Australia and the Olympic Games 1956 Melbourne Olympics and 2000 Sydney Olympics the Games

Australia and the Olympic Games 1956 Melbourne Olympics and 2000 Sydney Olympics The Games

Preparations

Melbourne 1956 preparations and venues

Focus

Threats to preparations in the months before the Melbourne Olympic Games.

Activity

Read the following account and note the main events and problems which made Melbourne’s preparations difficult at that time.

By mid-1956, with Brundage satisﬁed and the Olympic machinery finally moving with real precision, it seemed Melbourne’s problems were finally over. Nothing could harm the Games now, except maybe an outbreak of War. This did come before long: twice, really, in the form of a couple of invasions. The armed forces of Israel, Britain and France moved into Egypt to contest what became known as the Suez Crisis, and a few weeks later bloody ﬁghting broke out in Hungary, as huge columns of tanks rolled into Budapest and 200,000 Soviet troops began to suppress a rebellion. Tension between Taiwan and mainland China increased to a point where it was barely tolerable, and finally the People’s Republic refused to attend the Olympics. To some Cold War warriors, this last omission was a godsend. One of them, James (later Sir James) Plimsoll, had been outraged when he learned of plans to sit the People’s Republic team of 216 in the same dining hall as teams from Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma and Ceylon.

After a detailed analysis of kitchen and mess-room arrangements for the Olympic village, he wrote in a conﬁdential memo: “I appreciate that it is easier to cater for groups which eat similar food, but the result of putting all these people together is to make it easy for the Communist Chinese to maintain contact with the rest of East Asia. We are simplifying the job of the Communists ...' Plimsoll, who went on to become one of Australia’s most successful career diplomats, insisted that he felt so strongly that he was prepared to take the matter to a higher level.“

All of the global tension led to a spate of protests, and eventually boycotts from the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Egypt, Lebanon and Iraq. The late cancellations caused fresh headaches for the battle-weary organisers. As Kent Hughes pointed out in one of his letters to Lord Burghley, it was difficult trying to organise an Olympic village when the IOC was unable to say whether to cater for 3000, 6000 or 9000 athletes. When the Games did begin, there was an attendance of 3300 competitors from sixty-seven countries - and 314 of them came from Australia.

Six months before the Games began, Sir Frank Beaurepaire died suddenly, aged sixty-ﬁve. The man who had first gone to the Games as a lonely seventeen-year-old, had collected six Olympic medals over sixteen years, and had done so much to win the 1956 Olympics for Melbourne, was due to

take over the lord mayoralty of the city for its Olympic year. His death deprived him of a task he would have loved, and one that would have given a singular symmetry to a lifetime of achievement.

Harry Gordon, Australia and the Olympic Games, Queensland University Press, 1996 (3rd edition), pp.200- 201.

Activity

Now explore the preparations for the Olympic Stadium and the use of the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Melbourne 1956 venues - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_Summer_Olympics

Extract from the Melbourne Olympic Games Official Report

In June 1953, a Construction Sub-Committee was formed and given the responsibility of building such new stadia as were needed and to alter or add to existing venues to make them conform to Olympic requirements. This sub-committee was made responsible to the financing authorities for allocation of funds to capital works.

Main Stadium

Melbourne Olympic Stadium during 1956 Olympic Games

Source: http://www.google.com.au/imgres?q=melbourne+olympic+stadium&hl=en&sa=G&gbv=2&tbm=isch&tbnid=W 0- GgPsmcl1VtM:&imgrefurl=http://olympics.ballparks.com/1956Melbourne/index.htm&docid=Jwgtv8sRcHCw1 M&w=400&h=277&ei=UuBuTtWyEoGimQXc9- 2ECg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=156&vpy=204&dur=4125&hovh=187&hovw=270&tx=96&ty=114&page=1&tbnh =151&tbnw=218&start=0&ndsp=6&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0&biw=939&bih=516

The Stadium has been the principal sporting arena of the city for many years. It is used for cricket in the summer and Australian rules football in the winter. The ground had a fall of about 8 feet from the north to south. As the international athletic requirements permitted a maximum variation from level only of 1 in 1,000 in length and 1 in 100 in width, this involved complete regrading of the arena. During regrading, the 400 metre track of seven lanes was laid down. The top surfacing of the track was completed immediately prior to the Games. This track was removed afterwards so that the ground could be made suitable again for cricket and football.

The spectator stands had been built in several sections over many years. The Melbourne Cricket Club, controllers of the ground, decided to dismantle the oldest stand and replace it with a three-tiered concrete stand with a capacity of 40,000 spectators. This raised the total accommodation to 104,000.

