24th OLYMPIC GAMES IN 2000:
Venue: Sydney,Australia
Dates: September 15 to October 1,2000
Numbers of Sports: 28 (300 events)
Numbers of Nations: 199 plus 4 individual athletes (IOA)
Numbers of Participant: 10651
(6582 men and 4069 women)
Number of Media Persons: 16033
(5298 written press, 10735 broadcasters)
Youngest Participant: Fatima Hameed Gerashi (Bahrain),12 years 181 day in Swimming
Oldest Participant: Bruce Meredith
(Virgin Islands),63 years and 156 days in Shooting
Final Medals tally: (Top 25)
Country G S B
United States 37 24 31
Russian Federation 32 28 28
China 28 16 15
Australia 16 25 17
Germany 13 17 26
France 13 14 11
Italy 13 8 13
Holland 12 9 4
Cuba 11 11 7
Great Britain 11 10 7
Romania 11 6 8
South Korea 8 10 10
Hungary 8 6 3
Poland 6 5 3
Japan 5 8 5
Bulgaria 5 6 2
Greece 4 6 3
Sweden 4 5 3
Norway 4 3 3
Ethiopia 4 1 3
Ukraine 3 10 10
Kazakhstan 3 4 –
Belarus 3 3 11
Canada 3 3 8
Spain 3 3 5
TRIVIA:
n Cathy Freeman had the honour to light the Olympic flame at the opening ceremony of the Games. She symbolized the desire to reconcile the white and Aboriginal populations of Australia and was the aborigine medal hopeful. Ten days later, Cathy Freeman won the 400m final which was a clear victory before an ecstatic crowd.
n Four athletes from East Timor took part under the Olympic flag as individual athletes (IOA : individual Olympic athletes).
n Korea (South Korea) and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) marched together under the same flag.
n For the first time outside home soil in 32 years, the United States has topped the medal tally. Americans have won 39 golds, 25 silvers and 33 bronze medals to capture 97 medals overall, leading the haul at 2000 Olympic Games despite finishing four fewer medals than four year ago at Atlanta.
n Out of the 199 participating countries, 80 made it to the medal tally, 51 of them won atleast one gold medal at Sydney.
n Australian Ian Thorpe, the17 years old, won the gold medal in the 400m freestyle by breaking his own world record. He then swam the anchor leg in the 4x100m freestyle and won again. He finally gained another gold medal with the 4x200m freestyle Australian relay team and a silver medal in the 200m freestyle.
n Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie just held off Kenya’s five-times world cross-country champion Paul Tergat to win the 10,000 metres.
n American Michael Johnson became the first man to win back-to-back 400 metres Olympic gold medals when he won 400-metre race clocking 43.84 seconds at Sydney.
n American Jenny Thompson equalled East Germany’s Kristin Otto’s record of most gold medals in Olympic swimming when she won her sixth Olympic gold- all in realys and spread over three games, in the 4 x 100 metres freestyle relay. She won her seventh gold in 4 x200 metres freestyle relay to beat Otto’s record and better her record by winning the eighth gold in 4 x 100 metres medley relay. It was his 10th medal in Olympics. She became fifth woman athlete and 20th overall to win 10 or more medals in Olympics.
n Karnam Malleswari became the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal when she won bronze in women’s 69 kg weightlifting class.
n Maria Isabel Urrutia won Colombia’s first ever Olympic gold medal when she won women’s 75 kg weightlifting competition. Colombia had competed in 15 Olympics stretching back to Los Angeles in 1932 and previously had won two sivlers in shooting and four bronze medals.
n Soraya Jimenez became the first Mexican woman to win gold in any sport when she won gold in 58 kg weightlifting.
n Jenny Thompson’s bronze medal in 100-metre butterfly was her ninth in Olympic, surpassing Dawn Fraser,Kornelia Ender and Shirley Babashoff on the all time list.
n British rower Steven Redgrave has earned a unique place in Olympic history after winning gold medal in his fifth consecutive Games- an unparalleled achievement for an endurance athlete. Only Hungarian Aladar Gerevich who won six golds between 1932 and 1960 in Fencing has done better. Redgrave’s gold run had begun in 1984 when he triumped in the coxed fours.
