AUSTRALIANS will be glued to their TV sets from this weekend as Sydney hosts the XXVII Olympic Games.
The Olympics are a rare opportunity for competition in the spirit of peace and solidarity.
Some of the scandals that have accompanied the preparations for the Games may seem far removed from this Olympic ideal, but now it is the turn of the athletes to prove the worth of the original goals set by Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the modern Olympics.
The Olympic Games can serve to bring understanding between peoples and cultures and for them to grow in mutual esteem and respect.
Let us hope that over the next two weeks the 2000 Games will set an honourable example in a world where greed, corruption and dishonesty are all too common.
It would be an opportune time to recall the words of Archbishop Daniel Mannix when Melbourne hosted the last Olympic Games in Australia in 1956: “May the smile of Christ be on the Olympic Games; may the world’s athletes gathered in the bond of their common humanity find in our city the peace that lies in the shadow of God”.
