DUUUUN...DUUUUN...da-dun-Dun-DUN...

You hear it, right? Quietly approaching from the distance, but getting ever louder…It’s…It’s…THE OLYMPICS THEME!

“No, wait, hold on, that can’t be right! We’ve just had London 2012!”

Ah, but, today we’re looking back at the Olympics from 13 years ago, with this Sydney Olympics 2000 Viewer’s Guide. I got it on eBay for $2.99 and $5 shipping. The first thing I’ll say about it is this: it’s a damn beautiful book. Looking at the front cover, there are three NBC logos: NBC Sports; MSNBC; and CNBC. It seems that this was a mail-in premium.

Here is where things could go south: I really don’t remember anything about that year’s Olympics at all! Barcelona 1992? Vaguely. Atlanta 1996? Yes—in fact, I still have a silver medal that came in a box of Frosted Cheerios when they first came out. Athens 2004, Beijing 2008, and London 2012? I definitely remember them. But Sydney 2000 eludes me. I think it’s because the Games aired in September, while I was in eighth grade. Usually they’re on during the summer vacation; this was the exception.

"Gee, Nick, what are you going to do about it?"

The same thing I do every week, dear readers...Try to piece it together!

The first part of the book is fairly dull, being a section on the history and geography of Australia. There’s a nice section on the construction of the gigantic Olympic Park, which featured arenas for all of the games. Built over “an industrial wasteland,” the park was constructed over seven years and finished “six months before the Games,” said IOC coordination chairman Dr. Jacques Rogge.

The centerpiece of the park is Stadium Australia, the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies, but the true crown jewel is the park’s railway station, built brand-new for the games.

Left: Olympic Stadium. Right: Olympic Railway.

By far, the most thought-provoking section is “A Whole New Look.” The Sydney Olympics were the first Games to ever receive coverage over four outlets: NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, and NBCOlympics.com. On regular, broadcast NBC, viewers got a few games and edited highlights (though it would feature the majority of the “storytelling” aspect of the games), but CNBC and MSNBC broadcast games in their entirety as well as more in-depth coverage of teams and athletes alike.  NBCOlympics.com would show “results, detailed and innovative analyses and even contributions from the Olympians themselves.” (I hope they meant the athletes and not the Olympian Gods…)

Keep in mind that the World Wide Web was still having some teething problems, with 56k dial-up connections the norm—mass broadband would be a few years down the line. The Sydney coverage would have been text- and still image-based, with maybe a QuickTime video or two…I think Shockwave and Flash had been invented, but they had yet to show their true potential in YouTube, which came out in 2005 or so.

…Enough about computer technology for now. Let’s move on to Bob Costas’ “Reflections: An Essay,” which I think is one of the most touching sections of the book.

Sydney 2000 marked Costas’ third time hosting the Games for NBC; he debuted at the Barcelona games of 1992. “I think back eight years to Barcelona,” he writes, “when polio-stricken archer Antonio Rebollo dramatically opened the Games by firing a flaming arrow over the Olympic Cauldron.” It’s good that he got such a dramatic moment to open with, just like Jim McKay did before him years ago: “As an aspiring broadcaster, I recall admiring how professionally Jim McKay covered the Munich tragedy on the air.”

Bob talks about why he believes the Olympics appeals to those who participate in it, and those who watch the games: As the athletes strive for their one big moment—for some, a moment that they might only experience once in their lifetimes—there is formed an emotional and personal connection from viewer to athlete, even if that connection only goes one way.

Whether knowingly or unknowingly, Bob gives the Games an epic quality with his essay.

The rest of the book is the Viewers’ Guide, a breakdown of the events that unfolded from September 15^th to October 1^st.

Interestingly, the September 30^th entry concerns itself with cycling. It features a profile on a one Lance Armstrong, who by that time had won the Tour de France twice and was looking to win his first Olympic medal. He came in sixth at the 1996 games in Atlanta, “competing unknowingly with testicular cancer.”

Flash forward thirteen years, and the man has gotten himself caught up in a doping scandal. He no longer has his Tour de France medals, and there was no mention of him during this year’s Tour.

At the end of the book, there’s an in-depth, sport-by-sport guide to all of the events. This section reads kind of like an in-flight magazine you might find on an airplane, but the articles within contain some very interesting facts. Before I read the article on shooting, for example, I didn’t know that Olympic shooters train themselves to pay close attention to their heartbeats. See, they fire in-between beats for the highest-precision shot…your heart gives off the slightest vibration with every beat, and just that tiny little thing is enough to throw the shot.

All in all, I'm glad I got this book. I wonder if anything like it was made for subsequent Games...