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The purpose of the study was to determine the mechanical variables that are related to successful post-flight somersaulting performance of the Roche vault. The 23 Roche vaults performed during the 2000 Olympic Games were filmed by a 16-mm camera operating at 100 Hz. The 2-D direct linear transformation technique was used for spatial calibration. Approximately 60 frames were digitized per vault. The method of Hay and Reid (1988) was used to develop a deterministic model to identify the mechanical variables that govern linear and angular motions of the vault. Correlational analysis was used to establish the strength of the relationship between the mechanical variables identified and the judges' scores. Significant correlations indicated that the higher judges' scores were negatively related to five mechanical variables and positively related to seventeen variables in the model. The normalized horizontal displacement of body center of mass (CM) from the knee grasp to the peak of post-flight was the best single predictor of the judges' score and accounted for 50% of variation in the judges' score. Finally, the landing point deductions and the official horizontal distance of post-flight collectively accounted for 86% of the variance in the judges' scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By reviewing Australia's project management history and outlining the rationale for analysis, this paper will identify and construct a competency model for managing an international project that is based in Australia. The components of the competency model are assembled using the method developed by Lynn Crawford. In addition to providing an analysis of the competency model, the paper discusses its application to an international project headquartered in Australia. The group focused on a case study titled, "The Sydney 2000 Olympic Games". This paper concludes by providing lessons learned from this project and underscores the importance of integrating competency models into other projects of this magnitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Al-Qaeda’s attempts to attack Western countries have often been enabled through the co-optation of existing jihadist organizations and their external support networks. This article examines this phenomenon through a case study of al-Qaeda’s failed attempt to co-opt elements of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) for an attack in Australia. The article first examines the emergence of JI and its Australian-based support network Mantiqi IV. It then analyzes al-Qaeda’s unsuccessful attempt to utilize Mantiqi IV for an attack during the 2000 Sydney Olympics, identifying key factors that both enabled and hindered the plot. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Urban parks have long been used by policy makers to achieve specific policy goals. In recent years, two sets of policy goals have become commonly associated with park planning. The first set of goals can be characterized as being neoliberal, where parks have been built and reformed to generate certain economic and governmental outcomes. The second set of policy goals is associated with sustainability, where parks have been utilized as tools in such things as the mitigation of climate change and community building. The aim of this paper is to examine how these two sets of policy goals have come to coexist. The paper draws upon the case study of Sydney Olympic Park, a self-proclaimed exemplar of both entrepreneurial urban development and sustainability. The paper traces out the functional and institutional changes at the Park in order to read the relationship between neoliberal and sustainability policy goals. While predictable inconsistencies are found between the two sets of policy goals, the paper argues in conclusion that their contradictions have not generated a necessity to resolve their antagonistic relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the interdependent and fluid organisational networks that form to organise Olympic Games are analysed using Norbert Elias's concept of human figurations. Rather than considering organisational situations and developments in static terms, Eliasian process sociology frames the place of organisations within the broader social and historical contexts in which they operate. From an Eliasian perspective, the organisation of a mega-project, such as the Olympic Games, is not only the result of recent developments but also of countless social and organisational figurations that developed over many years prior to the winning of a bid to stage the event. In this regard, the organisation of the Olympic Games is the result of both planned and unplanned consequences of organising over which no one individual ever has total control. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the interconnections between Australia’s most significant sporting event, the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, and Australia’s Indigenous culture and heritage. At this historic moment for the nation, Aboriginal Australian athlete Cathy Freeman came to embody Australia’s possible future and represented a vital legacy of the event. The paper examines representations of heritage and identity at the of the Sydney Games and how these images were played out in wider discussions about the future of the Australian nation state. The choice of Cathy Freeman was widely considered the ‘right’ choice and served to emphasise the highly considerable indigenous themes throughout the Opening Ceremony. The emphasis on indigenous culture continued during the Games and into the Closing Ceremony in a way that was partly orchestrated and partly developed a life of its own due to the actions of particular individuals. The Sydney Opening Ceremony was a significant moment for all Australians and pointed the way for how the nation might present itself to the international community in the new millennium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sydney 2000 Olympics were perceived as an opportunity for Australia to rebrand itself to an international audience as a dynamic, cosmopolitan and culturally diverse society. In particular, the opening ceremony attempted to convey a narrative of multiculturalism and reconciliation, in the hope of alleviating concerns that had been prominent in the lead up to the Games regarding Australia’s race relations. While this event was generally seen to have successfully contributed to an enhanced image of Australian culture and society, stereotypical images of the ‘larrikin’ character of ‘white male’ identity prevailed, in particular through the design of uniforms for the Australian Olympic team. This article focuses