. I can’t even imagine how John Coates got himself out of this one. This is John Coates, not going rogue. He’s going straight arrow here.
Jill Jaracz: Wow. I, I will tell you, this show sounds like it is the Frank Shoe of Sydney 2000. That’s,
Alison Brown: that’s exactly what I was thinking of. The show you loved so much at night in, in Paris, where it was every night they would do, but this was not official. This was definitely the satire and they had a lot to say about the commercialization and there was a lot of things about Sydney 2000 that they didn’t like at the time.
Interesting. You know, it’s very easy for us to look back with nostalgia, but I’m sure for people had to live with it in Sydney and in Australia, that can be tough.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And they’re coming off of very commercial games and we’re not that far away from pro athletes getting to be in the games. So that’s [00:16:00] a total mind shift.
And I, I do remember still having. Not arguments, but there were a lot of positions of, oh, amateur should still be in the games. And we, we don’t find out until later, unless you were hip to it then that the games were already full of pro athletes. They just were hid that proneness by government, spending on their careers basically.
But. Yeah, I, I think there’s still a, like a grappling with the fact that the Olympics, as we know it, are changing and we see where it, it changes for some sports and not for others. So it’s, it’s a, it’s a different situation.
Alison Brown: So speaking of money. As I mentioned, there were only two fats or dolls ever made.
One was kept by the show’s host and one was auctioned off after the Olympics, it was sold to seven network Chairman Kerry Stokes for. [00:17:00] 80,450 Australian dollars.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: That money went to Olympic Aid, which is now known as the Right to play program part of the United Nations Refugee Agency. So Fatso, the Fat Beepy beep, wombat, in essence helped create the refugee team that we have today.
Jill Jaracz: Oh my gosh, what a story. Wow.
Paralympic Mascot: Lizzie
Alison Brown: Okay, now we’ve got our Paralympic mascot, which I was trying to remember. We’ve talked about Lizzie, the Frill neck lizard, and I think it was on our Patreon show. Yes, because Liz, Lizzie, when we do March Madness. Mm-hmm. March Mascot Madness. Okay. So we haven’t talked about Lizzie on, on our regular shows, so here we go.
Lizzie was a Fri neck lizard. She’s characterized by her determination, strength, and ability to survive in the toughest conditions, and she symbolized [00:18:00] the passion, power, and spirit of para athletes. She was created by the same design team, uh, for Ali, Sid and Millie. Her frill is green and gold, which we see for the Australian team, and it’s supposed to be in the shape of Australia.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, I’m looking at Lizzie right now, and I, I kind of get that
Alison Brown: right. You gotta squint and turn your head a little bit to, to see that. But I see where they’re going. And her ochre body is to reflect the color of the soil that you see across a lot of Australia. And Lizzie as a name was chosen by a nationwide vote of Australian students.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, nice. Okay.
Alison Brown: So Lizzie was mostly seen in cartoons, though there has subsequently been a costume created. So in these cartoons, Lizzie was voiced by Sandy from Greece, otherwise known as Australian Superstar, Olivia Newton John. Wow. If you [00:19:00] remember. This is the second time I’ve gotten to reference Olivia Newton John, because she sung at the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, the, the theme song for those games.
So Olivia Newton John, Australian Superstar was all over Sydney, 2000. Wow.
And Lizzie has also proved to be much more enduring than Sid, Ollie and Millie. She appeared on merchandise for years after the games. Oh, she was made, on coins for the Australian Mint in 2021 and 2024 in connection with. Those two summer games and she has become the mascot of the Australian Paralympic team, much like boxing.
Kangaroo is the mascot for the Australian Olympic team.
Jill Jaracz: Very cool. And, and kind of like how Blaze the Phoenix from Atlanta, 1996 is still a mascot today. Very
Alison Brown: nice. So, unfortunately, uh oh, prior to the [00:20:00] Tokyo Paralympics, uh. Lizzie got redesigned. She was made sleeker with a more human body. It was supposed to be in the manga style to reflect obviously the Japanese host, and she had some new characteristics as well.
She was funny, friendly, and very cheeky. She was described as a dedicated goal setter and in your face competitor. Her favorite food is bugs. Her favorite color is red. And her favorite poor para sport is wheelchair rugby. Can’t argue with that. But the reason she likes the sport is it is because, it’s for true frill seekers.
