4/08/00
The Green & Gold
Summary:
As big a secret as who will light the Olympic flame in Sydney on September 5, is what our athletes will be wearing when they march out for the Opening Ceremony. Head uniform designer MARIA ITALIANO and dual Olympic gold medallist NICK GREEN discuss previous Australian Olympic uniforms, national symbols, and the green and gold.
And RICHARD CASHMAN, Director of the Centre for Olympic Studies at the University of NSW, looks back to where the choice of green and gold for our national sporting colours comes from, and why they're different from the colours of the national flag.
Plus, we'll check on the physical and psychological progress of two would-be competitors in the two new Olympic sports, who we first met on The Sports Factor last month - LAUREN BURNS in taekwondo, and triathlete PETER ROBERTSON.
Details or Transcript:
THEME
Amanda Smith: On The Sports Factor this week, sporting symbols and colours. When and why did Australia’s national sporting colours become green and gold, when our flag is red, white and blue?
Amanda Smith: Also coming up, we’ll check on the progress of our two Olympic hopefuls, who we met for the first time on The Sports Factor a month ago, and who are competing in the two new sports on the Olympic program this year: Lauren Burns in Taekwondo, and Peter Robertson in the Triathlon.
With six weeks to go, for Peter Robertson, the person pushing him towards the home stretch is coach Dick Caine.
Dick Caine: Peter tests me. You know he’ll walk in and say, ‘Oh Dick, I’m tired’; it’s a game, it’s a game of test. If you want to be a good athlete, right? the sessions that you do that you don’t want to do, make you a better person. Anyone can run on a sunny, shiny day when they feel good, it’s the blokes that run on the rainy days when they’re feeling sick and crook or have got a hangover, they’re the tough guys.
Amanda Smith: The progress, and pain, of Peter Robertson, and also Lauren Burns, coming up later in the program.
Before that though, to our national sporting colours and team uniforms. Earlier this year, the formal, and informal uniforms for the Australian Olympic team were launched. But the ceremonial uniform, the one the team will wear for the opening ceremony on September 15th, that’s as closely guarded a secret as who’ll be lighting the Olympic flame.
Maria Italiano is the head of the design team at Woolmark, responsible for all three versions of the Australian Olympic team uniform. And Nick Green, a former member of the ‘Oarsome Foursome’, the dual Olympic Gold Medal rowing team, is working with Maria as the athlete adviser on the uniforms. Now I have to say that at previous Olympic and Commonwealth Games, when the teams march out at the opening ceremony, there are times when I’ve thought, ‘Oh, the French team look great’ or ‘Botswana looks fantastic; but the Australians look pretty ordinary.’ Well, are we going to think that at the opening ceremony next month? Maria Italiano.
Maria Italiano: Absolutely not. No, you’re going to be very proud to see the sort of statement that we’re going to make about who Australia is in the new millennium, and we know with our home Game. Obviously from a design point of view and from a production point of view, when our team walk into the stadium it’ll be a very defining moment, and I really believe that when all Australians see the team walk out, they’ll be wearing something that looks really fabulous, it’ll be in beautiful wool fabric, and I think they’ll all feel very proud.
Amanda Smith: Well Nick Green, as a former Olympic athlete yourself, as one of the Oarsome Foursome, what could you bring into this process as someone experienced with wearing Olympic uniforms?
Nick Green: Well in the end the Olympic athletes who have to wear them, have to feel comfortable in them. And I suppose it’s all very well for, we call them designers who are designing these uniforms that they think are fantastic in their own right, but are they applicable to the athletes’ point of view, in terms of do they feel comfortable wearing at the opening ceremony, and casually around the village. And not necessarily have all the Olympic Games had that element, so I come from the experience of having competed in two Olympic Games, ’92 and ’96, and the uniforms in those times were praised sometimes, but criticised sometimes as well. So I was able to bring those experiences and that knowledge in advising Maria from time to time by saying, ‘Well, this will work because of this’, or ‘This won’t work, because the athletes simply will not wear it.’ And I suppose when you design a uniform, the athletes want to be proud wearing it and wear it all the time, and I think some of the designs back in particular the ’92 Olympic Games were, I don’t even know how to describe them, very unfashion-friendly, and I didn’t even wear them, and the ... I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but even some of the pants we were issued at the time, we were issued in a uniform fitting in Germany before we went to Barcelona to compete in the Games, I left them in the village, and I wasn’t the only athlete who did that, a number did; but we just didn’t like it and we thought it was a waste of luggage space to carry them with us. And I feel sort of bad saying that, but at the time that’s what they were.