specifically on the uniforms designed by Mambo and Woolmark as the key signifiers of this laconic character. This narrative was in many ways adverse to the themes of multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism promoted by the Australian Tourist Board in its repackaging of ‘Brand Australia’. This article addresses the resultant competing representations of national identity that emerged at this event. In developing this argument, the article considers how national identity is constructed through sporting uniforms. It identifies historic controversies surrounding the Australian Olympic team uniform and the tensions that have emerged regarding how the nation is perceived on the international stage, arguing that criticism of this uniform has often reflected broader cultural fears of inferiority. The Sydney Olympic Games Opening Ceremony is established as a critical component of the country’s re-branding through the narratives of reconciliation and multiculturalism. Within this context, the paper provides an analysis of the Australian team uniform worn at the opening and closing ceremonies to investigate the larrikin character portrayed as a counter-narrative of ‘white male’ cultural hegemony, adverse to the Sydney Olympic brand’s central themes. This article considers a range of texts, garments and images in order to reflect on the broader proposition, which concerns how national identity is reflected through dress and why salient characteristics endure when national identity is called into question. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The so-called Green Olympic movement had its origins in one of the five winning designs for the Sydney Olympic Village by two architects associated with Greenpeace Australia. This led to the development of a set of Environmental Guidelines for the Summer Olympic Games. The Sydney Olympics provided a benchmark for sustainable design and construction in Australia and also a template for future Games. London's successful bid for the 2012 Games took these principles further with a focus on legacy as its core mission. A comprehensive London 2012 Sustainability Plan was developed. The Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 was established to provide on-going independent sustainability assurance of all aspects of Games developments, the event itself and the legacy transformation of the Olympic Park. This paper explores the evolution of environmental and sustainability concerns in the Olympic movement and how these have altered the staging of the Games and the associated physical developments. It examines whether the lessons from the Sydney and London Olympics can be more widely applied in urban renewal and regeneration schemes in both Australia and the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the redevelopment of the site of Sydney’s 2000 summer Olympics, locating it within debates over the legacy of these events. The paper describes some of the key stakeholders involved in the redevelopment and planning of the site. It provides an overview of the regulatory context and governance bodies that have structured the space since the staging of the Olympics, then identifies two key areas of private-sector involvement, in event space and in business development, where tensions emerged over how the site should best be governed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Hosting mega sport events, especially the Olympics, demands an extensive engagement with global civil society given the voluntary, highly mediated exposure of host cities and nations to the world. The philosophy of Olympism requires ethical authority in demonstrating 'fitness' to host the Games, so demanding intensive strategic image management. Offensive and defensive mobilization of image-dependent 'species of power' in the field of sport (in a Bourdieusian sense) in conducting 'wars of position and movement' (following Gramsci) within global civil society are, then, crucial features of competitive manoeuvres around staging major sport events. The main empirical focus of this article is on the case of the Sydney 2000 ('Millennial') Games, in illustrating the socio-political dynamics of bidding and hosting in the context of a major civil societal matter of concern - Australia's continuing failure to achieve reconciliation with, and equality for, its indigenous peoples. Ironically, though, it was in the domain of human rights that Sydney had an advantage over its closest competitor in the 1993 bidding process - China. The strategies deployed to secure the consent of Australian Aborigines to the Games are addressed in analysing the means by which the Sydney 2000 Games avoided major disruption and international criticism. A second, briefer case analysis is then presented of the disputation concerning Beijing's successful bid for the 2008 Olympics, which saw them influentially described by one (US) political activist as the 'Genocide Games' and the subject of international protests surrounding the Torch Relay. It is concluded that the contrasting levels of public, mediated discord in these two Olympiads in which human rights were key issues related, significantly though not exclusively, to the Chinese authorities' difficulties in 'winning consent' through strategic incorporation of the most conspicuous, non-state oppositional forces within Western-dominated global civil society in its most immediate, unruly, and mediatized form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The almost universal reaction across Australia to the 1993 announcement that Sydney would host the 2000 Olympic Games was one of elation. Since the bid launch in 1990, the city of Sydney and the nation had been urged to 'Share the Spirit' and maintain enthusiasm for the possibility of hosting the Millennium Olympics. The bid campaign appeared to be a carefully orchestrated blend of government rhetoric and public relations spin with an emphasis on the important place of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. This article begins by examining events surrounding Sydney's successful bid when in September 1993 it was announced that Sydney had won the right to host the Games of the XXVII Olympiad. The article concludes with assessments made of the games at the Sydney closing ceremony when the city and the organising committee were paid the ultimate compliment when told they had presented to the world the best Olympic Games ever. An examination of how far Australia has progressed in the past 11 years with respect to Indigenous issues is also taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extent to which the Australia government values elite sport following the euphoria of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games