Bruce McAvaney reflects on the highlight of his broadcasting career

After more than 40 years as a sports station, the voice of Bruce Mcavaney is synonymous with some of Australia’s most emblematic sports moments.

Mcavaney transforms sport into unforgettable events, captivating the public with their passionate and eloquent comments and their encyclopedic knowledge.

After this week’s presentation of the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games plan, we immerse ourselves in the archives to revive, in Mcavaney’s words, one of the most memorable sports occasions in Australia.

Speaking to Sarah Kanowski in ABC conversations, Mcavaney vividly described the iconic final of 400 meters of Cathy Freeman at the Sydney Olympic Games, and explained why the historical night had become “the highlights” of his transmission career.

Athletics began on Friday morning and there were about 90,000 people at the Sydney Olympic stadium, and I thought: “Wow!”

On Monday night, Cathy’s night, was the fourth day of athletics and the night of its end.

Every morning, three or four radio interviews for channel seven promoting what was approaching, and that Monday morning, I knew that something was different because I felt that I could not join two words during these interviews.

It was quite strange.

I didn’t think she was a certainty to win because there is no such thing. Their chances of winning were probably around 60 percent at night.

My wife Annie and I knew, and we still know, Cathy extremely well and I certainly felt inverted in a way that I rarely do.

Cathy’s career was in the heart of the night, probably about the fifth race.

It was going well, and then, when the women came out in their tracksuit for that final, I obtained this really dry mouth.

I had to tell me: “Look, you know what you are doing. Just relax. Go slowly.”

Realizing that Cathy was intended for gold

The weapon left.

And they left.

I guess at that time, as a commentator, you don’t think about anything, I had thought about it for four years, to be honest.

And then it happens.

Just go with the current and expect what you say make a little meaning.

Outside the back, with about 120 meters to the end, I knew that Cathy was going to do it and would get gold.

As I knew in Atlanta, four years before, I had made a great movement at that time.

He did not win there, but he ran his time faster and was the second to Marie-José Pérec.

I knew that Cathy would be very strong and powerful in the end.

Then, when he could get up with Lorraine Graham and Katharine Merry, I felt he could win from the top of the line.

So that last 100 meters was a celebration, in a way.

Seeing Cathy’s visible relief

When you think about it, his entire career was reduced to less than a minute.

Cathy was a double world champion: he had won in 1997 and 1999.

He had lost a four -year race between the two Olympic Games and it was when he was injured in 1998. Then, he was basically undefeated.

And yet, if I had not won in Sydney, with all the accumulation, with this its greatest opportunity to win at the Olympic Games, then all its legacy would have changed.

Then his career, really, was 49.1 seconds.

She took the nation behind her back because, for all of us, we were traveling on that same trip.

Then, that incredible moment he went to the ground and sat there, Raelene Boyle, who was sitting together, said: “What relief”, and we all feel it.

The impact on indigenous reconciliation

It was an incredible moment, an incredible night and, in many ways, it is so vivid and perhaps even more important in 2024 than in 2000 in terms of indigenous reconciliation.

From Cathy illuminating the cauldron and flying the flag, the two flags, Cathy became an inspiration for generations of Australians.

And then, of course, your celebration return.

I have spoken with so many Australian athletes in so many different sports.

When I could interview young women in the period prior to the Women’s World Cup, more than half of them said that Cathy Freeman had inspired them in 2000 to be above the norm.

So, all these things resonate as strongly as they did 24 years ago.

One night that defines the race

Having different opportunities to meet so many different people and enjoy so many different sports has been one of the great gifts they have given me.

During most of my life, I have been dealing with athletes, and Cathy’s career is undoubtedly the highlight of my transmission career.

It was just a night that I will never forget for many reasons, mainly for Cathy, but it was an incredible night in many ways.

Cathy had won, and then Michael Johnson won, and then 10,000m were lit.

My interview with Cathy took place with about five or six laps for 10,000m, which turned out to be one of the best races of all time.

I remember that after Cathy’s career, I threw the headphones, went and talked to her, then threw them again and finished calling that race.

I’ve never had a buzz as I did that night.

It was an incredible night of athletics, with nine finals, many of them won by iconic people.

Leaving the stadium at the end of that night and talking with contemporaries from other countries, they all said it was the best athletics night of the Olympic Games that they have ever seen at that stage.

And much of that was because a national hero had won a gold medal.

The pressures to comment

During the Paris Olympic Games, there were 75 [Australian] Athletics athletes, and each of them had a really interesting trip: ups and downs, sacrifices and dreams.

And when you know those stories, they become much more personal for you. You are more inverted and richer.

So it is a large part, I think, of the responsibility of the work I am doing.

With athletics, I follow it reasonably closely.

I write most of the results of elite athletes every time they do something: I have many books and many cards I use.

I guess it relieves some pressure for me. One thing that I think I fear more than anything is to fail in a sense of transmission.

I’m always anxious before. I am probably in my least anxious when the headphones are lit.

When you think about the Olympic Games and call athletics, you are calling races that take 10 seconds (100 meters) and calling a race that has been (the marathon) for two hours and 10 minutes.

In the middle, there are obstacle races, obstacles and several sprints.

It really gives you the definitive test: you must be able to call quickly and precisely, but at the same time, tell a story.

You need to weave a narrative through a marathon because you are not “calling it”; You are “speaking.”

You are bringing stories, fragments and pieces about athletes that will make the listener or the spectator interest that person.

But the 100 m final? You are enduring the seat of your pants, and hoping that, like crazy, you do it well.

Listen to Bruce Mcavaney’s full interview in the Podcast of conversations In the ABC application.