Amanda Smith: Well our national sporting colours, the green and gold, I’ve often thought that that combination of colours is really quite difficult to make look any good, and there’s been some pretty interesting combinations of shades of those two colours put together in past uniforms. What was your feeling about having to work with the green and the gold?
Maria Italiano: I’ve got to say I’m a very proud Australian and I love green and gold, but there are shades of green and there are shades of gold, and you know, from the onset my mission has been to find a way to make green and gold work, that was very sophisticated and very stylish. And it is possible to do; it took quite a few different sort of samples of colour of green to get to the green that we really liked.
Amanda Smith: Well again, in Australian team uniforms from previous years, we’ve seen things like slouch hats and symbols like koalas and bits of wattle incorporated in the past; what was your attitude to all that, and what have you done in terms of national symbols?
Maria Italiano: Well this obviously relates to opening ceremony to a degree again. Look, I think that from my point of view in the ‘80s I guess we had our Australiana phase, where you know, it was all about gumnuts and koalas and that was appropriate at the time. I think that now we lead the world in certain areas, so we really can stand our ground. We no longer need to be identified having gum leaves on us. It’s hard to do this without giving anything away, isn’t it? (laughs)
Amanda Smith: Well I’m just hoping you will!
Maria Italiano: Oh no, no, I’ve been trained!
Amanda Smith: Well Nick, Maria’s the one with the fashion design background, you’re the one with the sports background. Tell me more about your involvement, how you’ve worked into this project.
Nick Green: I’ve been with Woolmark for about nine months, eight or nine months now, and as an athlete obviously I see what goes on in front of the scenes let’s say, out on the track and on the competition field, and I know how the athletes are treated and perceived. So it was quite an interesting eye-opener to actually see the other side, and I suppose I have to remove myself and say, ‘Well I’m not going to be an athlete at the 2000 Olympic Games’ and when I made the decision to retire it was the right thing to do, but this was just a great opportunity to be involved on the other level and work behind the scenes. Initially, believe it or not, I actually didn’t like it very much, because I thought that the focus was not about the athletes, that the focus was all about making budget, getting the message across, making sure your logo was seen at all the particular functions, and I’m there at these SOCOG functions saying ‘Well don’t forget the athletes’. And Sandy Hollway would always go up and say, ‘Yes, the athletes are our No.1 priority, blah-blah-blah’, but I wasn’t seeing it at the time. And about six months later, then it all started to come around and there was probably just under 100 days to go to the Olympic Games, and then the focus started to go back on the athletes. You know, the job obviously for Australia and SOCOG is to host an event, but in the end I believe it’s the athletes that put on the show.
Amanda Smith: And have to wear the uniforms that Nick Green and Maria Italiano, and the rest of her team, come up with.
Now in a 1998 survey, Australians ranked national sporting success as their highest source of national pride and identity. And part of that identification is through the uniforms and colours and symbols that get attached to sport. But when and why did Australia adopt the green and gold as our national sporting colours, when the national flag is another set of colours altogether?
Richard Cashman is the Director of the Centre for Olympic Studies at the University of New South Wales, and the author of a book about the rise of organised sport in Australia, called ‘Paradise of Sport’.
Richard Cashman: I think it has to do with Federation, but teams representing Australia wore many different colours, in fact they were a pretty motley lot before 1900. Sometimes they wore the Melbourne Cricket Club colours, sometimes some other colours. I think there was a need to have national colours and one of the problems was that our national flag, the colours there were red, white and blue, and when we played England at cricket, it was inappropriate to play in the same colours. It was also linked with a kind of emerging Australian nationalism to find colours that kind of reflected an Australian identity. So the colours that were chosen were green and we think they were to represent the gum tree, and gold to represent wattle.
It’s quite interesting: green was a relatively new colour in sport, because it was difficult for dyers for one reason or another to make jerseys that were green, in the late 19th century. So all the early football clubs don’t have green in their guernseys. So there was a variety of reasons why Australia really were not satisfied to go to games with red, white and blue and had to find their own colours. New Zealand did the same: they moved, and the All Blacks chose black as their colour, we chose green and gold.
