Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 5 - 11 October 2000 Issue No. 502
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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Handing out praise

A DAY before the close of the Games, IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch announced he was awarding the Olympic Cup to the people of Sydney for their efforts and hospitality.

Samaranch, who was officiating over his last Olympics, uses the 1992 Barcelona Games as the benchmark for Olympic supremacy, although IOC insiders are saying the IOC chief may have no choice but to bestow the honour of "best Games ever" on Sydney 2000.

Dick Pound, the IOC senior vice president, said he couldn't speak for Samaranch, but he'd give it "10 out of 10."

"They've been fabulous, everything we hoped for when we said seven years ago, 'low risk, high reward in Sydney' as opposed to high risk and perhaps superlative reward in Beijing.

"What we hoped for is what we've got," Pound said. "I've always had very high expectations for Australia. There was never a doubt that Sydney would put on superb Games."

Sydney beat Beijing by two votes in IOC balloting for the 2000 Games in 1993.

Soccer the favourite

THE OVERALL attendance for the Olympic soccer tournament topped one million when 98,212 attended the final between Cameroon and Spain on Saturday, raising the total attendance to 1,069,250 for the whole competition.

The crowd for the final was the largest at any of the 32 matches in the men's competition for the Games.

The previous highest attendance was the 93,252 who saw Italy beat Australia 1-0 on the opening day of the competition at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 13 September.

The lowest crowd was 12,753 who saw South Korea defeat Morocco 1-0 at the Hindmarsh Stadium in Adelaide on 17 September.

Every match produced a goal. In all 103 were scored in the tournament, not including the goals scored in penalty shoot-outs between the United States and Japan and the final shootout between Cameroon and Spain.

Chile were top scorers with 14, with their Inter Milan striker Ivan Zamorano finishing as the top individual scorer with six goals.

US TV ratings low

THE TELEVISED Olympics was a ratings disappointment in the United States.

NBC's all-taped coverage of the Sydney Games drew the lowest US television ratings for any Olympics, summer or winter, since the 1960s.

The decline has been blamed on the lack of live coverage, on competition from other sports due to the unusually late date of the Australian games and on the 15-hour time difference between Sydney and New York.

A long way to go

FAR FEWER people logged on to the Internet to keep track of the Sydney Olympics than expected, senior Olympic officials said.

The International Olympic Committee's marketing division had forecast that some 35 million individuals, or "unique users," would log on to www.olympics.com and other official Games-related Web sites before the Sydney Olympics opened on 15 September.

But by the Games' end, the officials said the estimated figure was 15 million and even that figure may be on the high side.

"We paid too much attention to the Internet hype," said a senior IOC official when asked why the figure was so far below pre-Games estimates.

IOC marketing director Michael Payne said the estimated figures, equivalent to less than 0.5 per cent of the global television audience of 3.7 billion Olympic viewers, showed the Internet still had a long way to go as a mainstream medium.

Expensive swim wear

IN A CHARITY auction of Olympic gear, a single corporate donor offered A$100,000 (US$54,000) for a full-body swimsuit signed by Ian Thorpe, whose breathtaking speed in the water earned him three gold medals and the nickname "Thorpedo."

The bid is the highest so far in an auction which has raised A$10 million to date for disadvantaged children in Australia and refugee children overseas, according to organiser Olympicaid.

Ethiopia's latest champ

MILLON Wolde became the latest Ethiopian to win a distance gold medal when he outsprinted Ali Saidi-Sief to take the men's 5,000 metres.

After a slow, tactical race, which saw a series of lead changes, Algerian Saidi-Sief took off just before the bell with Wolde the only man able to respond.

The Ethiopian proved the stronger as he moved to the front with under 200 metres remaining and ran on to finish in 13:35.49 minutes. Saidi-Sief finished second in 13:36.20, just holding off fast-finishing Moroccan Brahim Lahlafi (13:36.47).

Wolde, 21, a former world junior cross country champion, follows training partner Haile Gebrselassie, who won the 10,000 metres, and Deratu Tulu who won the women's 10,000 metres.

Pakistan loses bid but sees hope

PAKISTAN lost its bid for the men's hockey bronze but said it and others had served notice of an Asian hockey revival.

Manager Islahuddin Siddiqui said South Korea's surprise emergence as a finalist and improved performances from both Pakistan and India, former hockey powerhouses who have faded from glory in recent years, boded well for the sport in Asia.

"We achieved our target of reaching the semi-finals, but not every day is your day," he said of Pakistan's 6-3 defeat by Australia in the bronze medal play-off. "It was a big match."

Pakistan's defence were unable to withstand the onslaught of the aggressive Australians desperate for the bronze medal in front of a packed home crowd.

German breaks wrestling drought

GERMANY's Alexander Leipold won his country's first freestyle wrestling Olympic gold in 40 years. The 31-year-old outpointed Brandon Slay of the United States to win his first Olympic medal in his fourth Games. Leipold was rarely in any danger in the under 76 kg final, and steadily stacked up the points as his opponent struggled to make any impression. The German won 4-0 and performed a cart-wheel followed by a back-flip to celebrate.

Slay took the defeat badly, refusing to shake either his opponent's or the referee's hand before avoiding the American press on his way out.

Italy coach suspended

ITALY's water polo coach Ratko Rudic was banned for a year following a furious outburst after his team were beaten by Hungary in the quarter-finals.

The International Amateur Swimming Federation (FINA), the sport's world governing body, said Rudic, who has led both Yugoslavia and Italy to Olympic titles, had been banned from the Olympics and all FINA tournaments for one year for having brought the sport into disrepute.

Three Italian players were suspended for between one and four games for their part in the outburst after Italy, who had not been beaten throughout the preliminary round-robin se-ies, were defeated 8-5 in a rough quarter-final by the Hun-arians, who themselves had lost twice in the preliminary round.

Getting worse

THE GOLDEN days have turned to autumn in the cycling ca-eer of Britain's Chris Boardman as he struggles against the onset of osteoporosis.

After finishing 11th in the Olympic time trial, Boardman, a gold medallist on the track in Barcelona, admitted: "It's getting harder and harder to perform at this level." He clocked 59 minutes and 32 seconds over the 46.8 kms of the Centennial Park circuit -- one minute and 52 seconds slower than surprise gold medallist Russian Vyatcheslav Ekimov.

Boardman has been struggling for two years against a bone disease called osteopenia, the precursor to osteoporo-is, the more severe version. He acknowledged: "I seem to be more and more fragile."

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