In this series to mark 25 years since Sydney hosted the 2000 Olympic Games, this entry focuses on the torch relay.
On May 10, 2000, in Olympia, Greece, the relay commenced its historic 36,000-kilometre journey. The torch could not be lit using the parabolic mirrors, which create the heat from the sun to generate the flame, due to cloud cover. A backup from a rehearsal had to be used. It spent ten days in Greece before reaching Athens and involved 800 runners.
1500 would carry the torch as it visited nations across Oceania, including Guam, Palau, Micronesia, Nauru, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Samoa, American Samoa, the Cook Islands, Tonga, and New Zealand. Fiji was removed from the relay after a political coup occurred there on May 19 2000.
June 8, 2000, marked 100 days until the Olympic Games and marked the start of the torch relay in Australia. The relay began at Uluru with Nova Peris-Kneebone as the first runner. From there, it visited all Australian States and Territories, covering 27,000 kilometres and involving 11,000 runners.
The relay first reached Sydney on September 3 when it arrived in Penrith after being run across the Blue Mountains. The following day, it trekked through the outer west to Campbelltown for a lunchtime ceremony before heading south to Bowral to continue the relay across New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.
The relay returned to Sydney on September 11, 2000, after being run from Wollongong, spending the first night in Sydney at Cronulla.
Below is a map of the torch relay route through Sydney, which covered its final days until it entered Stadium Australia at Homebush as the climax of the Opening Ceremony on the evening of September 15 2000.
It encompassed days 96-100 of the torch relay (September 11-15, 2000)
This was sourced from the "Here at last" liftout, which was featured in The Daily Telegraph on September 11, 2000.
Below are selected clippings from Sydney newspapers, primarily focusing on photographic spreads, relating to the final days of the torch relay.
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