Oh, that is bad. Yeah. But please don’t look at the pictures of the redesigned Lizzie. You will be traumatized. She received a lot of criticism for being overly sexualized. it is creepy as Hecky heck, [00:21:00] thankfully they went back to the old design. She’s got these long voluptuous legs and this sort of, yeah, Fri neck lizards should not be sexy when playing para sports.
Fri neck lizards should not ever be sexy. Let’s just put it that way.
Is she playing wheelchair rugby? You will see photos of her playing various parasport Yes. With her sexy legs and her sexy pout.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. ’cause I did find a wheelchair. Rugby one. The, the frill is much shorter. Yes. And there’s way more body to her.
Alison Brown: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: So she looks very human with a tail. Yeah. And the thing around her neck, this is weird.
Go on out there.
Alison Brown: So as I said, thankfully for Paris, Lizzie was reverted to the gentler, cuddly or design nice. And you will still see her making appearances around Australia, including the welcome home celebration for the Paralympians this [00:22:00] past September.
Jill Jaracz: Very nice.
Alison Brown: So that’s the story of our. Three mascots, one unofficial mascot, and paralympic mascot.
Sailing at the Sydney 2000 Olympics
Jill Jaracz: Love it. Love it. Let’s move over to sailing. It’s a new millennium, so we have a new name for the sport, so goodbye yachting. Hello Sailing. Organizers added more events to the program, bringing the total to 11. But today we’re just gonna talk about a couple of them, and we have a theme here.
So remember when we were talking about soul 1988 and we had that near death experience for the one sailor?
Alison Brown: Yes. And then one team had to basically lose the race to save the other sailors. Yes.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. So death plays a part at Sydney 2000 as well, and some of the sailing, but we’re talking about death hanging over one competition and also death threats.
Two-Person Keelboat, Open
So we’ll get to that. But let’s talk first about the two person Keelboat open. Uh, for those of us who don’t know the difference among boats. the Keelboat is a star class. It’s no longer raced in the Olympics. It [00:23:00] was in from LA 1932 through London 2012, according to american sailing.com, this is the boat that you picture when you think about sailboats.
So it’s got. A sail and then it’s got that fin like thing on the bottom that provides ballast. So when the wind takes the sails and the boat keels over the, the fin like thing on the bottom of the boat produces ballast and, counteracts the force of the wind.
’cause you can still capsize it. The wind is really strong. So the race at Sydney was for both men and women, no women entered, took place at Rush Cutters Bay Marina, which is a little southeast of the Sydney Opera House, meaning you have this glorious opera house backdrop for the competition.
This regatta consisted of 11 races and boat’s. Placement in a race is how many points they earn for the race, and the cumulative lowest number of points wins. And if you got disqualified for a race for a penalty, you’d get the max number of points plus one for that race. So it’d be 17 points. Teams can throw [00:24:00] out their two scores, except for if they got penalized, they would have to keep that bad score.
So. You could really fall down on the ratings. big players in this race, we have hometown favorites. Colin Behe and David Giles Collin’s competing in his fifth Olympics. Got a bronze in Atlanta, so we’ve got a hometown favorite that we can really hope for. Uh, his sister-in-law, Carrie Butler Beal, was also competing in the windsurfing competition, so we got little family stuff going on too.
we have the defending gold medalists from Brazil, Tobin Grail and Marc Marcelo Ferrera Tobin’s competing in his fifth Olympics and his third with Ferrera from the USA, we have Mark Reynolds. He’s 44, he’s competing in his fourth and final games. He’s been around in the sport a long time. He was supposed to go to 1980.
Got canceled because of the boycott. Next time he qualified was for Soul, 1988. One Silver there, Barcelona One Gold. Atlanta got eighth, so he does not want to go out [00:25:00] going in eighth. So he is a lot more intense and focused for Sydney. He’s got a new partner too in 46-year-old Magnus Lial and going into Sydney.
They are the current world champions. So these are the people to beat and then we have Great Britain. Team is Ian Walker and Mark Koval. They have been racing together since 1999 that seems a little recent brought together by Death Walker and his teammate John Merricks had won silver in the two person dinghy at Atlanta, 1996.
In 1997, they were at the European Championships in Italy. They were being driven to a celebration dinner with several other people. Driver lost control of the car and crashed. Walker survived. Merricks was killed instantly.
Alison Brown: Oh Lord.
Jill Jaracz: Koval, mark Koval, his original partner was Olympian Glen Charles. Charles had competed at Atlanta 1996 with a different crew in placed 11th, but by 1998, these two were sailing together and looking to compete in Sydney.
