2 years to go
14 September 1998When the Olympics Minister and president of the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) marks two years until the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics tomorrow, he will, by his own admission, be running scared.
In an interview marking the anniversary, Mr Knight confessed that everyone involved with the Games is on edge.
"It reflects this combination of hope and anxiety," Mr Knight said. "I think the anxiety is a good thing. I believe in constructive anxiety.
"I think everybody, all the organisations putting on the Games - just like the athletes - ought to be just a little bit scared. Not so scared that they're paralysed and they can't function.
"But show me someone in any of the Olympic organisations that's comfortable and doing it on their ear, then I'll show you somebody who could do with replacing."
Mr Knight is cautious when asked to assess preparations.
"I hesitate to say we're positioned well because as soon as you start thinking you're on top of this, you'll stuff it up for sure."
He then concedes: "I think we're nicely positioned."
That includes spending more than $3 million daily across more than 300 sites, employing more than 3,500 people as Sydney goes about spending more than $3 billion to stage the Games.
A swag of venues have been completed while all but two - tennis and a second water polo venue - are under construction. The last venue will be completed in early 2000 leaving plenty of time for unexpected delays.
Hockey, archery, the aquatic centre and Sydney Showground are complete and ready to host major test events, as is the shore base for sailing at Rushcutters Bay which next week hosts the first Games test event.
Organisers leapt several major hurdles this year.
SOCOG completed negotiations with the International Olympic Committee over its ticket policy, last month announcing prices which range from $10 to $1,382 for a top seat to the opening or closing ceremony.
Tickets will go on sale by ballot in the middle of next year. Games organisers hope to sell most of the 8.5 million on offer.
But they also saw their budget blow-out by $150 million, a figure organisers say they will raise primarily through the sale of extra tickets.
Organisers will have to sell a comparable number of tickets as were sold to the Atlanta Games, but with just a fraction of the population to draw on.
The opening of the showground and successful staging of the first Royal Easter Show at the Homebush site this year was a turning point for organisers and the public who for the first time "felt ownership of the site", Mr Knight said.
"Prior to the show the biggest single event at Homebush had been a little athletics carnival with about 12,000 spectators.
"We took 1.2 million people through the site and I think that a lot of people from NSW suddenly thought, "hang on, this is real, this is happening, I can see it'."
Mr Knight concedes organisers were "pretty anxious" about transport to the new site, which included the new rail loop and Homebush Bay station.
"It was also a big turning point for us with the Olympic Roads and Transport Authority. We were pretty anxious about it, frankly, because we were playing catch-up. ORTA hadn't been established long."
Mr Bob Leece, Olympic Co-ordination Authority (OCA) executive director, said public interest in the site is huge.
"This year alone the attraction to Homebush Bay has been five million visitors," Mr Leece said. "Two years ago we thought we'd get 5 million visitors leading up to the Games in total. Twelve months ago we revamped that to 8 million people before the Games."
After two further major announcements, Mr Knight said organisers would get down to the nitty-gritty.
The call for 50,000 volunteers will go out next month, while a launch of the torch relay, which will see 10,000 people help carry the Olympic flame around Australia, is imminent.
The announcements, Mr Knight said, were an important window into Games preparations for the public.
"But it's really operational issues that dominate us from here on in."
Meanwhile, the OCA is co-ordinating how Sydney will operate during the Games.
"There will be constraints on the way Sydney normally works and things will change," Mr Leece said.
"We're planning the way you and I will get to work and our normal daily life."