Amanda Smith: And the green and gold colours were first worn when, and by whom?
Richard Cashman: The Australian cricket team were the first really to develop green and gold, but they wore sage green, which I think is a yellowy sort of green. Green and gold were first worn in a Test match in 1902. Green and gold were first worn in the Olympics in 1908, but it was a myrtle green which I think is a slightly darker green. It’s the first decade of the 20th century, so it’s obviously linked very much to Federation as well.
Amanda Smith: And you mentioned that the Australian Olympic team took up the green and gold uniform in 1908, that’s the fifth modern Olympics that were held in London; didn’t they have a uniform before that time?
Richard Cashman: No, they didn’t have a uniform at all. They wore civvies in the opening ceremony, in fact they left the shores of Australia without a uniform.
Amanda Smith: This was in 1908?
Richard Cashman: 1908. But the British Olympic officials were keen that each country have some sort of uniform, so more or less at the last moment, the manager of the Australian team lobbied the Federal Government and said, ‘Please give us some money so we can have a uniform.’ And green and gold was kind of in the air at that point, and some of the athletes wore costumes that involved green and gold, but some of them didn’t. The rugby team, which won the Gold Medal, were mostly from New South Wales, and they wore a blue jersey with a waratah emblem, the symbol of New South Wales. It wasn’t till 1912 that the Australian team went off with a proper uniform and the Australian colours.
Amanda Smith: Well I have to say that I’ve always been a bit confused about why Australia’s representative sporting colours of green and gold are different to the red, white and blue of the national flag; given that sport is such a key marker of national identity, do you think that this is confusing, and sort of represents, or perpetuates a confused identity on our part?
Richard Cashman: I don’t think it’s confusing to Australians, but it probably is confusing to people from other countries that see athletes running round in green and gold, and then if they win a Gold Medal up goes the red, white and blue flag, and it has a British Union Jack in the corner of it, so there is a certain I suppose ambiguity in our emblems, and I suppose that ambiguity reflects that we are still undergoing debate about who we are and what we represent and how we should present ourselves in public. And I think the green and gold, the red, white and blue sort of demonstrates that in a way that we’ve got, to use an Australian expression, two bob each way.
Amanda Smith: Well maybe we should just bite the bullet finally and get a new flag and it be a green and gold one.
Richard Cashman: Well it could well be a green and gold one, but I think it has to do with a future debate about the republic and I think there has to be some sort of synthesis and perhaps there could be a nice synthesis in that we have the southern cross, which is an element from the existing flag which is very popular, and perhaps it might include the green and gold, but of course some people who are not so keen on sport would say that we shouldn’t go that far and that sport shouldn’t sort of dictate our national agenda. But on the other hand, the green and gold has been such a powerful symbol, it’s far more meaningful to most Australians than red, white and blue, that perhaps that’s a great idea, that the green and gold should be somehow incorporated into any future flag.
Amanda Smith: Well there was that push in the ‘80s for the green and gold ‘boxing kangaroo’ flag, wasn’t there?
Richard Cashman: Yes, it’s very interesting, because I doubt in America and Britain they’d run up another flag. But that flag is an interesting one because it had the symbol of the kangaroo and it had the green and the gold, so if there was sort of a yearning for an emblem that represented that Australia is different from other countries, of course it’s only a sporting flag because it’s a bit informal, the boxing kangaroo. So it doesn’t have wider sort of possible implications for a national flag, you need something a little more dignified and formal.
Amanda Smith: Richard Cashman, who’s the Director of the Centre for Olympic Studies at the University of New South Wales.
It’s time now to check up on what’s been happening with our two Olympic athletes since we first met them a month ago; Peter Robertson, the triathlete, and Lauren Burns, the Taekwondo competitor. It’s just six weeks now to the Games, and the task for our two debutantes is to keep it all together. At this stage, injury is the enemy. And as Michael Shirrefs discovered, when Lauren Burns got in the way of a punch recently, it was a painful blow in more ways than one.
SHOUTS OF TAEKWONDO COMPETITORS SPARRING
Michael Shirrefs: She’s had her nose pushed sideways by a team mate, and straightened by a surgeon. And so it’s a rather battered looking Lauren Burns who sits smiling in front of me ... at least I think that’s a smile!
Still, the face is healing well and more importantly Lauren Burns has been chosen for the team, which will be announced officially by the Australian Olympic Committee on Monday. A thrill, and a relief.
