SOCOG socks it to Melbourne
19 August 1998At 9.15 this morning, 200 people led by Olympics Minister Michael Knight will be on the Opera House steps, each pulling a long green sock onto one foot and a gold sock onto the other.
Weather permitting, these 400 green and gold legs will try to wave at a helicopter hovering overhead trailing a monster flag - the size of a 14-storey building - proclaiming that September 15 (exactly two years from the Olympic Games opening ceremony) will be green and gold sock day.
To the casual observer, this nationalistic suggestion that we wear odd socks on the next three September 15s might seem like just another stunt in a city getting well used to Olympic extravaganzas.
But for Games insiders it will be more of a victory celebration for Sydney Olympic organisers who've finally won a tug-of-war with Melbourne for the right to host the national sock launch.
Two years ago major Olympic sponsors Pacific Dunlop, the owners of the Red Robbin sock company, dreamt up the idea of nominating a day when people wore a pair of odd socks to show their support for the Games.
With its headquarters in Melbourne, home of Australia's clothing industry, Pacific Dunlop decided this was the natural place to launch its sock day, and just as natural to get a long-time rag trade supporter, Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett, to join its managing director, Rod Chadwick, to launch the proceedings.
Pacific Dunlop lined up the Australian synchronised swimming team to put on their nose pegs - and green and gold socks - and run through their routine for the cameras. But when the company approached SOCOG, it was told it was inappropriate for an Olympic-related event to be launched outside Sydney by Mr Kennett.
As a spokesman for Mr Knight put it yesterday: "If you were going to do a national launch for the Sydney Games, it had to be in Sydney." He insisted: "We did not have any issue with Jeff Kennett being involved."
But with Mr Kennett booked, Pacific Dunlop was in no position - or mood - either to uninvite him or downgrade the Melbourne event.
After weeks of tense negotiations, a compromise was finally reached in the true Olympic spirit - the NSW Premier, Bob Carr, would handle the national launch of sock day in Sydney with the Melbourne launch - with Mr Kennett - following 90 minutes later.
Still, Sydney organisers remained uneasy. Could those synchronised swimmers' legs somehow steal the show by proving more attractive to the media than Bob Carr sitting at a desk announcing the sock plan? They sure could, they concluded. Pacific Dunlop was convinced Sydney's event would need something extra. So it booked the Opera House steps, organised the extras, and arranged the helicopter routine.
At last, Sydney organisers had a deal they could live with. They were certain they'd done enough to ensure this would be a genuine Sydney launch and that Melbourne would not steal the show - so certain in fact, that Mr Carr was no longer needed.
And as if to prove that good things come to those who strive, Mr Kennett has suddenly pulled out of the Melbourne launch altogether to honour a commitment to help his colleagues in the Tasmanian election campaign.
Pacific Dunlop issued a late invitation to Mr Knight on Friday, asking if he'd be interested in replacing Mr Kennett.
The invitation was declined.
