All year long we’re celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Sydney 2000 Games, and this month is the actual month of the Games’ anniversary! The Sydney 2000 Olympics opened on September 15, 2000, and over the next 17 days, won over the world with its competitions and amazing hospitality.
Another element that made Sydney 2000 special was the inclusion of several new sports and events on the Olympic program, particularly events for women. On this episode, we look at three of those new sports and events: Triathlon (new sport), women’s pole vault (new event) and women’s modern pentathlon (new event). All three had amazing debuts–what made them worth adding to the program? And did anyone’s uterus fall out?
For a complete list of sources used in this episode, visit: https://tinyurl.com/sydney2000sources.
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Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
TRANSCRIPT
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408-Sydney 2000-TRI-WPV-WMOD
Jill Jaracz: Hello, and welcome to another 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 am your host, Jill Jaracz, joined as always by my lovely co-host, Alison Brown. Alison. Hello. Good day.
Alison Brown: Good day.
Jill Jaracz: How are you?
Alison Brown: And now we’re getting into September.
So we’re seeing all the actual 25th anniversary pieces from, Sydney, which is really exciting. It’s like, oh, this is the actual day. So we’ll see that through from mid-September. Through most of October.
Jill Jaracz: Exactly. So we are doing a history episode this week, and we are covering all year long Sydney 2000.
It’s the 25th anniversary of these games. The games started September 15th and went through October 1st, and then the Paralympics are, later in October. And yeah, starting to see everything like, oh wow. I, I can’t wait to see what they do. Yeah.
Alison Brown: The Australian Olympic Committee has started to do a road show.
With different athletes. So there are things going around Australia. Unfortunately they are not coming to us. I don’t know. Why
do they not know that you and I are here waiting for them?
Jill Jaracz: Right, right. I guess they’re just gonna hang out with Ben Waterworth from off the podium. And the wombat.
The wombat from Roy and hg we learned about earlier this year and I’ve been obsessed with ever since
Alison Brown: I should have known.
Jill Jaracz: one of the big things with Sydney 2000 was that a lot of women’s events were added to the program. We started to see a big jump in gender equity.
I always mess that up, even though Dr. Michelle Donnelly talked to us about that. I still mess it up, but women are getting to participate a lot more. You
Alison Brown: see more women’s events?
Sydney 2000: The debut of triathlon
Jill Jaracz: Yes. And we also have a couple of big new events, one of which is triathlon, which you’ve got the story on.
Alison Brown: Do tell. Uh, yeah. We’re gonna start with triathlon and with its combination of swim, bike, and run.
The sport first appeared on the scene in the early 1970s and the International Triathlon Union was formed in 1989 and the Federation standardized rules and distances. Now, at the time, the most famous triathlon and probably still the most famous triathlon is the Iron Man.
Jill Jaracz: Oh
Alison Brown: yeah. And that, race included a 3.9 kilometer swim, 120 kilometer bike ride, and a full marathon run.
Winning times were over eight hours, so
Jill Jaracz: not sure. Can you imagine if they tried to propose that for an Olympics?
Alison Brown: Right. The IOC did not have any interest in that kind of event. So the, although,
Jill Jaracz: wait, hold on. Because when we get to modern pentathlon, you will see maybe they did have the stomach for that kind of event.
Alison Brown: Well, I don’t think they had the stomach for adding that kind of event. Modern pentathlon, sometimes it’s like, oh, they’re stuck with that. They have to make that work at all costs. So to combat this, the ITU came up with what became known as Olympic distances, and that’s a 1500 meter swim, a 40 kilometer cycle, and a 10 kilometer run.
And winning times for men and women at the time were about two hours. Much more doable, much more workable, much more TV friendly. And in 1994, the IOC approved triathlon for the program at Sydney.
Jill Jaracz: Wow. So you start your federation in 89. Five years later, you get onto the Olympic program.
Alison Brown: It almost felt like the federation was started to get on the Olympic program.
like Iron Mans and other triathlons were just happening and people were competing. But this idea of a federation that standardized everything, I think was in the push. To get it in the Olympics.
Jill Jaracz: Interesting. I would love to be a fly on the wall in the conversations about how they chose those distances.
