The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 27 September 2000
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HERE
Regular readers of this wonderful newspaper might recall a rather absurd column that appeared among these pages a while back in which one of my more dim-witted colleagues proclaimed he was through with television. ``Didn't need it any more,'' wrote the dumb-arse. ``It's all just trash,'' babbled the twit. This cretin continued on saying, ... saying ... okay, look, actually it was me -- I wrote that column. And while I was referring primarily to the state of TV entertainment rather than the medium itself, those words still came back to frazzle me a couple of nights ago. There I found myself, alone in my loungeroom, on my knees, hands sprawled atop my old faithful box, screaming at the glass: ``Oh my God, Cathy! You've done it! You've done it!'' While it's been awesome attending Olympic events in the flesh -- and I'm sure there's not one of us who wouldn't have given their second mortgage to be in Stadium Australia on Monday night -- you can bet our tellies can't wait until this is all over. We've given them a right-royal working over. Most of us aren't even treating them like TVs -- more like 24-hour live surveillance monitors, allowing us to keep a constant eye on this growth spurt of our nation. We've followed the prime specimens of our species from all around the planet doing the most extraordinary things. And it's been emotional. No more so than on Monday night when the most beautiful one of them all, our Cathy Freeman, took to the world's stage once again, not only representing Australia, but somehow carrying along the weight and fate of her nation tucked somewhere in that space-age race suit. If the vision of Cathy lighting the cauldron wasn't profound enough an image for us to take away from these Games, how about that prolonged close up of her face in the minutes after the job was done: Cathy Freeman, Olympic gold medallist. What must she have been thinking as her expressions darted from relief to bewilderment? What must she have been feeling while the rest of us were overcome by euphoria? And then the medal presentation, the anthem, a joyful Cathy consoling a tearful silver medallist who wasn't even an Australian. What does it all mean? Is this really as significant as it feels? Has Cathy -- by simply running fast -- managed to do more for reconciliation, for national pride, than years and years of rhetoric? Has she truly cast us on the path of becoming a great, unified, independent, modern nation? Has this unwilling icon really done all this for us? Or are our bloody TVs lying to us again? No, it all feels very real. Quite incredible. And what must the rest of the world be thinking? Watching that coverage the other night, surely we appeared like the most free-spirited, united people in the world, the envy of all nations. In winning a simple foot race, Cathy Freeman proved to us that anything is possible. Follow your dream, follow your vision of the world you want to live in, dedicate yourself to it and, who knows? It might actually come true. Thank you, TV, for letting all of Australia, all of the world, share this extraordinary experience. And thank you Cathy, thanks for ... wow, just everything.