Lauren Burns: Yes, it’s great to have finally announced the team, and it’s sort of I guess the official part of it is out of the way and now we can just focus on the job at hand, and really start fine-tuning. Now there’s only 40 days to go, it’s really exciting just this lead-up now, and just the preparation of really finding for each individual athlete what they need.
Michael Shirrefs: Well you’ve just returned from a fairly intensive training stint in Korea, where you got some serious fight practice in. Why Korea?
Lauren Burns: Well Koreans are traditionally the best in the world. You know, they’ve been dominating the sport for the last 20, 30 years, so Korea, you know, you can walk into any high school, any university, they’ve got an enormous amount of depth with the players, and often have three or four people just my weight division, which we just don’t have in Australia. So it was great to train with the Koreans, but not only that, we had a lot of international players over there that were also preparing for the Games, so I got to fight a few of my competition, some of the other girls that have been selected in my weight division, so it was really good to move around with them too and test out exactly where I’m at at the moment.
Michael Shirrefs: So since we last spoke, has your strategy for preparation really changed?
Lauren Burns: No, my strategy hasn’t changed since last we spoke, it’s just I think I’ve started to simplify it a little bit more and really just hone in the things that I want to work on personally and that I think are going to make the difference. So I’ve been doing that physically, technically with my physical training, but then also mentally. So working with Jeff and some of the other coaches, just trying to really refine mentally what I want to achieve out of this Games.
Michael Shirrefs: And so it falls to Lauren’s support crew, people like her sport psych. Jeff Simons, to keep the program on track and to help Lauren deal with the unexpected, and the unfortunate.
So what’s the most helpful thing you can do for an athlete who’s now on the final approach?
Jeff Simons: Well the thing that I do with individual athletes is really sit down with them and try to determine what the athlete’s path is into their competition; what is it that they need to see happen? What is that they want to do? What distractions do they need to be able to cut out? We want to start off relatively complex and look at a bit of everything in all those different areas, distractions, what you want, how you want to go at it, and slowly, as we come closer and closer to the event, become simpler and simpler and simpler, so that on the day of competition she knows exactly how she wants to feel, what she plans to do, how she plans to attack her opponents, and is as free as possible just to react and respond on the day, each fight, one fight at a time. Very simply, in her own mind, despite all the confusion, distractions, all the other things that can be going on around.
Michael Shirrefs: Do you learn skills and gain valuable insights from Lauren’s competitive experience?
Jeff Simons: Oh I learn from every athlete I work with, and I do a lot of listening about what goes on in competition, and get a feeling for how Lauren operates and the things that really help her out. I also listen and learn the things that distract her. I learn things about her specifically, but I also learn something about the competitive mindset for somebody who does her sport. She’s very successful, she’s a good model for me to think about if I’m going to work with another Taekwondo player. So there’s always something to be learned in this interaction, there is not one singular way of going at the sport, and so every time you can pick up experience from other players, from other athletes, it just broadens your knowledge.
Michael Shirrefs: In the end though, Lauren does compete in a contact sport, and so injury must always be a serious risk. And as Lauren is about to head back to the surgeon to get her face checked, and the plaster off, it’s sobering to contemplate this sort of threat to her campaign
Lauren Burns: Well now is really an important time because we don’t really have the chance to recover from an injury if we get something really serious, so we have to really take care of ourselves in training, but also just physically, like I’m not going skiing this year, or doing anything that might cause an injury. Injury has been one of the things that’s probably my greatest fear in competition, and in training, so I’m really trying to take extra care especially after what I’ve done to my nose, which again wasn’t in training, it was just in a ... I was just mucking round, and practising for a demonstration, so I was a bit unlucky there.
Michael Shirrefs: But this has involved quite serious surgery.
Lauren Burns: Yes. It has involved surgery, but I’m really just trying to look at it positively, and hopefully it will help me be a little bit more aware of my head, and move out of the way if anyone tries to kick me in the head at the Games. So I’m just trying to look at it in a positive light and just focus on training and the things that I do need to work on.
Michael Shirrefs: And that sort of pragmatism is crucial for everyone involved. Lauren’s father and former Australian pop star, Ronnie Burns, is no stranger to the sport of Taekwondo, having attained the level of Black Belt himself, he’s somewhat reconciled to the risks. Still, he can be forgiven if he worries ... just a bit.