Alison Brown: From what I read, it really was what distances work that gets winning times in a palatable range. So if we wanna get into that two to four hour mm-hmm. Races. How far can we go on each thing?
Jill Jaracz: Wow, that’s so interesting to kind of figure that that’s another puzzle to put together.
Alison Brown: So throughout the nineties, leading up to the Sydney Olympics, Brits and Australians dominated the men’s events.
Simon Lessing and Spencer Smith of Great Britain flipped the world title between them, between 92 and 96, and no fewer than eight different Australians reached the world podium. In that decade. So that included Miles Stewart, Peter Robinson, and Craig Walton, and at the 1999 World Championships, we get a little break in the podium when Dmitri Gog from Kazakhstan.
Made it. Yes. He took the title and Lessing and Stewart rounded out the podium. Different. On the women’s side, it was mostly Canadians and Americans, but Australia really dominated. And from 96 to 99, the Aussies won 10 out of 12 world championship medals with five different athletes.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: And for the 2000 Olympics 1999 world champion, Loretta Har, 2000 world Champion, Nicole Hackett, and six time world medalist, including two time champion. Kel Jones made up the Australian women’s team and Australian fans had a realistic dream of sweeping the podium.
We will just say that doesn’t happen. Aw, things go very unexpected in this race.
Jill Jaracz: Okay.
Alison Brown: Okay. So it seems even from the beginning, the swim portion of the Olympic triathlon was destined for controversy. So in Paris, you remember we had concerns over pollution of the sun. In Rio, they talked about sewage in the water.
In Sydney, it was sharks. So there was allegedly competitors who complained that they had seen sharks in the water, in terms of like in the, the test events. And when people went and, and looked at where this event was gonna happen in Sydney Harbor. Organizers took it seriously, so they deployed divers with electrical devices that emitted low frequency signal that would deter sharks from the waters while the triathlon was going on.
Jill Jaracz: is that a volunteer job that you would wanna do?
Alison Brown: No. No. Thank you. But in terms of volunteers, no sharks were ever spotted, so we didn’t lose anybody in the triathlon to jaws. Doesn’t mean things didn’t get wild. So the women went first. Saturday, September 16th, 48. Women dove into Sydney Harbor after the Swim American, Sheila Tarina led by about a minute.
And the first chase pack included Kel Jones from Australia. Now, Tarina was a swim specialist and she actually won a gold medal with Jenny Thompson, who we’ve talked about before in the four by 200 meter relay in Atlanta. So once they get on the bike, heard lead quickly disappeared. And she also went on to compete at a third Olympic event in 2008.
Little thing called modern pentathlon. What?
Jill Jaracz: Wow. Talk about your Multisport multi, that’s like a meta multis sporting. Like you. It’s one to three to five.
Alison Brown: As long as it involved swimming, she was gonna keep going.
Jill Jaracz: Wow. I guess the odds were in her favor. I am sorry.
Alison Brown: There was no shark in this Hunger Games.
Okay, so back to the race. The bike portion included a difficult climb and a sharp right turn across cobblestones and to seemingly, no one surprised there was a crash and two riders were out, but none of the favorites. So German, Joel Franz, the youngest woman in the race at age 21, took the lead in the second lap.
But heading into the next transition, a big group goes in together. So we’re going into the last lag. All three Australians are in that lead group and Jones gets out of the transition area first into the run. So as the run progressed, Jones and Halla pulled out ahead of Magali, Mesmer of Switzerland and Joanna Ziegler of the US now pulling up from 12th after the bike ride was little known Swiss triathlete, Bridgette McMahon.
Jill Jaracz: Okay.
Alison Brown: The five stayed together for most of the run. Then McMahon and Jones pull away. They were neck and neck the whole way. So we get a sprint finish. McMahon pulls away in the last hundred meters, beating world champion Jones by less than two seconds.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: So Bridgette McMahon Win wins Gold MHA Jones wins Silver and McMahon’s teammate Magali Mesmer wins Bronze only about 15 seconds behind.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: Very, very tight all the way through. Much very exciting. So much fun listening to the Australian announcers on this race. Because they still were like, we’re gonna get the sweep. ’cause all three of the Australians were really in the mix until the run portion.
Jill Jaracz: Wow,
Alison Brown: wow, wow, wow, wow. So not to be outdone, the men hit the course the following day.