is demonstrated through its policy and funding commitments. However, this forms only part of its overall responsibility to sport in a nation with a sport ethic that values success. As a relatively small country it has to balance the struggle to match the increasing budgets of its more successful international competitor nations, such as Great Britain, while confronting the problem of an increasingly unfit population which is more interested in watching than participating in sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) was involved in the formation of the Sports Commission (SSC) within the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) and as a critical contributor to the staging of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Using a figurational sociological framework, the intended and unintended consequences of the AOC's strategic and operational involvement are explored. The case shows how important early negotiations were in the case of the Sydney Olympics, when the host governments and Olympic Organizing Committees, in the period immediately following the winning of a bid, were inexperienced in Olympic negotiations and distracted by the euphoria of securing the Games. This left the more knowledgeable Olympic organization, the AOC, well placed to leverage its prior experience and extensive Olympic figurations, in order to gain a strategic advantage over the other Australian Olympic stakeholders. The research makes a contribution to Olympic studies, specifically in relation to the role of the host National Olympic Committee (NOC) in the organizing of an Olympic Games. Furthermore, the research findings have management implications for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and future host NOCs, particularly in relation to the structuring of Olympic Organizing Committee governance arrangements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The way the Australian sport system arrested its unrelenting decline in the 1970s to become a model of best practice perplexes many countries. This essay aims to give an insight into the way the system was transformed and became successful. The essay reviews the decline, and then the evolution and devolution of the system, and analyses the stakeholders involved, and the inter relationships developed to achieve success. The study is based on a document analysis examining 74 annual reports from 35 national sporting organizations over a period of four years, before and after the Sydney Olympic Games. The results of the study show that in the face of financial instability and an over-reliance on government funding, sport stakeholders sought alternative sources of income, amalgamated or worked in collaboration with other stakeholders, and/or opted for intra-organizational cooperation. The sport system in Australia has proven resilient and able to adapt to an ever-changing environment via the cooperation of its stakeholders and their willingness to work together towards a common goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The site of the 2000 Olympic Games (Sydney Olympic Park (SOP), Sydney, Australia) was contaminated by persistent organic pollutants (POPs) prior to remediation in the 1990s. This study investigates the bioactivity of POPs in the sediment and water of wetlands across SOP by in vitro 2,3,7,8-TCDD equivalence (TCDDeq) measurement (H4IIE cell line bioassay). Further, it examines whether disturbance of these sediments is likely to mobilise ligands for this receptor into the water column. Exposure to aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) ligands was measured in vivo using hepatic cytochrome P4501A (CYP1A) induction (EROD) in the mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki). Aqueous TCDDeq ranged from 0.013 to 0.057 pM in SOP wetlands which was significantly (p <0.05) less that in urban reference sites. These concentrations were not correlated to physical or chemical characteristics of the wetlands. In the sediments, TCDDeq ranged from 0.0016 to 7.06 µg/kg and these were not significantly (p ≥0.05) different to that measured in urban reference sites. Simulated disturbance of small quantities of sediment in water samples significantly (p <0.05) increased the levels of TCDDeq measured in the water. Sediment TCDDeq was correlated to sediment ΣPAH concentration in 2006 and sediment ΣPCB, ΣDDT concentrations and fine sediment grain size in 2005. While fish at one SOP wetland had hepatic EROD activity elevated above the estimated basal level for this species, these were at the lower end of the range measured in urban impacted, non-remediated wetlands. EROD activity was positively correlated with both the sediment ΣPCB load and aqueous TCDDeq. Increased catchment size was correlated with increased EROD activity suggesting an even spread of POPs throughout the residential areas of the Sydney metropolitan area. The concentration of bioactive POPs in the wetlands of SOP is therefore low relative to urban reference sites demonstrating the ongoing success of the remediation program. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper examines how the Sydney Olympics Games' opening ceremony presented images of a linear, multicultural, and chronological narrative of Australian history. However, the ceremony's attempts to manage difference produced multiple narratives of the Australian nation. Textual analysis of the Australian Channel 7 broadcast and newspaper coverage of the Olympics show how the ceremony's narrative of a united Australian nation responds to the increasing disintegration of nation-states' boundaries in the context of globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examined the impact on tourism of sponsor hospitality programmes at the Sydney Olympic Games. With preferential access to resources accorded to Olympic sponsors, new tourism networks were created. The role of the media, interpersonal communication and implicit messages using Olympic symbols are discussed. A survey of people invited by Olympic sponsors to attend the Sydney Olympic Games found that 80% of guests had not previously visited Australia. Positive evaluations of their experience at the Olympic Games, attending events and visiting the host city, created a desire to return and to recommend the destination to others. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the ideas and experiences in the creative industries in Australia and their significance in China. It also cites Australia's experiences in hosting the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. It also presents the Digital Content Industry Action Agenda which aim is to assist the creative industries operating in the digital and online world in Australia.

