2000 Summer Olympics
Multi-sport event in Sydney, Australia / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: Gadigal 2000), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from 15 September to 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It marked the second time the Summer Olympics were held in Australia, and in the Southern Hemisphere, the first being in Melbourne, in 1956.
 Emblem of the 2000 Summer Olympics[lower-alpha 1] | |
| Host city | Sydney, New South Wales, Australia |
|---|---|
| Motto | Share the Spirit – Dare to Dream |
| Nations | 199 |
| Athletes | 10,647 (6,579 men, 4,068 women)[1] |
| Events | 300 in 28 sports (40 disciplines) |
| Opening | 15 September 2000 |
| Closing | 1 October 2000 |
| Opened by | |
| Cauldron | |
| Stadium | Stadium Australia |
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Sydney was selected as the host city for the 2000 Games in 1993. Teams from 199 countries participated in the 2000 Games, which were the first to feature at least 300 events in its official sports program. The Games' cost was estimated to be A$6.6 billion. These were the final Olympic Games under the IOC presidency of Juan Antonio Samaranch before the arrival of his successor Jacques Rogge. The 2000 Games were the last of the two consecutive Summer Olympics to be held in a predominantly English-speaking country following the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, United States.
The final medal tally at the 2000 Summer Olympics was led by the United States, followed by Russia and China with host Australia in fourth place overall. Cameroon, Colombia, Latvia, Mozambique, and Slovenia won a gold medal for the first time in their Olympic histories, while Barbados, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, North Macedonia, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam won their first-ever Olympic medals. Australia will host the Summer Olympics again in 2032 at Brisbane, Queensland making it the first Oceanic country to host the Olympics three times.
The 2000 Games received universal acclaim, with the organization, volunteers, sportsmanship, and Australian public being lauded in the international media. Bill Bryson of The Times called the Sydney Games "one of the most successful events on the world stage", saying that they "couldn't be better".[3] James Mossop of the Electronic Telegraph called the Games "such a success that any city considering bidding for future Olympics must be wondering how it can reach the standards set by Sydney",[4] while Jack Todd of the Montreal Gazette suggested that the "IOC should quit while it's ahead. Admit there can never be a better Olympic Games, and be done with it," as "Sydney was both exceptional and the best".[3] These games would provide the inspiration for London's winning bid for the 2012 Olympic Games in 2005; in preparing for the 2012 Games, Lord Coe declared the 2000 Games the "benchmark for the spirit of the Games, unquestionably", admitting that the London organizing committee "attempted in several ways to emulate what the Sydney Organising Committee did."[5]