The Summer Olympic Games of the XXVII Olympiad were held in Sydney, Australia between 15 September and 1 October 2000 and were thus the Millennium Games, but also dubbed “The Green Games”
The International Olympic Committee selected Sydney as host city because:
- Sydney’s (and Australia’s) enthusiasm for sport
- Sydney’s promise to use reclaimed toxic wastelands for the sporting venue sites and
- A commitment to use the smaller Oceanic countries in the hosting activity
Sydney’s Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) were the first to submit a ‘Comprehensive Environmental Plan’ as part of their bid and the Committee set itself the objective that the Games should be environmentally sustainable
Hosting an Olympic Games is an expensive undertaking with average hosting costs (operational costs plus direct capital costs of the sporting venues, athletes’ village and media centre; but excluding indirect capital costs of other infrastructure) of the Games between 1960 and 2016 of some US$ 5.2 billion with an average cost over-run of 176%
The Sydney Games cost US$ 5 billion; which compares to Beijing (2008) at US$ 44 billion; London (2012) with US$ 14.6 billion and Rio (2016) costing US$13.1 billion. (Figures not baselined to a common date)
SOCOG adopted a novel life-cycle for the Games project:
1993 to 1996 – Positioning
1997 – Going operational
1998 – Procurement /
1999 – Testing / Refinement
2000 – Implementation
2001 –
SOCOG worked hard to minimise the environmental impact of the Games. Venues were built using sustainable materials and designed with a focus on energy and water conservation. Construction of the Olympic Park resulted in the remediation of circa 160 hectares of degraded / contaminated land and the establishment of one of the largest urban parklands in Australia with 35 kilometres of
The Games also led to the construction of Australia’s first large scale urban water re-cycling system which continues to save some 850 million litres of drinking water per annum
Many of the Olympic venues continue to be used
Continued use of these facilities generates more than AUD$ 1 billion in annual revenue for the State of New South Wales and, as a whole, the Games are estimated to have produced an uplift in GDP of between AUD$ 6-7 billion; creating 100,000 jobs and increasing tourist numbers by 1.6 million per year
The “Green Games” involved the participation of 10,651 athletes from 199 Nations competing in 300 events, supported by 46,967 games maker volunteers and reported on by 5,298 written press journalists and 10,735
Was it a success?
I’ll leave you to judge based on these quotations:
One of the most successful events on the World Stage” … “couldn’t be better”
Bill Bryson writing in the London Times
Such a success that any city considering bidding for future Olympics must be wondering how it can reach the standards set by Sydney”
James Mossop writing in the Electronic Telegraph
The IOC should quit while it’s ahead. Admit there has never been a better Olympic Games, and be done with it” … Sydney was both exceptional and the best”
Jack Todd writing in the Montreal Gazette
And lastly Lord Sebastian Coe, who in preparation for the 2012 London Games declared that the Sydney Games were the:
benchmark for the spirit of the Games, unquestionably”
and that the London organising committee
attempted in a number of ways to emulate what the Sydney Organising Committee did