The Stadium was situated about one mile from the centre of the city, in parkland with ample car parking facilities and good access by railways and roads from all directions.

Official Olympic Report Page 40

Melbourne Cricket Ground - http://www.mcg.org.au/History/Olympic%20Games%201956.aspx

Details of the use of the MCG during the Olympic Games - http://www.onlymelbourne.com.au/melbourne_details.php?id=5001

(link3)

Sydney 2000 preparations and venues

Focus

Threats to preparations in the months before the Games.

Activity

Using the following account and your own research, create a digital story with images, text and audio (music or sound effects) about the scope of the Olympic construction program before the Sydney 2000 Olympics and the central role of the stadium during the Olympic Games.

Support: http://www.literacyandnumeracy.gov.au/sites/default/files/digitalstorytellingguide.pdf http://celebrationofliteracy.net.au/more-information http://www.gettyimages.com.au/detail/89242445/Discovery-FootageSource

The total Olympic construction budget was A$3.3 billion, with A$2.1 billion contributed by government and another A$1.2 billion contributed by the private sector. Over 40 000 workers were employed on construction projects overseen by OCA.

OCAs greatest task was the construction of the new venues needed to host the Olympic Games. When OCA was established in 1995 it had the task of constructing 15 new major Olympic sporting venues as well as the Olympic and Media Villages – and it had less than five years in which to complete the task.

In fact, all the permanent venues outlined in Sydney's Olympic Bid were completed by the end of 1999, fully nine months before the start of the Games. This allowed them to be tested during SOCOG's test events and represented the earliest completion of venues for a Games in Olympic history.

New, permanent sporting facilities were built for Sydney 2000 at six satellite venues – Penrith, Horsley Park, Cecil Park, Bankstown, Blacktown and Fairfield.

The centre of this semicircle of construction activity, of course, was Homebush Bay, 14 km west of the city centre. The

centrepiece of the Sydney 2000 Bid, Homebush Bay was the arena of the most intensive building program for the Sydney 2000 Games.

Sydney 2000 Official Report Volume 1 p 62 and 64

Venue Construction

Sydney Olympic Stadium

Sydney Olympic Stadium Source: sma.co.au

The jewel in Sydney's Olympic crown was the Olympic Stadium, also known by its official name of Stadium Australia. With 110 000 seats, Stadium Australia was the largest stadium in Olympic history and played host to some of the most significant and memorable events of the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

From Cathy Freeman lighting the cauldron and winning the 400 m, to Marion Jones' five medals, to the magnificent showdown in the men's 10 000 m between Paul Tergat and Haile Gebreselassie, and the duels between Louise Sauvage and Chantal Peticlerc in the Paralympic Games, the Olympic Stadium played host to all the triumph and tragedy that only a Games can bring. Its distinctive arches soaring above the landscape of Sydney Olympic Park became a visual symbol of Sydney 2000 to all Olympic spectators and to the billions who watched the Games on television

around the world.

However, as befits the largest single Olympic construction job, the Stadium construction process was extremely complicated. When OCA was formed in 1995, the tender process for the Stadium had stalled badly. In particular there were problems with the fact that one of the bidding consortia contained the operator of the NSW Government's own major existing stadiums, the Sydney Cricket Ground Trust. This created an unequal tender process and this issue needed to be resolved before further progress could be made. After the problem was resolved, the tender process threatened to stall again, over negotiations between SOCOG and OCA regarding tickets for Stadium members.

The Olympic Stadium was to cost A$690 million with a government contribution of approximately A$124 million. On 9 September 1996 construction commenced on a 16 ha site that had been the main cattle-holding yards for the Homebush Abattoirs.

The statistics hint at the scale of the project – a workforce of 1500 moved 55 000 cu m of earth, brought in 90 000 cu m of concrete in 18 000 trucks, set 2600 piles, erected 12 000 tonnes of structural steel and almost as much again of reinforcing, and laid 1 million masonry blocks and 180 km of electrical cabling. The total area of the Stadium's magnificent soaring roofs was 3 ha and the main arch span from north to south was 295.6 m.

Despite the fact that the construction start date had been delayed from that originally envisaged in Sydney's Bid, the stadium was finished about three months ahead of schedule and on 6 March 1999 a crowd of 104 000 people watched the first major event at Stadium Australia, a Rugby League match. Around 100 000 people had gained a sneak preview of the finished venue during the Great Stadium Walk, a community open day on site held in February 1999. On 12 June 1999, the stadium was officially opened.

Sydney 2000 Official Report Volume 1 p 64-65 Venue Construction

Source: Official Olympic Report Sydney 2000 Volume 1, p 376