Flashback to the 2000 Sydney Olympics with Olivia Newton-John and John Farnham

Flashback to the 2000 Sydney Olympics with Olivia Newton-John and John Farnham

Flashback to the 2000 Sydney Olympics with Olivia Newton-John and John Farnham: on the evening of Friday 15 September 2000 (local time) the 2000 Summer Olympics were opened at the Stadium Australia in Sydney in attendance of many athletes, dignitaries, artists and visitors from all over the world. The stadium seats more than 80.000 people, but during the opening ceremony the stadium was filled with more than 115.000 enthusiasts.

The ceremony, which consisted of formal proceedings like welcoming speeches, a flag parade and the introducing of the athletes also had lots of entertainment to offer.

Apart from John and Olivia some of the artist performing that night were Tina Arena, Vanessa Amorosi, Julie Anthony and Human Nature.

The songs performed were to showcase the diversity in Australian music. The three songs performed by Olivia, Tina and Vanessa were especially written for the event by Australian songwriters after which the performers were matched to sing these songs. The songs were chosen from a total of about 4000 songs that were submitted by Australian composers.

The main songs of the evening were:

‘The Flame’ performed by Tina Arena and written by John Foreman.

Tina: ‘I am deeply honoured to be part of this special event in Australian history. I’ve been fortunate enough to have had many wonderful experiences in my career but this one is definitely the proudest,’

‘Heroes Live Forever’ performed by Vanessa Amorosi, written by John Gillard and Trevor White.

Vanessa: ‘I feel extremely honoured and excited to be involved in the Olympic Games. I am really looking forward to the Opening Ceremony, performing to the biggest television audience a performer could hope for.’

‘Dare To Dream’performed by John Farnham and Olivia Newton-John, written by Paul Begaud, Vanessa Corish and Wayne Tester

Olivia: ‘This is the biggest honour I’ve ever had – to sing for my country. I am very honoured.’

Olivia Newton-John and John Farnham

Olivia Newton-John and John Farnham had been close friends for many years before the 2000 Olympics and were introduced as performing artist during a press conference prior to the Olympics.

After the fist rehearsals of the opening ceremony John confessed the had almost dropped Olivia causing her to fall off the stairs in the stadium. John: “I let her go and down she went and she had this long sparkly-arkly dress on and we were walking up the middle of the crowd of volunteers, who were helping just so the camera could get the shot, and two pretty girls were going `John, John come up’ … and I dropped her and I felt terrible.”

Official music from the 2000 Olympics available on CD

All music of the ceremony was later available on cd on the Sony/BMG Australia label (500345000)

Tina Arena and Vanessa Amorosi

Two years after the Olympics both Tina Arena and Vanessa Amorosi recorded a duet with Olivia for her 2002 duets album (2). Unfortunately due to legal issues Olivia and Vanessa’s duet ‘True To Yourself’ was only released to the public on Olivia’s posthumous duets collection album Just the Two of Us in 2023.

Olivia’s duet with Tina, called ‘I’ll Come Runnin’ was released on the original album (2) and they also performed the duet during Olivia’s TV Special ‘A Night with Olivia‘, broadcast on October 31, 2002 on the Australian Nine channel.

Olivia flame bearer in torch relay

Olivia was one of many singers who were lucky enough to have been asked to carry the Olympic flame in a torch relay. She received the torch from singer Andrea Bocceli and carried the flame around the Opera House, and with the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background she handed it over to Australian tennis player Pat Rafter.

Before every Olympic Games commences the torch travels a long distance from Greece to the organising city, wherever in the world this may be. You can read more about the torch relay in 2002 here.