So at the first transition out of the water, Craig Walton led followed closely by Simon Lessing, big names in the field at the time. There was this little Canadian named Simon Whitfield, and he was far back in the swim, but he had an excellent transition and worked his way up during the bike. Three riders were out in front, but only ahead of the big pack by about eight seconds.
So you’ve got the three, and then you have a chase pack, but they’re all kind of close chase pack crashes, including Whitfield. They all lose tons and tons of time. So at the second transition from Bike to Run, Olivier Marc France and Conrad Stoltz of South Africa led again, not big names at this point, but the big pack coming out of that transition includes Miles Stewart, Craig Walton, Dmitri Gog, Simon Lessing, and Simon Whitfield, less than a minute behind who somehow recovered from the crash.
Made up all that time.
German Stefan Vukovich pulled into the lead during the run and the pre-race favorites the Lessings, the, stewards Walton, they just keep falling more and more behind. you’ve got the German and here comes the Canadian. So Vukovich. Unfortunately, in the run, made a mistake. He made his kick too early, so he pulled away and then starts to fade, and Whitfield turns on the gases and just pulls away half a kilometer to go crosses the finish line first.
Winning gold in an absolute stunning upset.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: Man, and what was really funny to me was the Canadian Olympic Committee posted something about Simon Whitfield last week as I was doing this, and I said, I know this story. He’s really cool,
Jill Jaracz: man. What a debut for triathlon,
Alison Brown: both races. Incredibly, incredibly exciting. And they’ve continued to be, we’ve seen a lot of sprint finishes from Olympic triathlon.
Sydney 2000: The women’s modern pentathlon competition
Jill Jaracz: Well, I looked at modern pentathlon, specifically the women’s, competition because they were added to Sydney 2000 and, modern pentathlon is an interesting sport compared to the other ones because.
It was an Olympic sport first, and then the International Federation followed, and, then the World Championships followed after that. So, if you’re not familiar with modern pentathlon, the Modern Olympics founder Pierre de Bertan, developed the sport. It was first in the Olympics at Stockholm 1912 and the International Federation, which is, the, uh, acronym is UIPM.
It was founded in 1948. After World War. Oh, that was a long
Alison Brown: time later. Yeah,
Jill Jaracz: long time. So I’m guessing the couple World Wars had something to do with it, but, the first World Championships for men only, of course, was in 1949. Women had their first test event in 1977, and they got their World First World Championships in 1981.
So as we move into the 1990s, the IOC wanted to make the Olympics more modern and cut back on the number of events. They also wanted sports to be popular, inexpensive, and accessible. And we all know modern pentathlon is not that. So the UIPM worked really hard to make changes to the sport, and one of them was moving to a one day event so it could be more television friendly.
And that first happened at Atlanta 1996, which we talked about, in our Atlanta 1996 history year. Another change they pushed for was a women’s event that they really wanted to have in Atlanta. But on August 28th, 1990, the UIPM received a letter from the IOC saying that not only would there be no women’s event at Atlanta, they were going to get rid of the men’s team and the men’s team really event.
So now you’re down to just one event for modern pentathlon. So, the UIPM must have had like a come to Jesus moment because starting with the 1993 season, there were massive changes to every aspect of the sport, and it became a one day event with elements of each discipline changed so that it became more exciting for Atlanta 1996 and it.
Proved to work because in Atlanta it was really popular. Like a lot of people bought tickets to Atlanta. So Sydney really wanted to add the women’s event to their edition. And the UIPM lobbied for it again, and in 1998, they were successful. So we had two years to go until the Olympics and the women get told, Hey, you’re gonna be in the games.
So of course, adding a women’s event meant that athlete quota numbers had to come from somewhere. And some of them came from the men’s competition. So Atlanta’s modern Pentathlon had 32 men at Sydney. They were 24 and 24. and remember that athlete quota because there’s some interesting developments that happen because of Sydney.
modern Pentathlon on September 30th, the pen, ultimate day of the Games. And again, like Atlanta, it was an extremely long day. With events held in three venues, but instead of them being kind of spread out as they were in Atlanta, they were within a 500 meter radius and including the baseball stadium, they did the run in their baseball stadium.
Did they
Alison Brown: just run around in circles?
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. It’s a really windy course. And they even did that at Paris where the, the run was within the.
Alison Brown: Oh,
Jill Jaracz: right. Jumping track. So you have to do it windy and it’s, gets a little hard to figure out who is where. And it looks a little like my mice going through a, a maze.
But It works. And it’s, it’s probably a lot more fun to run than a straight cross country course and of co and obviously you can watch everybody do it too. so now we’ve got something that’s a little bit more spectator friendly, long day. Shooting starts at 6 45 in the morning and contestants fired 20 shots from a 4.5 millimeter air pistol at 20 targets.
So you got one shot per target, which pretty much sounds like they have to go one person at a time.
Alison Brown: Oh, so this is before they combined running and shooting?
Jill Jaracz: Yes. They didn’t combine running and shooting I think until like 2 20 12, I believe. And we’re, we’re at Air Pistols, not laser Pistols.
So the laser pistol that they have today, you just have to hit the target. That’s more like biathlon here. They squirt it like an air pistol competition. So you got points based on how close to the center you were. and I. They competed in alphabetical order.
Alison Brown: They did not.
Jill Jaracz: They did too. Yes. So can you imagine being the Z.
Or the a, fencing was the full round robin where every athlete fenced each other in. The one touch up to one minute bout swimming was a 200 meter freestyle, and this time they were clumping athletes together more so, by results so that they could have close heats. Before they were just kind of like, oh, blowouts.
riding was a 12 jump course, including a double jump and triple jump and optional water jump, in the riding segment. Athletes ride unfamiliar horses. There were 12 of them, so the first half of the riders rode them all. Then 13th place takes the first place. Horse 14th takes, takes second, and so on.
Where did they get these horses from? Well, the Sydney Organizing Committee and the UIPM bought 25 horses in Australia, and the organizing committee also provided the horse tax saddle and bridals. I have not been able to find out how much this costs yet. Yet.
Alison Brown: That’s a lot of money. ’cause we already know that importing horses into Australia, problematic.
Right. We’ve talked about that for 56 and for this one problematic. So they had to have their own horses. Mm-hmm. Already set and ready to go. ’cause you just can’t import trained horses. You have to buy them. And prep them yourself?
Jill Jaracz: Yes. And who prepped them? Charles Stewart University and the Australian MPA.
They trained them and for doing that work, they were able to use a horse’s post competition. So not a bad gig. And like the university was so proud. They were involved in a lot of stuff and they were really proud to be able to do that. Jumps were between one and 1.2 meters high, but enough of the men’s horses had had trouble with the course that they had, like this emergency technical meeting and lowered some of the jumps by five centimeters for the women.
But then, you know, it must have worked out okay. running is a final event that started at four 20 in the afternoon. It’s a long, long day, and that was a 3000 meter chase run. So whoever’s in the lead starts off and then everyone chases her with the start times determined by the points they’ve accumulated over the other four events.
So going into the Olympics, there don’t seem to be many clear favorites on the women’s side, and Sports Illustrated predicted that the 2000 world champion, per Neil Sari from Denmark will win gold. Paul. bons from Poland will win silver and Yana Shaak from, Belarus will win third. These picture tell me that none
Alison Brown: of this happened.
Jill Jaracz: None of this happens. Everything goes, oh, fabulous. Everything goes out the water immediately because at the shooting event, American Emily Dere. She’s in first place. Darriel got involved in modern Pentathlon during the 1996 to 97 season.
Alison Brown: But she was an athlete before then?
Jill Jaracz: Well, yes, she, yes. And this is her first year competing at the international level.
And she got involved, she was in studying in Britain and she got involved there. So, uh, in the fencing event, she’s. Tied for a, ninth place with 11 wins and 12 defeats. three athletes are tied for first, in the fencing. Mary Beth, Igor Shali from the USA. Y Yelena Ruka from Latvia and Evea Rova from Russia.
All of them had 15 and eight records. So Rova jumps into the lead and then reel and Great Britain’s Kate Allen B are tied for third
Alison Brown: I wonder if this was one of the last times that the US qualified. More than one woman for modern pentathlon
Jill Jaracz: might be, might be, swimming’s next Hungarian Voros wins that, but she’s so far down in the rankings anyhow that the overall podium standings don’t change.
