Too much truth in Olympics spoof

'The Games': Is reality weirder than art?

By Dominic Hughes in Sydney

The preparations for the Sydney Olympics in September have been a long and often controversial process.

From being hailed as heroes when the Sydney bid was successful, the organising committee have seen a series of public relations disasters take their toll, so now they are ridiculed and satirised.

A successful TV show has even been sending up the organisation - but the truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.

Over the last few weeks, Australia's national broadcaster, ABC television, has been screening the second series of one of the most popular home-produced comedies of recent years.

Protesters demonstrate against the Volleyball stadium construction

"The Games" is a television satire which pokes fun at the organising of the Sydney Olympics: the scheming, the backbiting, the logistical disasters, the scandals.

There is the minister in charge who deals with press criticism in that robust manner that only an Australian politician can.

The administrators meanwhile find themselves facing a range of unexpected problems - a 100-metre track that is too short, an International Olympic Committee delegate dying in a Sydney hotel room in unfortunate circumstances.

Then there was the question: Should they call on golfer Greg Norman to light the Olympic cauldron by hitting a flaming golf ball?

"The Games" is produced out of Melbourne, and there is no doubt that it is a great opportunity to feed the fierce rivalry that exists between cities, as "The Games" producer Mark Ruse admitted.

'Easy target'

However, the show's co-writer Ross Stevenson says that SOCOG, the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, has proved an easy target.

"The Games themselves are going to be fantastic," he says.

"The actual putting-on of an athletic event where people run and throw things is going to be fantastic, because it's fantastic every time it happens."

"The things that are easiest to satirise are when slobs in suits try to organise it and organise it very badly."

A part of each show is shot close to broadcast, so it can stay topical.

However, even the show's creators have been amazed at how events in real life have mirrored the fictional ones they have come up with.

Catalogue of disasters

It has been a catalogue of public relations disasters.

Australian wunderkind: Ian Thorpe was accused of taking banned growth hormone

In the last few weeks, a row flared over the fact that the daughter of a senior SOCOG board member was to carry the Olympic flame rather than a local schoolgirl, leading to allegations of nepotism.

There have been other issues such as protests over the safety and positioning of the Bondi Beach Volleyball stadium; serious problems with the rail link out to the Olympic Park; and the price and availability of tickets.

The swimmer Ian Thorpe also had to defend his reputation against inaccurate remarks that he was using banned growth hormone drugs. The evidence, it was suggested, was that his hands were unusually large .

For Ross Stevenson, it's all been good material for the show.

"I think there's always been some longstanding cynicism about the IOC, and that has devolved down to a local level, and that's what has really got up people's noses I think."

Life imitates art

To show just how close the programme has come to mirroring reality, some working inside SOCOG believe that the writers are being fed some of their best lines by staff working inside the Sydney headquarters.

The appearance of sharks in Sydney Harbour has provided fodder for the show

Certainly some of the characters on the show are said to mirror very closely senior SOCOG personnel.

There is one worst-case scenario that has not yet made it onto the screen that some fear more than anything.

One of the opening shots for television for the Olympics will be competitors in the triathlon swimming across Sydney harbour, with the iconic Opera House and Harbour Bridge as a stunning visual backdrop.

What the organisers are all praying we do not see is an elite athlete suddenly disappearing from view, should one of the sharks that have been spotted in the harbour in recent months decide to take a very public snack.

Now that really would be stranger than fiction.