In [00:26:00] December, 1998, they were in the Sydney to Hobart race in the Tasman Sea. It started off sunny and there was a gale warning, but they still went. That developed into an East coast low with storm force winds the equivalent of a category two cyclone. During this storm, a wave crashed over their boat.
It capsized. Charles drifted out of reach and he drowned. His body’s never been recovered. This storm was incredible. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corp during this race, six sailors died. Five yachts sank more than 60 yachts retired and 55 participants were rescued by helicopter.
Alison Brown: Wow.
Jill Jaracz: A rabbit hole I did not go down was apparently this really changed how they did weather forecasting for, for the sport.
So that is on my list. So this is a horrible tragedy. Walker calls Coville a month later and says, Hey, I’ve been through this. I know what you’re going through. And they become friends through their [00:27:00] grief and that led to them pairing up and in a short time they managed to make it to the games, but just ahead of the games training wasn’t going well.
And they really, fre felt a lot of pressure. So they just said, forget it, we’re gonna. Not worry, we’re just gonna have fun out there. And that mentality paid off in race one, which they won us was in 14th because they went right when the wind went left and they dropped both of their whisker poles overboard and had to physically hold the jib as they crossed the finish line.
Alison Brown: Lemme just interrupt you for one second. Mm-hmm. If Great Britain doesn’t end up with a medal at the end of this, you and I are gonna have a problem.
Jill Jaracz: Well keep listening. regattas are long though. You know. Race one is race one. We’ve got a lot of racing to do. Standings fluctuate as they usually do, and By the end of race three. Great. Britain was sixth overall. Australia’s tied for seventh. USA was in 11th and Brazil is topping the leaderboard tied [00:28:00] with Bermuda.
Alison Brown: I know. Well, I mean, to be fair, it’s ber it’s an island. You would figure if they’re gonna be good at any sport.
Jill Jaracz: Well, not really. They have no, I mean, they’ve been sailing, but they don’t have any kind of, at this point Bermuda has won one medal and it’s, I.
Olympic career. we’ve got the Bermuda team of Peter Brobie and Lee White. They were becoming a factor in the race. Now, Brobie, who owned a trucking business, was competing in his third Olympics and his second with white. They had placed 13th in 1996. So would this year be the year they get on the podium?
We don’t know, but it’s looking good. 10 countries are in the mix though. Fourth Race Australia won. They’re starting to live up to their hope. They jump into the mix for the podium. Bermuda had a tougher race, dropped into third Brazil’s on top. Great Britain is in sixth USA tied for 10th race. Sixth was really windy with winds blowing over [00:29:00] 15 knot, and there was some rain going on as well.
But didn’t matter for Bermuda. They had a great day one and they are back in metal contention. We’re still in Brazil, a top Australian second. Great. Britain’s moving up to fourth behind Bermuda. USA’s moving up to seventh. It is still not looking good though. ’cause now we’re running out of race time for us.
They are taking a lot of risks and they’re being very aggressive in their racing, but all the choices they make keep backfiring on them. So their coach worked with both members of the team individually. He talked Reynolds into racing more conservatively because that’s what ra, that’s Reynold’s typical style.
And then he got Magnus who had been. Extremely regimented with his training to the point where he was, not happy to see McDonald’s at the village.
Alison Brown: I don’t know, somehow a man named Magnus, I, I expect to just be an absolute beast when it comes to the, the training regimen.
Jill Jaracz: Right? [00:30:00] Well, he got him to, uh, relax and have a beer or two, and the next day they won and started moving up.
They took a cue from having the Sydney Opera House in the background and said, it’s not over until the fat lady sings. They continue where the fat wombat.
They continued sailing well and other teams started making mistakes. So in race nine, Bermuda had a breakdown that kept them from starting the race. Peter Brom, Bri was able to get some redress for this, but according to ESPN, they still weren’t in metal condition or they weren’t in metal contention by the end of the sailing day.
’cause many, Days had multiple races, but by the last race, the podium was decided it was gonna be Brazil, USA and Great Britain.
Alison Brown: Oh, thank goodness.
Jill Jaracz: The order needed to be determined at the start of the race. New Zealand starts early and pulls six boats with them, and if you start early. [00:31:00] If you whip around and go back and restart, you’re okay.
If you just keep going, you’re in trouble. Brazil didn’t realize they started early. They kept going. They got an OnCourse side disqualification, which gave them the max number of points plus one. So they got 17 points for the race. USA started early, but Reynolds realized it and got them turned around and restarted properly.
