Olympic Games go out with a Spectacular Bang
The Olympic Games ended with a bang on Sunday as a fighter bomber set the night sky ablaze with a plume of flame and a spectacular cascade of fireworks lit up Sydney Harbour Bridge.
At least one million people packed the harbourside for what was hailed as one of the biggest pyrotechnic extravaganzas the world has ever seen.
Celebrations dowtown followed the Olympic closing party at Stadium Australia, where 110,000 spectators and thousands of athletes felt the heat as earlier another F-111 fighter bomber flew over trailing a 30 metre ribbon of flame.
The Bridge, one of Australia's most potent icons, was the centrepiece of a A$3 million ($1.7 million) firework display that put in the shade the New Year celebrations that heralded the start of a new millennium.
Sydney brought in firework experts from five continents to give the five Olympic rings on the bridge a breathtaking send-off.
The two parties at Olympic Park and by the harbour were linked by a 'river of lightning' that illuminated the Paramatta River.
Breathtaking Climax
It was a breathtaking climax for a fun-loving city that has revelled in the most successful Olympics ever staged.
'I am proud and happy to proclaim that you have presented to the world the best Olympic Games ever', Olympic chief Juan Antonio Samaranch, presiding over his last Games in 20 years at the helm, declared to a sports-mad Australia fiercely proud of what it had achieved.
'To you, all the people of Sydney and Australia, we say: These have been your Games,' said Samaranch, whose Olympics were tinged with tragedy when his wife died as he was flying home to Spain to be at her bedside.
Sydney's success helped redeem the tarnished image of an International Olympic Committee (IOC) still smarting from the cronyism and corruption exposed in the bidding for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games.
Doping sullied the sporting spectacular with seven athletes testing positive for drugs in competition. But the IOC hailed their exposure as a new 'zero tolerance' attitude to cheats.
In Stadium Australia, war, politics and the divisions of nations were forgotten as they had been at so many Olympics since Melbourne in 1956 when athletes first streamed together into the closing ceremony rather than as national teams.
Australian Icons
The athletes, letting their hair down after the rigours of competition, poured into the arena from every corner for the biggest backyard party in the history of Australia.
They were treated to a show of Australian icons from pop star Kylie Minogue and golfer Greg Norman to drag queens in all their finery and a country and a western singalong of the country's unofficial anthem 'Waltzing Matilda'.
The Games have helped to staunch old wounds in a young nation and to forge a cohesive identity out of an Australian melting pot of immigrants from all across the globe.
Aborigine sprinter Cathy Freeman, a potent symbol of Australia's disadvantaged minority, lit the Olympic cauldron at the start of the Games and then ignited the nation with an electric triumph in the women's 400 metres.
Frank Sartor, mayor of a city that has partied round the clock since the Games began, handed over the five-ring Olympic flag to Mayor Dimitri Avramopoulos of Athens where the Summer Olympics move in 2004.
Sydney will be a hard act to follow after unprecedented ticket sales, television broadcast to a record 220 countries and a glitch-free Games that unfolded as smoothly as organisers had ever dared to dream. It was truly a night to party.
Source: SOCOG
At least one million people packed the harbourside for what was hailed as one of the biggest pyrotechnic extravaganzas the world has ever seen.
Celebrations dowtown followed the Olympic closing party at Stadium Australia, where 110,000 spectators and thousands of athletes felt the heat as earlier another F-111 fighter bomber flew over trailing a 30 metre ribbon of flame.
The Bridge, one of Australia's most potent icons, was the centrepiece of a A$3 million ($1.7 million) firework display that put in the shade the New Year celebrations that heralded the start of a new millennium.
Sydney brought in firework experts from five continents to give the five Olympic rings on the bridge a breathtaking send-off.
The two parties at Olympic Park and by the harbour were linked by a 'river of lightning' that illuminated the Paramatta River.
Breathtaking Climax
It was a breathtaking climax for a fun-loving city that has revelled in the most successful Olympics ever staged.
'I am proud and happy to proclaim that you have presented to the world the best Olympic Games ever', Olympic chief Juan Antonio Samaranch, presiding over his last Games in 20 years at the helm, declared to a sports-mad Australia fiercely proud of what it had achieved.
'To you, all the people of Sydney and Australia, we say: These have been your Games,' said Samaranch, whose Olympics were tinged with tragedy when his wife died as he was flying home to Spain to be at her bedside.
Sydney's success helped redeem the tarnished image of an International Olympic Committee (IOC) still smarting from the cronyism and corruption exposed in the bidding for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games.
Doping sullied the sporting spectacular with seven athletes testing positive for drugs in competition. But the IOC hailed their exposure as a new 'zero tolerance' attitude to cheats.
In Stadium Australia, war, politics and the divisions of nations were forgotten as they had been at so many Olympics since Melbourne in 1956 when athletes first streamed together into the closing ceremony rather than as national teams.
Australian Icons
The athletes, letting their hair down after the rigours of competition, poured into the arena from every corner for the biggest backyard party in the history of Australia.
They were treated to a show of Australian icons from pop star Kylie Minogue and golfer Greg Norman to drag queens in all their finery and a country and a western singalong of the country's unofficial anthem 'Waltzing Matilda'.
The Games have helped to staunch old wounds in a young nation and to forge a cohesive identity out of an Australian melting pot of immigrants from all across the globe.
Aborigine sprinter Cathy Freeman, a potent symbol of Australia's disadvantaged minority, lit the Olympic cauldron at the start of the Games and then ignited the nation with an electric triumph in the women's 400 metres.
Frank Sartor, mayor of a city that has partied round the clock since the Games began, handed over the five-ring Olympic flag to Mayor Dimitri Avramopoulos of Athens where the Summer Olympics move in 2004.
Sydney will be a hard act to follow after unprecedented ticket sales, television broadcast to a record 220 countries and a glitch-free Games that unfolded as smoothly as organisers had ever dared to dream. It was truly a night to party.
Source: SOCOG