Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

The Dream – Days 9 and 15 (2000)

play
Email a link to this page
To:
CC:
Subject:
Body:
clip Yvonne Kenny’s aria

Original classification rating: PG. This clip chosen to be PG

Clip description

Melissa Gainsford-Taylor, guest newsreader for day 15, describes to Roy (John Doyle) and HG (Greig Pickhaver) the atmosphere in the stadium from an athlete’s perspective. World-renowned Australian soprano Yvonne Kenny sings a hymn of praise to the athletes made popular by The Dream.

Curator’s notes

A big part of the charm of The Dream lay in the fact that it was not all about Roy and HG cracking funny jokes. They were willing and even eager participants in the immense good humour and goodwill that was such a strong characteristic of Sydney 2000, significantly the last Olympic Games to be held before the tragedy of the terrorist attacks in the US on 11 September 2001. Here they are totally engaged, as is their audience, in Gainsford-Taylor’s account of what was in fact a loss in race terms, but clearly a never-to-be-forgotten experience in human terms.

Opera singer Yvonne Kenny, who sang the Olympic Hymn at the opening ceremony, farewells some of the lesser-known athletes who became heroes to audiences of The Dream. Prominent among these is swimmer Eric Moussambani (nicknamed 'Eric the Eel’) from Equatorial Guinea, who had never even seen an Olympic-sized swimming pool before arriving in Sydney. He won his heat of the 100 metres freestyle in 1:52.72 mainly because the two other competitors were disqualified for making a false start.

Pieter van den Hoogenband of the Netherlands subsequently set a world record of 47.84 seconds to win the gold medal in the event, but as the crowd understood and the founder of the modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, once pointed out, ‘What counts in life is not the victory but the struggle; the essential thing is not to conquer but to fight well’.

Eric the Eel’s very funny but equally moving event can still be found on YouTube, along with Roy and HG’s commentary, as can most of the other events glimpsed in the footage accompanying Kenny’s song.

Thanks to the generosity of the rights holders, we are able to offer Yvonne Kenny’s aria from the television program The Dream – Days 9 and 15 as a high quality video download.

To play the downloadable video, you need QuickTime 7.0, VLC, or similar.

You must read and agree to the following terms and conditions before downloading the clip:

australianscreen is produced by the National Film and Sound Archive. By using the website you agree to comply with the terms and conditions described elsewhere on this site. The NFSA may amend the 'Conditions of Use’ from time to time without notice.

All materials on the site, including but not limited to text, video clips, audio clips, designs, logos, illustrations and still images, are protected by the Copyright Laws of Australia and international conventions.

When you access australianscreen you agree that:

  • You may retrieve materials for information only.
  • You may download materials for your personal use or for non-commercial educational purposes, but you must not publish them elsewhere or redistribute clips in any way.
  • You may embed the clip for non-commercial educational purposes including for use on a school intranet site or a school resource catalogue.
  • The National Film and Sound Archive’s permission must be sought to amend any information in the materials, unless otherwise stated in notices throughout the Site.

All other rights reserved.

ANY UNAUTHORISED USE OF MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY RESULT IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LIABILITY.

This clip is available in the following configurations:

File nameSizeQualitySuitability
dreamthe2_pr.mp4 Large: 20.3MB High Optimised for full-screen display on a fast computer.
dreamthe2_bb.mp4 Medium: 9.6MB Medium Can be displayed full screen. Also suitable for video iPods.

Right-click on the links above to download video files to your computer.

Thanks to the generosity of the rights holders, we are able to offer this clip in an embeddable format for personal or non-commercial educational use in full form on your own website or your own blog.

You must read and agree to the following terms and conditions before embedding the clip:

australianscreen is produced by the National Film and Sound Archive. By using the website you agree to comply with the terms and conditions described elsewhere on this site. The NFSA may amend the 'Conditions of Use’ from time to time without notice.

All materials on the site, including but not limited to text, video clips, audio clips, designs, logos, illustrations and still images, are protected by the Copyright Laws of Australia and international conventions.

When you access australianscreen you agree that:

  • You may retrieve materials for information only.
  • You may download materials for your personal use or for non-commercial educational purposes, but you must not publish them elsewhere or redistribute clips in any way.
  • You may embed the clip for non-commercial educational purposes including for use on a school intranet site or a school resource catalogue.
  • The National Film and Sound Archive’s permission must be sought to amend any information in the materials, unless otherwise stated in notices throughout the Site.

All other rights reserved.

ANY UNAUTHORISED USE OF MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY RESULT IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LIABILITY.

Copy and paste the following code into your own web page to embed this clip: