Running on vapours: The iconic Olympic moment that almost never was
The world was watching when Cathy Freeman lit the Olympic flame during the Sydney 2000 opening ceremony ā but the historic moment was close to being a humiliating failure.
āThere is a hairās breadth between triumph and tragedy,ā Michael Knight said.
Twenty years after the ceremony, the former NSW minister for the Olympics feels comfortable laughing about the moment that came so close to disaster.
Anyone who watched the event would remember the well-publicised wobbles ā the cauldron getting stuck for almost four heart-stopping minutes on its way to the top of the stadium.
But few know that delay almost led to the āsacred flameā, which had travelled all the way from Olympia in Greece, snuffing out as more than two billion people watched.
Four minutes is a long time in show business, and the cauldron was never meant to spend so long in transit.
āThe cauldron ran off bottled gas and it had a limited life expectancy while it was on bottled gas,ā Knight told the ABC.
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āOnly when it ascended to the top of the stadium did it join the permanent gas line.ā
The night before the ceremony, secret rehearsals were under way to make sure the show went off without a hitch.
āAfter Cathyās two rehearsals, one of our senior executives, Colin Ging, went round and said, āYouāve got to top up the gas bottles,ā Knight said.
āAnd the guys with the bottles said, āOh look thereās a tonne of gas.ā
āAnd Colin said, āTop it up! Donāt take any risks, fill it to the brim.āā
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That order turned out to be the hairās breadth.
After the initial glitch, the cauldron was able to travel up to the top of the stadium where it burned for the remainder of the Games.
But the day after the opening ceremony an inspection of the gas bottles showed how close organisers had come to being an international embarrassment.
āThey were completely empty and had been running on vapour at the last minute,ā Knight said.
āThatās how close we came to the sacred Olympic flame, lit by the sunās rays in Olympia, carried through Oceania, carried by over 10,000 torchbearers around Australia, almost dying out on international television with the whole world watching,ā he laughed.
Knight said Cathy Freeman had an earpiece so she could take instructions from the eventās director. But at that moment, the communication stopped.
āShe said, āAll I heard was, āCathy, hold your position, weāve got a problemā,ā Knight recalled.
āAnd then after that, all [she] heard was swearing.ā
The ancient Gods above Mount Olympia must have been watching over Sydney that night to keep the flame alive.
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