The article discusses the intersection of local entrepreneurship, corporate sponsorship and government control in sports mega-events. Hosting of mega-events seldom offers the rewards promised by host governments and often has negative effects. Instead of boosting the German economy, the 2006 World Cup shut out German vendors in favor of beer and sausage from American companies Anheuser-Busch and McDonald in the stadiums. Syndney's bid for the 2000 Olympics was based on their green planning, but law-makers passed laws stating that people could not file suit against the construction of Olympic-related buildings for environmental reasons. The neoliberal pursuit of profit tends to hurt host cities and benefit elites.

This article examines how the idea of reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians became entwined with the Sydney 2000 Olympics. It does this by undertaking a critical reading of media stories on the twin issues of Cathy Freeman's 400 m race, and the fear of Indigenous protest disrupting the games. We argue the Olympic Games helped to reinforce a discourse of reconciliation that best suited non-Indigenous peoples, and that the Games came to be represented as the space where reconciliation could and should take place. We argue that, in combination with nationalist stories, the impending Olympic Games were deployed as a way of disciplining Indigenous people and maintaining a particularly conservative understanding of reconciliation; one that did little to change the unequal power relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the ways in which Australian mainstream print media represented indigenous athletes in the period of the 27th Olympiad, including at Sydney 2000. Australian mainstream media has held an apparent fascination with promoting indigenous athletes as the face of the Olympic Games and national unity and as one of the principal means by which the Games were promoted to a national and international audience. The article specifically attempts to unravel the complexities of the developing media discourse surrounding two key indigenous athletes, Nova Peris-Kneebone and Cathy Freeman, principally concentrating on issues of race and racial representation, and the depiction of indigenous running. Although there were some significant developments, issues of indigenous identity continued to be presented within, and confined by, the discourse of national unity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the year 2000 was memorable for public administration in Australia it was notable mainly for the unexpected. Success occurred where risk and failure were predicted. Failure emerged where success had been talked-up. Notable examples include the so-called Y2K problem, management of the Olympic Games, the introduction of the GST, and the outsourcing of government services (especially Information Technology (IT)). Also memorable were important shifts in the policy fields of defence and welfare. The Howard government ended the year in decision-making and largese mode-setting the agenda for the following election year. The events of 2000 invite reconsideration of the merits of the traditional bureaucratic model and those of the emerging post bureaucratic models of service provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 23 September 1993 the International Olympic Committee announced that Sydney would host the 2000 Olympic Games. Given the keen competition between rival cities bidding for the Olympics it could be argued that the winning city anticipates economic benefits to accrue from hosting the games. To the extent that this is valid, some stock market reaction may be found to the Olympic announcement. Testing the hypothesis for Australia the following results are found. First no overall impact on the stock market is found. Second, only a limited number of industries' portfolios show a significant positive impact to the Olympic games announcement. Specifically the industry portfolios are: building materials, developers and contracts, engineering and miscellaneous services. This is consistent with the economic boost for the Olympics being in infrastructure and development and thus in the general building and construction sector. Third the results clearly demonstrate that for the industries where there was a significant positive stock market reaction to the Olympic Games announcement, that significant positive stock market reaction is confined to stocks based in the state which will host the games, New South Wales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the issue of plastic card fraud in Australia. It states that the Australian law enforcement agencies believe that the country will likely face problems with plastic card fraud through the use of credit cards, debit cards, and stored value cards. It notes the aspects in which plastic cards are viewed to be vulnerable and discusses strategies that can be employed to prevent card fraud which include action by card issuers, action by merchants, and action by cardholders. It considers how the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games in New South Wales will create fraud opportunities on the plastic card payment system and further provides suggestions on how to prevent such crime.