Sydney Olympic Games Trivia

Here is some trivia about the 2000 Olympic Games, held in Sydney, Australia. See other Summer Olympic Trivia.

There were 165 events for men, 135 for women, and 12 mixed events. 10,651 athletes (4,069 of them women) from 199 nations participated; the only nation excluded was Afghanistan.
At these Games, women were excluded from boxing and baseball; and men were excluded from synchronized swimming, rhythmic gymnastics, and softball. The 2000 Olympics was the first time that women were allowed to compete at the Olympics in weightlifting.
For the first and only time, North Korea and South Korea entered the stadium under one flag.
There were three Olympic mascots: "Olly", a kookaburra, "Syd", a platypus; and "Millie", an echidna. The three native animals were chosen to represent the earth, air and water.
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.

Huge crowd at Sydney Olympic Park

The U.S. softball team defended its title; Michael Johnson did the same in the 400m race.
Ian Thorpe of Australia, at the time just a 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 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).

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