But Alan, Alan b is clearly in second place now, just 35 points separating first and third in the writing. The American Darrel wins again, and now she’s back in the lead. Alan B is second and Igor Rush Vili is third. So think about it with modern pentathlon, two Americans in podium position going into the final event.
Then comes a run reel is doing great until there’s like 300 meters to go and she has passed. Kind of outta the blue, not outta the blue, but outta the blue in terms of what we’re talking about by Great Britain. Stephanie Cook. Stephanie Cook started the run in eighth place, but she was the best runner in the field and everyone knew it.
Cook, great Britain. She is inspired by her 1924 Hero, Eric Liddell, and they have some things in common. She’s also a devout Christian and she put her. Life’s calling work on hold as a doctor to take part in the games.
Alison Brown: Very nice. Hey, I hope somebody was playing the Chariots of fire music as she was running.
I hope somebody did that for her.
Jill Jaracz: So she zooms by darriel and finishes 51 seconds ahead of her. Like really? Zooms by, uh, silver and bronze. Were much closer. de real. Finishes second. Kate Allen B is behind by like four seconds, so that’s pretty good. And Igor Veli finishes fourth. So we have two Americans in the top five.
So, gold to Stephanie Cook silver to Emily reel, bronze to Kate Allenby. cook said because reel had been training with them that Britain swep the podium.
Alison Brown: Well, that was nice that they claimed her.
Jill Jaracz: Yes, yes, yes. You know,
Alison Brown: they didn’t say, Ooh, that American, we want nothing to do with her. They said, no.
She is one of us.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And this is America’s first medal in modern Pentathlon since 1960 when Robert Beck won a bronze. And the last American to win a silver was George Moore in 1948. So, uh, she did everybody really well. Everybody, you know, she probably surprised herself really. But, uh, what about those sis predictions?
So, bonus took fifth, Nik took Sixth Safari, who they had predicted to win the gold. She finished 17th. But it is worth, mentioning that she and the 10th place finisher, Caroline, Delamar from France, they both competed at the very first Women’s World Championships in 1981. The longevity of these women are just amazing, and as Safari was the, the reigning world champ too.
Alison Brown: and this is not a sport. Where you see people competing. Certainly not anymore for 25 years. Right. I mean it’s one thing when it’s erest and it’s one thing when it’s shooting not to, but not to take anything away from those athletes. But you do see the athletes with, with long careers and modern Penn athletes do not stick around the equivalent of six.
Jill Jaracz: No. And that’s really because we’ve noted. Professionalism has come into play. More athletes are staying around longer, but that doesn’t necessarily happen with a lot of all modern pent athletes.
Alison Brown: So, I mean, ’cause you’re not making buck from modern pentathlon. No. Yeah,
Jill Jaracz: I, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them in Europe had decent sponsorships.
But that’s, that’s a different story. Anyway. The spectators at Sydney were surveyed about. What they thought about this event. 1700 people responded, they, and they sold out like 96% of the venue. So this is an excellent sellout. 80% of them said they were watching modern pentathlon for the first time.
Shocking more women than men attended. Most had run or swam before, so they were familiar with those bits. Half had done riding but fe and they didn’t know fencing and shooting at all. And one of the biggest reasons they wanted to attend is that you got five sports in one. So Really, it was such a bargain ticket.
So it was one
Alison Brown: crowd.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. And you just went to, you walked to the venues. Yeah.
Alison Brown: So it was a long day for them too.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. But what a bargain.
Alison Brown: Fair enough. You got five Olympic level competitions in one day.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. And you didn’t know who was gonna win until the end. So huge, like the way they restructured the competition really made it exciting.
The sport improved its image. because of the good ticket sales, the athlete quota was increased for 2004 and they sold out in Athens and they got increased again. For Beijing. So they were up to 36 and 36, and that was what the quota was for Paris 2024. Huh.
Now, now it’s going down ’cause going down to 32 and 32 for la so, oh. But that’s not much of a cut. Not much of a cut, but it’s a cut. And once again, modern Pentathlon is struggling with the, oh, we’re the writings on the wall yet again that they don’t want us around. So we’ll see With the obstacle race that gets put in, what that’s gonna do to the sport as well. But yeah, crazy competition for the women in modern pentathlon. And you got another, you’ve got one more. You’ve got women’s sport.
