Field Of Dreams

By Robert Sullivan/Sydney

The Olympics that Americans ignored in large numbers--as if it were a presidential election or something--was nothing less than sensational. Moving from strength to strength, the Sydney Games followed the hosts' heroics in the pool with thrilling competitions in everything from the beach brand of volleyball to the Greco-Roman flavor of wrestling, then topped the whole thing with a spectacular track meet--a meet that featured a performance for the ages by Australia's Cathy Freeman, a young woman who ran with no less than a continent on her delicate shoulders.

The food in Sydney was fine, the weather mostly fine, the hosts the finest. Even a noisome appearance by that menace of modern Olympics, performance-enhancing drugs, couldn't spoil this party.

Everywhere you turned there was something brilliant happening. Texan Laura Wilkinson came from nowhere to win the platform diving on a broken foot. Chinese veteran Xiong Ni nailed his last dive to become the only man besides Greg Louganis to win back-to-back titles off the springboard. American volleyballers Dain Blanton and Eric Fonoimoana kicked sand in Brazil's face at Bondi Beach. The softball and baseball tournaments were more competitive than ever. The U.S. batswomen lost thrice before storming back to win the gold, while the batsmen did the unprecedented, beating Cuba 4-0 for the title. Finally, there was that track meet, with the performance that will long live as Sydney's gift to sport, and to the world.

No, it was not delivered by Marion Jones. She was impressive, certainly, especially as she had to compete in the wake of allegations that her husband was a drug cheat (see box). She won the 100-m sprint before the news broke. In the 200-m, she had to run from the controversy and the field, which she did easily. But she knew coming into the Games that the long jump posed her big challenge, and on Friday she could not harness her speed, crashing out with four fouls in six jumps. Germany's Heike Drechsler took honors, Jones a consolation bronze. On Saturday, skittish baton passes yielded another bronze in the 4 x 100-m relay, but Jones' own sensational leg in the 4 x 400 brought her a third gold.

But Jones was not even in sneakers on a night that now stands as perhaps the greatest in track-and-field history. Beginning at 6 that Monday evening, 112,574 Australians and their guests watched as American Michael Johnson embarrassed the field at 400 m, becoming the first man ever to win that event in back-to-back Olympics; as American Stacy Dragila bested a bevy of blonds to win the first-ever Olympic women's pole vault; as Romanian Gabriela Szabo held off Irishwoman Sonia O'Sullivan four times in the stretch to win a thrilling 5,000-m race by a quarter of a second; and as Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie nipped Kenyan Paul Tergat at the wire in an even more exciting 10,000-m run.

And they saw their own Cathy Freeman transcend sport as she covered 400 m in 49.11 sec.

A bit about her: she's an Aborigine, and Aborigines, the indigenous people of Australia, have been persecuted for much of the past two centuries; today they reside on the bottom rung of all ladders--socioeconomic, educational, political. Freeman, 27, has always been news in Australia, because Aboriginal athletes of accomplishment are rare in this country.

Freeman hasn't shied from the issues. When she won her first big international title at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria, B.C., she took a victory lap draped in the Aboriginal flag. Some Australians condemned her, but others who were trying to change the country's thinking adopted Freeman. Slowly, she developed into an admired character, not least because she continued to succeed, eventually winning two world championships.

As Sydney drew closer, modernist Australians seized on the new millennium as a time to confront their colonial past. Look to Cathy, they said. Freeman accepted the responsibility. One way to consider it is, while Marion Jones was trying to win five gold medals for herself and the greater prosperity of Nike Inc., Freeman's crusade had become cosmic. Even before the gun went off, hers had become the most significant race, in a political sense, since Jesse Owens shredded Adolf Hitler's Aryan showcase at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

Freeman came out in a full-body track suit and kept licking her lips to find moisture that could not be found. She took her stance. The gun sounded. She got a fair start, but was clearly behind. She went into the far turn gaining but came out of the near turn still trailing Jamaica's Lorraine Graham. Flashbulbs sparked the tension; the stadium was a live wire. In the stretch, Freeman finally caught Graham, then strode ahead, the noise rising as her lead lengthened, and exploding as she crossed the line first.

Freeman's reaction was extraordinary. The audience shouted on and on, and she just sat on the track, overwhelmed, letting it wash over her. Everyone was crying and shouting; there were tears on Press Row. Freeman sat there and slowly took off her shoes. She felt that she was among friends, and that's what she does among friends. She sits down and takes off her shoes.

At last she got up and, barefoot, took her victory lap, waving the Australian and Aboriginal flags, which she tied into one.

The cosmology surrounding the race got even weirder after the dust had settled. Freeman's individual gold, the first ever won by an indigenous Australian, turned out to be the 100th gold awarded to the country overall. It fairly announced, "Time for a new start." And people were buying into that. After the race, Freeman said, "I'm sure what has happened and what I symbolize will make a lot of difference to people's attitudes. It will change attitudes in the street and in the political forum." An outsider might have thought: fat chance. But by having already spoken out on the present government's neglect of Aborigines, Freeman did something very dramatic with her race: she punctuated what she stood for. "She is capable of great power," said Australian writer Tom Keneally. "I'm skeptical about the idea that sports changes things any more than poetry or fiction can do, but this is quite like when Jackie Robinson played major league baseball in America, and if any sports event can change things, this one has a chance."

So there it was: the Olympics had, for once, made good on their promise. The Olympics had visited Australia and were leaving the country a better place than it was before. In doing so, this surpassing Olympics in Sydney had been crowned by an altogether transcendent performance.

Oz to U.S.: Sorry you missed it, mate.