Ronnie Burns: Oh, I do, but it goes with the gig. You know, this is the type of sport it is, it’s not like playing table tennis and you flick the ball the wrong way and you’re lost. Someone is out to drop you. I will say some figures here, and I can’t say that I know them absolutely correctly but I have been led to believe that when a Korean wins a Gold Medal in the Olympics, they get set up for life; they get a house and they get certain grants that keep them going then for whatever they want to do in their life. An American, to win a Gold Medal gets a million dollars US. An Australian winning a Gold Medal, and I need to be corrected if this isn’t correct, gets $35,000. So when you step into the ring and you going to get a prize money which is not really the aim of why they step in there, of $35,000 and your opponent’s going to get a million bucks? I mean you have to fight, you’ve got to win outright in that situation. So this is going to be a great test for her, and we’ll be there to really cheer her on.
Michael Shirrefs: So you will be in Sydney to see your girl kicking the world’s best?
Ronnie Burns: Yes. I honour her, I have so much love for her and I just can’t believe that she just takes it so far, you know, she’s just fantastic, and she’s my daughter. And we like her to get over here so we can rest her and look after her and feed her and she can walk in the mountains of Tasmania and let go a bit, there’ll be plenty of time for that later.
Amanda Smith: Ronnie Burns, proud Dad of Australian Taekwondo champion and Olympic contender, Lauren Burns, speaking there with Michael Shirrefs.
Well what of our other Olympic hopeful? Triathlete Peter Robertson is feeling pretty well on track at the moment. He’s just won an International Triathlon Union race in Korea; and he’s already swum, cycled, run and won, on the course laid out for Sydney. But before getting to the starting line for his Olympic race, there’s the physical and psychological toughening up that Peter’s swimming coach, Dick Caine, has in store for him. Of the three disciplines that make up the Triathlon, it’s the swimming that Peter’s really got to work at now.
Earlier this week, Nick Rushworth met up with Dick and with Peter. And, a word of warning, some of the language that follows is a bit colourful.
Nick Rushworth: Six weeks to go; are you ready?
Peter Robertson: I will be, yes. At this stage everything is on track, I’m feeling good and just want to get there and race, can’t wait.
Nick Rushworth: Now what does on track mean in terms of your preparation?
Peter Robertson: If the race was today, I wouldn’t be ready. So my training is to get me the best prepared for that particular day. I’ve prepared for this race before, not the Olympics, but this course, and it’s all logged down, I know where I was at what stage. At this stage of the training, 6-1/2 weeks out, everything is on track.
Nick Rushworth: I don’t want you to give any hints away to your competitors on September 17th, but what’s missing, why aren’t you ready now? What have you got to do between now and then?
Peter Robertson: Well the way the training is structured you know, you do a lot of long mileage in this part of the training phase, and then you build up into speed work. The sessions get shorter, but harder.
Nick Rushworth: How’s swimming going?
Peter Robertson: Swimming’s going good, yes. It’s picked up. It’s something that I’ll always work at, but I’m quite happy with the way I’m swimming at the moment.
Nick Rushworth: You’ve got the cycling and the swimming and the running side of things covered. What about the sort of psychological aspects of preparation, what it means to be in the Olympics? Do you think about that all?
Peter Robertson: I think about it every day. I think it’s great that I’m going but you know, I’ve put that behind me. I’m there not just to be at the Olympics, if you want to just be at the Olympics you go out and buy a ticket, if you can. I’m there to race and represent my country.
Nick Rushworth: But you don’t feel like you need any psychological coaching of any kind?
Peter Robertson: No my head’s fine. You know, I think that’s one of my assets.
Nick Rushworth: That you’re cool under pressure?
Peter Robertson: Cool as a cucumber. (laughs)
Nick Rushworth: And nothing about how you picture yourself on September 17th has changed? You still think you’ll be on the winners dais Gold Medal?
Peter Robertson: Yes, that’s never changed.
Dick Caine: All right, off we go. Come on. The back of the board another two, I’m going to watch - no, no, what? Yes well he’s staying back for spraying you and you’re staying back for dobbing in. All right, off we go. Next swimmer, go James.
You teach a puppy or a horse, and all this shit you see about burn-out, is a load of shit. This is where they learn their discipline, this is where they learn to do it right and tough, and they’ll go on then and be good athletes. You know, if I’ve got to nurse them or wipe their bum, I don’t want them here. I don’t want to put up with the pain.