Sydney 2000: The women’s pole vault competition
Alison Brown: I have another new women’s event, women’s pole vault now, like modern pentathlon men’s pole vault had been included in the program for just a little while.
Since 1896, women’s pole vault, that was considered too dangerous and improper for women. Yes. Once again, everyone is worried about the uterus flying out on the infield.
Jill Jaracz: Wouldn’t you be like more worried because they have to invert themselves? Wouldn’t you be more worried about the uterus going into your lungs?
Well, that’s fine. Or into your stomach,
Alison Brown: but that’s fine. ’cause then it just, you know, stays closely in place. They just don’t wanna see it. Flying out of the body didn’t stop women from jumping. So there were pioneers like Ruth Spencer, Mildred Carl, Irene Spiker, and Jana Edwards. They jumped, but it took a long time for there to be recognition.
The big push came in the 1990s and IAAF, now known as World Athletics, finally ratified the first world record in women’s pole vault. In 1994 from a jump in 1992, it was a Cayo Sun from China at 4.05 meters. 1997 IAAF finally included women’s pole vault in the indoor world championships. American Stacey Dello won that title with a new world record of 4.4 meters Australian Emma George Finnis second, followed by two Chinese jumpers, yang Kai and Kaun Sun, who had previously held the world record.
It is not until 1999 that we get the first outdoor world championships for women’s pole vaults. George suffered a back injury training for that event and that would affect her for the rest of her career. Another Australian Tatiana Gregor Eva Burst on the scene capturing the bronze behind Ra and Ukrainian and Zela Bala Canova.
Remember this name? Tatiana Gregor. Eva. She’s very important to our story. She had immigrated to Australia only two years prior in 1997 with her then husband, Victor Ticoff, who was also a pro vaulter from Russia in search of better training opportunities and facilities. Geva had been a hurdler in Russia and did not try pole vault until she moved to Australia at the age of 21.
Her rise up the international ranks was nothing short of meteoric. With her striking good looks and Willowy figure, she became a media darling earning her magazine covers and a nude photo spread.
Jill Jaracz: That. That’s okay. We had a women’s pole vaulting calendar, or I think it was for 2001, but we did have a a pole vault calendar,
Alison Brown: so as Tatiana Star rose, unfortunately, victors fell under the pressure of injuries, illness, and a.
Of arrogance and to nobody’s surprise, their relationship suffered. And despite working with Sergei Bka former coach Vitali Petrov, the marital strife seemed to derail both jumpers results in that season leading into the Olympics. And one more jumper to remember from the first outdoor world championships is from Iceland of all places.
Wow. Valla Sada who finished eighth, and she had been a solid junior jumper, but had yet to make much of an impact on the senior ranks as we’re coming into 2000. So at the Sydney Olympics, 30 women started with the crawl qualifying round on September 23rd, and unfortunately, an injured Emma George, who had been so important to this sport in the late nineties did not get past qualifying.
Russia’s Yelena Eva, the Junior World Championship, in 2000. Also no heed. Her name may sound familiar because she went on to win the next two gold medals at the Olympics, and then a bronze medal in 2012. She still holds the world record. Though some people put that world record with an asterisk next to a needle.
No. Yeah. It’s never been proven that the Russian was doping, but given the timeframe, people have questions, but we don’t have to talk about her anymore. So 13 women moved on to the final and they had all reached 4.3 meters in qualifying.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, so we’re already qualifying over the world record.
Alison Brown: The first
Jill Jaracz: world record
Alison Brown: over the first world record.
Yeah. Yes. Because the current, at the time World record was four four. So the pole vault final took place the same day as Kathy Freeman’s 400 liter race.
Jill Jaracz: Oh my gosh. This is Magic Monday.
Alison Brown: And we talked about that earlier, and we did a show with Nick Ardi, a couple years ago about. All the amazing things that happened on that day.
This is one of them. Kathy is another, and some people will still say this is the greatest day in track and field history.
Jill Jaracz: Right, right.
Alison Brown: And honestly, the women’s pole vault was a big part of that. So as Gregory Avia took her turn on the pole vault, Freeman was running and she could hear what was happening in the stadium.
