Freeman

And the winner is...

The... the winner is Sydney.

Australia will have the honour

of carrying the Olympic torch into the new millennium.

Winning the right to host the Olympics

almost caused Sydney to spontaneously combust.

You know to think that we can hack it in the big... in the big swim.

Sydney!

Promises are already being made

to deliver the 2000 Games in spectacular fashion.

Have you measured the 100 metres track?

It's about 100 metres. It's about 100 metres long.

The stadium is the biggest ever built for the Olympic Games.

Is the 200 metres track ABOUT 200 metres long?

That is the most impressive stadium I have seen in my life.

The Australian people want an apology

for the injustices of the past.

We have a particular place in this country.

We've been here since time immemorial... (ECHOES) ..immemorial.

Happy New Year!

Bus lanes have appeared...

Never before has Australia been the focus of so much attention.

The Olympics has really arrived here.

The event you're about to see they're calling "The Race of Our Lives".

Cathy Freeman in the 400... (ECHOES) ..400.

My running has allowed me to walk in a light,

to be in a light, to live in a light, that comes from within.

And it's carried me to these places that I never thought imaginable.

When I think about that one night in September,

for me, it takes me back to my very first race.

Like, I remember the first time I ever raced.

It almost felt like my feet never touched the ground.

My body just seems to physically be able to do it with great ease.

And I felt like I was flying, even as a five-year-old kid.

That's where I found true peace.

And that's where I felt, so completely free

and so completely happy.

It's a beautiful feeling.

It's almost like falling into a slipstream

that leads you straight to heaven.

For me, it was always just such a...

..dare I say, a spiritual experience, to be frank.

'Cause running absolutely and will always be my first greatest love.

It's like the very first kiss you take, with someone,

the first moment you realise,

"Oh, my God, I'm completely gone here."

You know that feeling? (LAUGHS)

And people see it or they feel it.

It's like a chemistry, you know?

It's like when you can't take your eyes off someone, for some reason.

There's something about them.

Just the way she ran, I just felt, "Here is a champion."

"And we've got to help her."

Some people just move beautifully.

And she did, just those long strides.

It was like she glided around.

There was elegance, there was... it was just a glide.

She just looks like she's floating.

You can't take your eyes off her.

I could help a thousand other people

and they couldn't do what Cathy Freeman could do.

'Cause she's got the magic, she's a genius.

Her beautiful, flowing, free, fluid style,

it's like a beautiful machine that's well-oiled.

Everything's just so smooth and so natural,

and there's seemingly no effort.

That's how Cathy ran.

And just watching her has been a joy.

People still light up

when they talk about that night in September.

They sparkle.

And we're talking about something that happened so long ago.

Because the lovely thing about this particular story

is that a lot of people were involved in it.

I was very fortunate in that I was born into

a very tight-knit family.

I'm one of five children.

But my mother's one of 11.

I adored my mother.

Hard-working, dedicated to her children.

Very independent.

At times, very stubborn and very proud.

My mother and my dad

divorced when I was around about five years of age.

Roughly three years later,

she met my stepfather, Bruce William Barber,

affectionately known as 'Blue Eyes'.

What do you think was the big break?

Bruce had a lot to do with that.

If he hadn't have come along at the time that he did,

I don't think that I could've had the resources to do it on my own.

I didn't know anything about athletics.

But I thought, "Well, if nothing else, I could teach her to get fit."

It was my stepdad who encouraged me to put up on the wall,

"I am the world's greatest athlete."

The fact that my older sister, Anne-Marie,

she had severe cerebral palsy...

..just sitting and being with her

absolutely defined who I am, as a person.

She passed away in 1990.

But, gee-whiz, I tell you, the lessons she taught me,

will never leave me.

Things around respect

and not judging a book by its bloody cover.

She says that she ran for her sister.

That's what drove her to succeed in what she did.

Keep on your toe. Keep on your toe.

Drive your knee. Drive your knee higher.

The knees goes higher all the time.

Her first professional coach was Mike Danila,

a Romanian defector who couldn't believe his luck

in finding such untapped talent in Australia.

I felt myself go down a bit.

But the one before was better. Yeah.

She looks like without any limit.

Being epic is allowing yourself to be tamed.

You have to do what your coach tells you,

you have to do what your doctor tells you,

your physio tells you, your masseuse tells you.

Eight hours of rest, enough water, no alcohol,

no heels, no standing around for long time.

Untamed is being that champion that you see yourself being.

In the mind of a track-and-field athlete,

the pinnacle is an Olympic gold medal.

The moon comes up every four years.

The thirst to get an Olympic gold medal is unquenchable.

At 16, Catherine Freeman is ambitious, dedicated

and very fast.

The exuberant Queenslander,

the youngest member of the track-and-field team,

is impatient for her first taste of international competition.

She was a shock entry into the 1990 Commonwealth Games.

Australia saw her burst into the limelight.

That was my first time I actually saw her run.

The first black Australian athlete

to win gold at the Commonwealth Games.

She was determined. She had determination.

That's all she wanted to do was to run.

She was a very relaxed person most of the time,

and when she did switch it on, incredible competitiveness.

Yeah, as much as I've ever seen.

The young Australian of the Year for 1990 is Catherine Freeman.

There are a lot of Aboriginals and Islanders who have so much talent.

Because of the colour of their skin,

I think they've got this inferiority complex

which holds them back from doing what they can do.

The little kids love her.

Black or white, they accept Cathy Freeman

for who she is and what she's done.

Thank you. Thank you.

What did it mean to Aboriginal kids,

to see Cathy named as Young Australian of the Year?

I think it meant an awful lot.

I think this will make them stand up and say,

"Look if she can do it, I can."

I was a kid who was quite embarrassed to be a black kid,

an Indigenous kid.

I sort of grew up with that self-image.

Like, I still remember, I could never understand why,

whenever I smiled at someone, they wouldn't smile back! (LAUGHS)

I used to get really upset.

I thought, "Why don't people smile back at me?" (LAUGHS)

It just used to, quietly, really devastate me.

I was about 10 or something and I had won my race,

but I didn't get the trophy for it,

apparently because I was black.

We absolutely felt like we weren't on equal footing with other people.

But... when I ran, it just changed.

It was like everything was different in the world of running for me.

She's off scratch.

She's got 42 metres to make up on Debbie Tomsett.

And here she is.

She just loved the racing.

So, she'd go and run at club meet.

The State titles, she'd run.

She'd go the Stawell Gift, which is our professional racing on grass.

A lot of people wouldn't even know what that is.

Cathy Freeman.

She's virtually got a quarter of the race to make up.

Can the crowd get Cathy Freeman up from there?

About 200 metres from home,

they're shaking their heads, but here she comes.

Now the crowd realise she IS a chance.

Cathy's passed the first of them, she goes past Tomsett.

Lewis gives her a shove.

Cathy Freeman, now is going to catch Shanie Coutts.

She grits hard! Cathy Freeman!

She does it! Freeman by half a metre!

CATHY FREEMAN; I know that I not only represent myself,

but I represent my people,

and I know my people follow me.

I have my people there to support me,

financially, emotionally.

It's very important to me that my people are with me all the way.

This next lady is simply sensational.

The new Aussie golden girl of the track they call Catherine the Great.

But you don't feel the pressure

of being, A, a woman, B, a young woman, and, C, an Aboriginal woman?

That's not too much pressure? No, I'm having fun.

Years of training behind her,