Nick Rushworth: The plain-speaking swimming coach, Dick Caine has turned his specialty in long distance to coaching Triathlon, a new sport, but there’s something refreshingly and doggedly old-fashioned about his techniques. Training is less about the latest science than following the rites of passage that are tried and true. Tried by his pupils like Susie Moroney and Michelle Ford.
I met him at his pool just south of Sydney on Tuesday.
Dick Caine: Now tomorrow afternoon, I’m going to give him the hardest session he’s ever had in his life.
Nick Rushworth: What’s the plan?
Dick Caine: We’re going to do 100 x 100-metre sprints. Now he is going to get part way through that, the same as he’s going to get through that race, and when he starts the first one off, he’s going to turn round and think ‘I’ve got 99 to go’. And he is going to get to three-quarters of that, and he’s going to want to pull up, he is going to want to stop.
Nick Rushworth: How will you make him go on?
Dick Caine: If he gets out of this pool, I won’t be coaching him, so you’ll have a better story than you’ve got now.
Nick Rushworth: How do you know he’s sprinting though? When it comes to the 71st or 72nd?
Dick Caine: And he’ll have 100 to do on 1-1/2 minutes and every one of them will have to be 1 minute 15.
Nick Rushworth: Every one of them?
Dick Caine: Every single one of them. Now the thing is this: any idiot can walk out and say 100 x 100s, that’s to do with making you tough in the brain. When all these people line up at the Olympics, whether it’s Freeman or whoever, everyone’s going to be as fit as each other, and probably a lot of them are going to be able to almost run and swim as fast as each other. It’s going to be the bloke with the toughest mind and the will. The ones that are running up that hill, right? and feeling like they are going to vomit, and feeling like ...
(turning to his swimming class) Hey, fellas, is that 16?
KIDS REPLY
Nick Rushworth: One last question, Dick. How do you rate Peter’s chances?
Dick Caine: I think Peter is a very, very good chance at winning the Gold Medal, and the main reason, and this is going to sound dumb to the people that are listening to this, and probably to you too, is that 90% of the people who were chosen to make the team, who didn’t make the team, failed because of all the money they’re given, and all the sponsorships they had, made them soft. Peter has got none of that; he’s got nothing. He has to get up there, he’s still hungry.
Nick Rushworth: This is the hunger factor?
Dick Caine: Oh, of course it is. Have you ever seen a good fighter come from a rich family? They’re Mexicans, they’re from Redfern or whatever, look and he’s still got that. He’s not driving round in a flash car, he’s not getting a couple of thousand a week, he is still hungry, he’s got to do well.
(to his swimming class) Do you reckon you can show Dick two breaststroke for me? Give me the board.
Peter Robertson: I’ve got one sister who’s trying out for the Games, I have another sister who’s working at my event at the Games as a volunteer, and I have another sister who will be cleaning at the Olympic Games, and my parents will be at the race too. I think the whole family’s going to enjoy the Olympics.
Amanda Smith: A true Olympic family, Peter Robertson and coach Dick Caine, speaking with Nick Rushworth. And we’ll hopefully have one more opportunity to check in with both Peter and with Lauren Burns before they face their big moments next month.
And that’s The Sports Factor for this morning, which is produced by Michael Shirrefs. I’m Amanda Smith, thanks for your company. And I hope you’ll join me again for The Sports Factor same time next week.
Guests on this program:
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Maria Italiano Head of the Woolmark design team for the Australian Olympic uniforms. |
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Nick Green Former member of the 'Oarsome Foursome' Australian dual Olympic gold medal rowing team and athlete advisor to Woolmark on the design of the Australian Olympic uniforms. |
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Richard Cashman Director of the Centre for Olympic Studies. |
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Lauren Burns Australian Taekwondo champion and team member for the 2000 Olympic Games. |
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Dr Jeff Simons Sports Psychologist and Australian Olympic psychologist with Taekwondo and Track & Field teams. |
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Ronnie Burns Father of Olympic Taekwondo team member Lauren Burns. |
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Peter Robertson Australian Olympic Triathlon debutante. |
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Dick Caine Australian swimming coach. |
Presenter:
Amanda Smith
Producer:
Michael Shirrefs
Researcher:
Nick Rushworth
©1999 Australian Broadcasting Corporation