And she has said that pushed her that it wasn’t a distraction, that it was this feeling of the Australian crowd lifting her up. So she took it in the best way. And this competition got really good, really fast. So two women went out on the opening height. Including a, A world bronze medalist, an zalea bva.
Two more after six rounds and another after seven rounds. They’re just jumping, wow, jumping. It wasn’t until round 12 that ano another jumper goes out.
Jill Jaracz: Holy cow. Can you imagine like having that much jump left in you
Alison Brown: and you’ve got three jumps at each round to make the height? So some of these women are doing just jump after jump after jump.
And then two more jumpers didn’t make it past 4.5, and that’s where Stacey Della starts to struggle.
Jill Jaracz: Oh no.
Alison Brown: On the next year, she is
Jill Jaracz: like the American hope. She and she, she got, she got a lot of press at this time.
Alison Brown: She’s the reigning world champion, so she’s expected to take this gold medal at the first.
Women’s PO Vault. So over the next three Heights, Gila misses on her first two attempts, and she needs the third attempt to clear Tatiana. Gregor has started slow this day, but had only needed one jump through several rounds, and also only needing one jump. The whole day was vasa Ada from Iceland.
Jill Jaracz: What did she just go, well, I’m gonna, I’m just gonna wait and wait and wait until the bar’s that high.
No. Every
Alison Brown: jump she makes in her first attempt, she’s just clearing heights and then she goes and relaxes. Oh my gosh. Gosh. The greatest competition of this women’s height, she does not miss until they hit 4.5 meter. 4.55 meters. Wow. But at that point, there’s only three jumpers left.
Jill Jaracz: Wow. So we’ve got a podium.
We don’t know who is where exactly.
Alison Brown: So at this point, at 4.55, FLSA daughter is pretty securely, no lower than Bronx. She does not go any further than that. So now we’ve gotta have a battle between Dilla and Gregory. Eva, Dr. Dilla clears 4.6 Gregory. Eva. Passes at 4.6 but then fails at 4.65,
which means Stacey Dilla of the US wins gold. Tatiana Gregor one Silver and Valla floss daughter wins. Bronze storys not over. Story does not end that day because what happens to these three women? After the Olympics is fantastic and not fantastic. So, in Sydney, Tatiana Geva worried that the crowd would be disappointed in her silver medal after what happened with Kathie Freeman.
She had no reason to be, they celebrated this silver with as much as enthusiasm as the gold from Kathy Freeman. And Gregoria, Ava has said in the year since that it was, at that moment she felt truly Australian. Aw. You can imagine she hadn’t been in Australia all that long and the crowd really said, oh no, you are one of us.
But with a much better accent. So later that week, her husband, Victor Ticoff, finished fifth in the men’s PO vault. While preparing for the 2004 Olympics, Ticoff admitted to an affair with another Paul Vaulter and their marriage ended and neither Victor nor Tatiana made the team for Athens. OV decided to return to Russia and attempt to come back and he was representing Russia as late as 2009, but he has never won a medal on a senior international event.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: Man, Gregory Ava retired from competition and moved to the Gold Coast. She bought a cake and gelato shop. She, which she has since sold, but she had it for several years and there’s a lot of, business press that you can find about. Okay. When, when she owned the shop, and I’m like, I can guarantee you this woman did not eat cake and gelato while she was competing.
Jill Jaracz: No. I guess she’s making up for many years of lost time.
Alison Brown: Exactly. So she also competed on Australia’s version of Dancing With the Stars. And gladiators. Oh,
Jill Jaracz: wow.
Alison Brown: She married again and she now has two children, and she now works as a high performance coach. Wow. The gold medal winner, Stacey Dilla continued onto the 2004 Olympics, but she did not make it pass the qualifying round in Athens.
After she retired, she founded the Stacey Dilla Vault Camp and owns the Elite Training Center and continues to train. The future generation of women, Paul Volar
Jill Jaracz: excellent,
Alison Brown: but this is the best one. So Valla floss daughter’s result was the highest jump of her career and the best result of her career.