They managed to get through the pack and finish the race ahead of Great Britain, not knowing that Brazil had been disqualified. So they don’t know where they stand. Finally, the US finishes first fat lady hasn’t sung yet, though there is a weight rule for the class and they weighed sailors after the race.
So their coach took his sweet time towing them to show shore because he wanted them to sweat longer in their race gear ’cause it hot day. He wanted them to sweat a little longer. However, that wasn’t a worry. They ended up making weight. They were declared the victors and they got their steps. They got their medals on the steps of the [00:32:00] Sydney Opera House, CRE Britain took silver, Brazil won the bronze.
Bermuda finished fourth, which was Bermuda’s highest sailing Olympic finish. And at the time, their second best Olympic finish ever. I. So then we move on to the one person dinghy laser. Wait, I’m exhausted just from that one race. I know, I know. Wow. And there’s so much more of sailing because there’s so many categories.
Men’s One-Person Dinghy (Laser)
I know. And it’s always wild. I know. Well, this is another wild competition. men’s one person dinghy laser class. This is a single handed boat, so it’s a, it’s smaller. Everyone has to race with the same boat design. This is one of those types of races. Now, rivalry is not a strong enough word to use when we talk about this class.
We have to go back to Atlanta 1996 to fully appreciate the animosity between the Brit Ben Ainslie and the Brazilian Robert Sche In Atlanta, the gold medal came down to the last race. Che was overhead. Uh, he was ahead in the overall standings. He couldn’t [00:33:00] claim victory, and in that last race. Officials raised the black flag after there had been four false starts.
That meant any more false starts were gonna be disqualified. So on the next start, Shi moved towards the line really quickly and Ainslie followed so he wouldn’t get left behind. They both jumped the line. They both were disqualified, which meant Shi was the top, the leaderboard, and Ainslie took a second.
Ainslie is angry about this, and this kicked off an amazing rivalry over the next quad. Titles go back and forth between the two. But Ainslie had Sidney in his sights and was ready for revenge.
Alison Brown: Do we get another appearance of the black flag, because that is a little sailing tidbit I have never heard before.
Well, I, we’ll have to
Jill Jaracz: find out. Oh. Another possibility for a spoiler is Australian Michael Blackburn, who had gotten fourth in Atlanta. He’s now at home, so is he gonna spoil this rivalry
Alison Brown: here? [00:34:00] So, and his name is Blackburn.
Jill Jaracz: Things started off grim for Ainslie. He finished 22nd and the first of the 11 races.
Did much better. You could drop two score two low scores, but with so much racing left, you don’t wanna burn those freebies right away. However, things started going well for Ainslie Race. Three. He won. SHI took 20 seconds, so they kind of flip flop there. Meanwhile, Blackburn’s still in the mix and at times he is a top the leaderboard.
But by race A, everyone is on a roll. These three are consistently the overall top three, and with one race to go, Blackburn’s basically locked up the bronze, but gold and silver still up for grabs and chie. Only needs to Finish in the top 20 to repeat as gold medalist. That’s when Ainslie dug in and he did what he could to exploit the rules.
There was a lack of wind in the last race, so that got delayed. When it came back, Ainslie was ready. [00:35:00] He sailed really close to Scheidt and forced him to the back of the pack, and then every place possible, Ainslie circled into a position that forced chi to slow down. At one point, Shi made a wrong turn and made contact with Ainslie’s Boat, which is no-no.
And then even though Shi manages to get around Ainslie, he’s so far behind that he could only get 22nd place. Ainslie finishes 36th, but it was enough to win gold, except it wasn’t his yet because we had not won. But two rule infringement, protests. Hai protested an incident at the start. He said, Ainslie said he wasn’t allowed Sea Room at this point in the race where, where Che finally dropped Ainslie and the discussions here went on for two hours.
Che’s protest was dismissed. He was disqualified from the race based on video evidence. And Ainslie said What comes around comes around, and [00:36:00] there’s certainly a case of that today.
Alison Brown: I wanna know at any point did Ainslie just look at him and sh and, and shout bullshit?
Jill Jaracz: I’m sure there was some trash talking going on. Well, in Sao Paulo fans were not pleased about this outcome. They burned Ainslie and effigy and sent. And sent, well, we can’t laugh about this. sent death threats his way. So much so that the Australian police had to protect Ainslie during the games. both of these men would go on to compete many more games, sometimes switching type of boats, so they weren’t necessarily competing in each other and they won many, many more medals between them.
