Neal Collins olympics For those of you who think nandrolene was the bad guy with a cheap torch in Captain Scarlet, think again. It is, in fact, a steroid which helps build muscle, reduce fat, increase stamina, and disappears from the system in two weeks – and has been an enduring Olympic star. That said, Sydney has other problems too. The fiasco over the medals last week doesn’t count. No doubt you saw the story: everybody was laughing about the hapless Olympic organisers putting a picture of Rome’s Colosseum on the medals instead of the Greek Parthenon. As the Olympics were inspired by the ancient Greek games this was seen as a huge blunder. But my insiders in the Olympic Association tell me the Australians were instructed to put a colosseum on the medals instead of the Sydney Opera House – they were never told to add a parthenon. And history suggests that a colosseum has often appeared on Olympic medals, despite the fact that Rome’s edifice is perhaps considered a typical example of the arched style. The colosseum design has appeared on the medals since 1928 in Amsterdam. Mind you, I hear they aren’t too happy about the decision to get rid of the opera house on their original design. So they’ve stuck it on the back of the medals instead, along with an image of the Olympic torch. But that little storm pales into insignificance next to the other problems in Sydney as the Olympics draws ever closer. The official Olympic site, Sydney2000.com, shows us to the microsecond how long it is before the great show begins. In fact, when I looked, it was 15 days, 11 hours, 31 minutes, 22 seconds and eight microseconds to the opening ceremony. Nearly time to start packing. Still time though, to examine the other underlying problems waiting to rear their heads when we all get to Sydney in mid- September.
First of course, we have the insects. My mate visited Australia for the first time last year and said the jumping highwayman spiders (okay, they’re arachnids not insects, but what’s another pair of legs between friends?) were pretty scary to those more used to the odd daddy-long-legs. But apparently they’re not lethal, just frightening. It’s the funnel and redback spiders we should really watch out for. They can cause body parts to drop off, which is never helpful for Olympic athletes. Or anyone else for that matter. Already one British canoeist in the Gold Coast training complex has suffered an unspecified insect bite.
Then we have the plants. Lilies, imported hyacinths and indigenous weeds have infested the Olympic regatta course – leading to cartoon-like images of Steve Redgrave walking to victory (and the mythical fifth gold medal) across the lily pads. So far clean-up campaigns have cost more than R2-million – regrowth occurs at a rate of some five tons of plant life a day. And let’s not forget the revolting local residents: they’ve already protested against the fencing-off of Bondi beach and the building of a temporary stadium for the beach volleyball (an event I am looking forward to covering in some detail). My Sydney contacts tell me the average city resident is loathing the onset of the games. As far as ordinary Syds are concerned, the Olympics has seen plenty of rate-payers’ money wasted, plenty of local inconvenience and very few tickets handed out. And they’re not looking forward to the traffic disruption to come. This being Australia, we have to consider the aborigines too. Their ongoing struggle for recognition and compensation has led to native Australian representative Charles Perkins promising that “cars will be burning in the streets of Sydney”; as this is not an official Olympic event, it may hamper one’s enjoyment. More trouble could come from terrorists. The Olympics has long been a target for publicity-seeking terrorist groups, as Munich discovered when Black September caused murder and mayhem in 1972. Osama Bin Laden, the world’s most wanted man according the FBI, has made threats against the American athletes. FBI agents are already in Sydney, taking steps to ensure the security of the United States team. And the government has passed a special “shoot to kill” law to prevent disruption of the games by terrorists or other protesters. Then let’s move on to the tickets. Not just ordinary little pieces of paper these: the Olympic organisers designed and printed a range of commemorative tickets that would double as souvenirs for the lucky holders. Sadly, the idea has hit a hitch. The tickets don’t fit through the automatic turnstiles. Expect congestion at the stadium entrances as a result. Worryingly, we then come to the airport. Recent power cuts have seen Sydney in chaos. The control tower went dark when an electrical fault caused a complete radio silence. Gulp. The good news is they’ve just installed a new luggage-handling system at Sydney International. The bad news is it has crashed 12 times since it was installed in April. Once you’ve survived that, you might hope for decent accommodation. Sadly, that ran out months ago. They’ve had to draft in cruisers in the harbour to house the overflow. God help you if you get sea sick. All in all it’s not a pretty picture. But fear not. This intrepid reporter will be there, risking life and limb to bring you the big Olympic stories. Bring on the spiders, Bin Laden and the lost luggage insurance!