Olympic Games

Sydney, 2000

10,651 athletes (4,069 of them women) from 199 nations participated; the only nation excluded was Afghanistan.
North Korea and South Korea entered the stadium under one flag.
Australian Aboriginal Cathy Freeman lit the cauldron at the start of the Games, and went on to win the 400m race.
British rower Steven Redgrave became the first athlete to win gold medals in five consecutive Olympics.
Until the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, baseball was restricted to amateurs. Professional players were admitted in 2000.
The U.S. softball team defended its title; Michael Johnson does the same in the 400m race.
Ian Thorpe of Australia, then 17-year-old, won four medals (three gold) in swimming, breaking his own world record in the 400m freestyle.

American Marion Jones won five track medals, three of them gold. In 2007 she has admitted that she took drugs in the two years leading up to the Olympics which gave her a unfair advantage.
Russian gymnast Alexei Nemov won six medals, as he had done four years earlier in Atlanta 1996.
A swimmer from Equatorial Guinea, Eric "the Eel" Moussambani, was one of this year's lovable losers. He took 112.72 seconds in the 100m freestyle swim, which was more than twice as long as Pieter van den Hoogenband's gold-winning performance (more about Eric the Eel).
There were 165 events for men, 135 for women, and 12 mixed events. Women were excluded from boxing and baseball; and men were excluded from synchronized swimming, rhythmic gymnastics, and softball.
The United States, the Russian Federation, and the People's Republic of China were the medal table leaders.
The 2000 Olympics was the first time that women were allowed to compete at the Olympics in weightlifting.