Times Globe - September 19, 2000

Wait ‘til you see what I got," said Ben Storey of Whitehorse, my fellow lightweight men's four rowing alternate, still in his opening ceremonies gear and being trailed by the enormous, sweating Sydney Olympics volunteer who drove him home.

Outside the bungalow Rowing Canada rented for its alternates, a darkened, full-sized Trailways bus takes up one of the lanes on Jamieson Road.

It's 2 a.m. in the westernmost suburb of Sydney, three hours into the Games of the New Millennium.

The afflicted are still feeding the slots and getting their drinks cheap Olympic down at the 24 - hour casino.

Across Mulgoa Drive, the sign at the all-night K-Mart is buzzing.

So is the bus driver, who holds a stubby of Victoria Bitter that nearly disappears in his hands.

He tells us he's really an unemployed private investigator forced into working the Games to keep the unemployment cheques coming.

"Oh, we’re all buzzing," he said, leaving us to draw our own conclusions. It was that kind of night.

In an event as tightly orchestrated as the Opening Ceremonies, we managed to ad lib our way past the series of security checkpoints and onto the floor of Stadium Australia for the parade of athletes.

The rush of marching in front of the 110,000-person capacity crowd rivaled only by the rush of knowing that, under IOC rules, we weren't supposed to be there.

What follows is a chronology of the night's unlikely events.

Friday, 4 p.m. Penrith - Rowing and archery are the only two sports at the Olympics where spares aren't accredited. In rowing’s case, it's top-heavy in terms of participants - over 500 competing oarsmen. The IOC ruled that national sports federations would have to cover the costs for their own alternates. Rowing Canada has seven unaccredited spares in Sydney.

Three hours before the start of the Opening Ceremonies, our coach calls to check in on us before he leaves for the stadium with the rest of the athletes. Our plans are to head into Sydney and watch the live CBC feed from Canada House at MacQuarrie University.

4:30p.m. - We get a call from Rowing Canada’s team manager saying the Canadian Olympic Association has found the spares general seating tickets for the ceremonies. A Sydney Olympics van is dispatched to Penrith to shuttle us over to the stadium.

6 p.m. - The walk through the metal detectors and into the Olympic Park is uneventful. Most of the 110,000 spectators had arrived earlier on busses that traveled along designated routes. We walk by the Dome - the gymnastics venue and the holding area for the 10,000 athletes queuing for the parade - and watch the teams go by. We’re wearing all the Roots parade gear and Ben suggests we try sneaking in with the groups of Canadian athletes walking through the secure areas. The Canadian rowers communicating with us on a cell phone suggest we give it a shot. The security was surprisingly lax and our general seating tickets were not all that different from the marching passes we’d need.

Our cell rings once more with a message from the COA. They tell us to go for it.

6:30 p.m. - We slide over one of the metal fences, flash our tickets to the volunteers and make a dash for the main doors that lead into the Dome's atrium. Ben slips through three security people and heads home free up the escalator. We are turned away at the door when security realizes we have the wrong tickets. On the Walk over to the adjacent Stadium, Gen Meredith, the lightweight women's spare, calls us back. She's convinced the volunteers that we've been given the wrong tickets.

The six of us walk through the glass doors and I think to myself that we've made it. Not so fast. A slightly higher ranking volunteer - there are over 70,000 volunteers at the Games - is on to us, chasing us down on the up escalator. One of the heavyweight guys starts into a spiel about unaccredited spares and I make a break for a group of Canadian athletes in the red sun hats and Olympic vests. I find Ben talking with Quebec diving medal hopeful Anne Montminy.

We head through a gate and into the stadium where we're met by applause from the rest of the Canadian rowing team.

6:50 p.m. - Remarkably, the rest of the spares make it in and take their seats. A voice over the public address system informs us that now would be a good time to head to the toilets. Once on the floor of Stadium Australia, there will be no access to bath- rooms for three-plus hours.

This message spooks one of the heavyweight spares, who has been suffering from the so-called Olympic flu. He leans over to me and says the Imodium isn't kicking in. After sneaking into the Opening Ceremonies of the 2000 Olympic Games, we lose one of our guys to a case of the trots.

He won't be seen again until the following morning back in Penrith.

7:35 p.m. - Team Canada is signaled to follow their marching leaders out of the Dome for the 500-metre walk to Stadium Australia. We're escorted by police officers outside and are instructed to line up in rows of 10, female athletes to the front. World champion wrestler Daniel Igali congratulates Ben and I on our win in Croatia. Despite attempts to limit the athletes' parade to 90 minutes, the teams ahead of us are moving like slugs towards the stadium’s underground entrance.

Everyone ignores the signs posted in the tunnel that strictly prohibits the use of cell phones and video cameras. Flag-bearer Caroline Brunet starts through the opening up ahead of us and now I'm looking at a crowd of spectators larger than the population of Saint John.

The noise is deafening.

Saturday, 2 a.m. Penrith - It takes us more than two hours to empty out of the stadium and make the 70-kilometre ride back to Penrith. After a dramatic buildup to the lighting of the Olympic torch, the ceremony comes to an oddly abrupt end.

We initially follow the crush of athletes out of the stadium and are held up in a line back to the village. The rest of us split from Ben, who tries to get a little more mileage out of the scam by bumming a ride back to Penrith with the westbound Australian Rowing Team.

We walk up to the M4 and hitchhike home in our gear.

Ben did make it back, but obviously not with the Australians.

Which brings me back to the sweaty guy in the kitchen.

He was charged with driving one of the equestrian teams to their accommodations west of Sydney.

Somehow, Ben had managed to bribe the driver to take him home.

That was my Victoria Bitter he was drinking.