Bids for the 2000 Summer Olympics

Brasilia, capital of Brazil, and Milan, Italy, withdrew during the bidding process – Milan shortly after submitting its bid book,[1] Brasilia following the visit by the IOC Inspection Group, which stated the city had substandard facilities. Tashkent, Uzbekistan, also put in a bid for the Games, in order to gain some recognition of that country's existence and new independence,[2] but withdrew very early into the race.

Berlin was an early front-runner, hoping to cap the decade of German reconstruction and reunification by hosting the first Games of the new millennium. But the support of its bid was marred when anti-Olympic protesters marched through the city just four days before the final vote in Monaco claiming that the games would take funds away from further reconstruction efforts.[3] Manchester's bid book was considered strong, but with much regeneration in the city needed, and with a promotional video shown to the IOC depicting London landmarks such as Buckingham Palace and Tower Bridge, the bid was criticised heavily by the British media sighting that the city's bid was 'suffering from an identity crisis'. The impending announcement of the host city came down to a head-to-head between Sydney and Beijing with Manchester, Berlin and Istanbul ranked outsiders. With China's suppression of protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989 still fresh in the minds of many in the West, Human Rights Watch launched a major media campaign to influence members of the International Olympic Committee to vote against awarding the Games to Beijing on human rights grounds. The campaign was one of the earliest efforts to claim that Olympic hosts should meet human rights tests.[4]

When IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch thanked the five competing cities before announcing the winning bid, many Chinese in Beijing mistook his utterance of the city's name, before any of the others, as an announcement that it had been awarded the Games, and widespread celebrations began. These were cut short just minutes later when images from Sydney came through, illustrating the fact that the Australian city had won.[5]

The International Paralympic Committee then awarded the 2000 Summer Paralympics to Sydney.[6]

Investigations were later launched into the prior bidding process by some cities, finding that two African members of the IOC received US$35,000 each from Australian Olympic Committee President John Coates during the bidding process for Sydney's 2000 Summer Olympics.[7]

The Australian Olympic Committee were originally going to choose either Melbourne or Brisbane as their chosen candidate to bid. However, Sydney was chosen as it had never bid to host an Olympic Games before. Sydney, quickly became an instant favourite among Australian Olympic Committee members, due to strong support from AOC president John Coates and fellow members.

Prior to the Sydney 2000 Olympics bidding, the Australia Olympic Committee offered African countries scholarships allowing their athletes to train in Adelaide in the lead up to the Sydney Games. 400 athletes from 11 African nations took part in the special Olympic Training Camp. Under the program the visiting teams received all meals, accommodation, training facilities, local transport, and access to sports medicine experts. In total, the Program provided $2 million to support the development of African athletes and coaches who participated in the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

According to The New York Times, Beijing's loss to Sydney was seen as "a significant blow to the Communist Party leadership, which mounted the most vigorous campaign of any nation to win the competition", as the bid was an "urgent political priority" to "validate China's return to the international stage" after several years of diplomatic isolation following the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. Although Beijing's bid had problems with air pollution and overcrowded streets and mass transit, some believed that its failure was politically motivated. U.S. politicians Tom Lantos and Bill Bradley had lobbied the I.O.C. against awarding the Games to Beijing, with Lantos saying "human rights and decency must prevail in a society before they have the privilege of hosting the Olympics".[5]

University students in Beijing made plans to march on the American embassy in Beijing as news of Beijing's failed bid spread. Police presence was stepped up across Beijing university campuses to prevent this from happening. There were also suggestions by Chinese officials that Beijing would boycott the 1996 Summer Olympics because of the failed bid.[8] The US intelligence community also reported before the vote that should Beijing lose the bid, the Chinese government would resume underground nuclear testing, in violation of a worldwide moratorium on the process.[9] China however, ending up doing none of these things and in 2001, Beijing made a successful bid to host the 2008 Summer Olympics.

• The IOC Evaluation Report