She’s the only woman from Iceland to ever win an Indi individual Olympic medal, and she later earned a PhD from Lund University in Sweden in physical therapy. Her dissertation is titled. When translated into English. Oh knee. Where are thou? Patient reported outcomes and physical performance in individuals with acute knee injury.
So Dr. Flos, thank you so much for that title that made all the research on this episode. Worth it.
Jill Jaracz: Well, uh, would you like to hear, uh, sports Illustrated pre predictions for this event? Oh
Alison Brown: yeah.
Jill Jaracz: gold for Tra Stacey Dilla, silver for Emma George, and Bronze to Angela Blac Nova.
Alison Brown: Yeah, nobody was looking for the Iceland lady.
Jill Jaracz: No. No. Iceland
The Sports Illustrated predictions curse
Alison Brown: Sports Illustrated was not doing so great on their predictions, but they never
Jill Jaracz: do great. They never do great. Like the worst
Alison Brown: thing that can happen to you is you get predicted. Well, I know there’s a whole Sports Illustrated cover curse that if you get on the cover, you’re gonna get hurt.
Jill Jaracz: Right. So my cover is Yvonne Ivanov of Belarus. He is the world’s best gymnast. Let me quick look up how he did.
Alison Brown: did he end up with nee wear out though an acute knee injury?
Jill Jaracz: So, it was a curse for him in 2000. He finished fourth in the all around. and the team all around. It looks like, Belarus might have been eighth and the floor exercise. He was 56th in vault. He tied for 39th parallel bars. He was fifth horizontal bar. He. Tied for 11th, in, uh, round one. And, rings tied for fifth and Palmer Horse was 31st.
What happened to him?
Alison Brown: He was falling off things all over the place.
Jill Jaracz: Oh. Or he
Alison Brown: was hurt.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, right, right, right, right, right. So, man, yeah. Yeah. Who else don’t ever get
Alison Brown: on the cover of Sports Illustrated? Right.
Jill Jaracz: Well, Erin Jackson was on the cover for Oh, okay. Beijing. And she did. Okay.
Alison Brown: Yes. Fair enough. And speaking of magazines, although
Jill Jaracz: she, she did have a co, she did have a scare.
Alison Brown: That’s true. Remember in the, in the trials?
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: Don’t put any of our people on the cover anymore. Sports Illustrated. ‘ cause you know, they listen to us.
Sources for this episode
Alison Brown: But speaking of magazines, my sources, yes, Olympic Do olympics.com, track and Field News, time Magazine, world Athletics. The Australian Olympic Committee, the Dreaded Sports Illustrated, L University Olympia, Stacy Dilla, vault Club, daily Telegraph, USA, triathlon World Triathlon. P-B-S-E-S-P-N, the Globe and Mail.
And the very helpful B-B-B-B-C.
Jill Jaracz: And for me, my sources were are Andy Archibald’s book, modern Pentathlon a Centenary History, 1912 to 2012. Associated Press. BBC Edia, Frank j olympics.com Sports Illustrated, Sydney 2000 Official Report and Modern Pentathlon results. the UIPM and USA Pentathlon. Man create stories to celebrate the actual start of the games.
Alison Brown: And what’s so, what’s so much fun for me is I remember Stacia ELA didn’t remember anything else of the rest of this. Wow. Wow. So this was just walk down a memory lane. I had never been, which was fantastic.
Jill Jaracz: I know. And I, I constantly revisit the Kathy Freeman race ’cause it’s such a big moment. Doesn’t, it?
Just makes you feel so great,
Alison Brown: doesn’t it?
Jill Jaracz: yeah. And to have that cheering going on while you’re vaulting has to be incredible. So now I’m gonna go back and watch it again to see if you can see the vaulting in the background.
Oh man.
Review of the week
Jill Jaracz: Who else thinks Sydnee? Two thousand’s. Great.
Alison Brown: That would be listener Tommy who left us a note after our gymnastics episode, on the Facebook group, and he said, loved your review of the Sydney 2000 gymnastics fiasco. I always learned something new on your show.
Jill Jaracz: And if you would like to hear your name here, leave us a review on your podcast app or check out the other ways to get in touch with us in the episode details.
We feature a review, comment, email or voicemail every week, and we would love to hear what you think and get yourself featured on the show. And that’s gonna do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening,
Alison Brown: and until next time, keep the flame alive.