Curtain falls on Sydney show

SYDNEY, OCTOBER 1: The most successful games ever, said Juan Antonio Samaranch. The jury's out on that, but one thing's for sure: Few othe...

SYDNEY, OCTOBER 1: The most successful games ever, said Juan Antonio Samaranch. The jury’s out on that, but one thing’s for sure: Few other countries can appreciate as much the sheer joy of sport and the fun side of life. And today’s ceremony to end the Millennium Olympics, with large doses of music and wacky humour and even a rare joke from the normally dour Samaranch, summed up everything this Olympics — and, indeed, the land where it was held — was about.

From the fey, pouting Kylie Minogue to the huge, huge presence of Greg Norman, from the polythene pop of Abba to the serious rock of Midnight Oil, the parade of Aussie icons showed — to the Indian audience, at least — that there was more to the land Down Under than McGrath and the MCG.

The best moment was when country legend Slim Dusty picked up his acoustic guitar and launched into the first verse of Waltzing Matilda. He was, of course, joined by almost everyone in the packed Stadium Australia, and that moment, in 110,000 people singing a song about a cattle rustler who preferred to die than be captured, defined this lovably crazy nation.

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And, just for emphasis, Men at Work, in hibernation since the mid-80s, roared back to centrestage with a reprisal of their 1983 hit, Down Under, with its emphatic chorus, We come from the land Down Under/where women glow and men plunder’.

The entire ceremony, in fact, was a celebration of the deliberately off-kilter Aussie character. There was Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, the heroine’ of a small-budget film that has since become a cult classic. And there, too, was Crocodile Dundee’, the actor Paul Hogan who played the title role in probably the best-loved Australian film.

The humour flowed even from Samaranch, who called this the best Olympics ever. “Seven years ago, I said: And the winner is..Sydney’. Well, what can I say now? Maybe, with my Spanish accent: Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! To you, all the people of Sydney and Australia, we say: These have been your games.”

The show was heralded by a fanfare of 48 trumpeteers, eight concert cymbalists and 12 snare drummers positioned on the northern and southern ends of the stadium. The ceremony started with the national Olympic committee flags, beginning with Greece, the founder of the games, being brought in. As the athletes came in the rock group Savage Garden burst into their hit song Affirmation’.

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The formal part ended when the cauldron holding the sacred Olympic flame was lowered with Nikki Webster performing We’ll be One’ and the flame was doused, signalling the end of the games and the beginning of the backyard party’ for athletes and spectators alike.