But this was. Like the best revenge for Sir Ben Ainslie.
Alison Brown: Death threats are never funny. And we’ve talked about this in relation to Paris, like let’s take it down a notch. Mm-hmm. But. Wow. That’s [00:37:00] like you said, a rivalry doesn’t quite, this was super personal.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, it was. And Ainslie, I believe was some, still 19 in Atlanta and he was just this up and coming star and, and there are elements in the research where he is kind of like, I don’t know what would’ve happened if I had actually won Atlanta.
Would he have been as driven? Would there have been a different kind of pressure? But this really made him focus and he is like, I just wanna be the best and I wanna beat this guy and I’m gonna do it. and that was, it was totally legit what he did. And I’ve got a little video clip that shows him just sheik, tries to go and easily just cuts in front of him and cut, cuts him off basically.
And it’s incredible the gamesmanship and, and I don’t know if they’ve changed the rules since then. But it really made for an interesting race. And you know, we never pay a lot of attention to sailing because it’s always, well, for Paris it was just we couldn’t get there. And when it’s not [00:38:00] close, I. It’s harder to pay attention to.
I think the sports that aren’t in the city really suffer for a lack of attention from at least, and maybe it’s different when you’re watching at home on the couch and you can choose whatever, but, and sailing’s always been tough to watch
Alison Brown: on tv, right? Because it’s not simple to understand. There are so many rules.
It’s hard to film for television because watching it from a drone. Is the best angle, but doesn’t make for great tv though this sounds like this made for some really great tv. Man,
Jill Jaracz: man, and, and you’re right in the city, the athletes get to stay in the actual village. I think they really appreciated that.
And, you get the crowds coming in and it lends for a different atmosphere. So I’m, I’m really curious how LA is gonna do it because they’re gonna be close. To everything again. And, and it would be interesting to go and try to watch a race in person and just see what can you tell from [00:39:00] watching on shore.
Alison Brown: maybe we’ll get one of those little view boats. Oh, let’s try and get a view boat. Okay. I’m down. I, I can swim ish. No, actually I’m a, I’m a good swimmer and I know when to put a life jacket on,
Jill Jaracz: so we say I still have to poke around the other sailing races to see if there’s anything else because I, I just was like, the first two I looked at were these amazing stories and who knows what else is going on in the Sydney 2000 sailing competition.
Alison Brown: Ah, oh, sources. So sources for me. Were olympics.com. The Olympic design, NBC, Sydney Morning Herald, the senior Channel seven in Australia. News, Paralympics website, Paralympics, Australia, Nightline, also Australian TV via their Facebook web, Facebook site and Slate Magazine.
Jill Jaracz: And I, uh, used Australian Broadcasting Company, American Sailing, the [00:40:00] B-B-C-E-S-P-N, the Guardian ILCA sailing the independent edia olympics.com.
Royal Gazette Sail, world Sail GP Sailing World Sail world cruising.com, team, GP, and the Telegraph. Oh man, it is fun going back to,
Alison Brown: to Sydney. So things we need to know for Brisbane. Don’t be afraid of a kangaroo mascot. Don’t make mascot sexy and possibly fatso. Oh, you know, I think that’s what a Tartu Barza was thinking when she saw me with that cookie.
So maybe Brisbane, I can be your fatso mascot.
We love hearing from you!
Jill Jaracz: Alright, well, well we picture that, I think that’s gonna do it for this episode. Let us know what you remember from Sydnee 2000 or what you would like Faso’s, Mamba mascots to do.
Alison Brown: And we do love hearing from you. You can chat with us and other [00:41:00] listeners on our Facebook group.
Keep The Flame Alive Podcast. Email us at Flame Alive pod@gmail.com. The voicemail and text line is always open at 2 0 8. 3 5 2 6 3 4 8. That’s 2 0 8. Flame it. And if you need more Olympics and Paralympics and possibly more sailing stories in your life, you can get our newsletter. It’s on Substack and you can sign up for that@flamealivepod.com.
We’ll have a link to that in the show notes
Jill Jaracz: next week. We are talking with Paralympic Gold Medal swimmer, Sergeant First class Ellie Marks. Ellie talks with us about Paris, how she adapts for training, ’cause she’s got some amazing stories about. And, also how she helps other swimmers improve and get better.
So join us for that conversation. Thank you so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive.