Electronic Telegraph Monday 4 September 2000 Peter FitzSimons THE NEWS has finally broken. The biggest billboard in the history of the world -and I'm talking right back to the time Noah slung his famous 'THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH' sign off the side of the ark - is devoted to Australia's most famous athlete, Cathy Freeman. True! All of 70 metres high, the image of the Australian 400-metre runner, with a Nike logo to boot, will hang for the duration of the Olympic Games from a building in Sydney's central business district. Times Square, Noo York, eat your heart out. Whatever the commercial imperatives of hanging such a poster, it is entirely appropriate that the image of Freeman be so huge during the Olympics; her aura is everywhere else in this town anyway. For not only is she the sole genuine gold medal prospect representing Australia on the athletics track, having won silver in the 400m in Atlanta in 1996, and gold in the last two World Championships, in Athens and Seville, but she is something else besides. That is, she's a famous and often outspoken proud Aboriginal woman at a time when Australia is wrestling with its extremely troubled past in relation to its indigenous people. For better or worse, for richer or poorer, whether she likes it or not, she is frequently cited as 'a role model' for Aboriginal children across the nation. Her words on any Aboriginal issues receive instant amplification in the media, and not only is her counsel sometimes sought by politicians, but she recently expressed the view that she would one day like to enter politics herself - and she was taken extremely seriously by both major political parties. In short, she has come an extremely long way. Born and bred in deep North Queensland, she was raised in a tiny three-bedroom housing commission home. Right away she showed an enormous talent for running fast, and after her stepfather Bruce sent away for a coaching manual and started to apply the dictums therein she was away. In 1990, at the tender age of 16, she won a gold medal in the 4 x 100m relay at the Auckland Commonwealth Games, the same year that she became the Young Australian of the Year. In 1994, she truly burst on the national consciousness by not only winning the 400m at the Commonwealth Games in Canada, but also performing a lap of honour draped in the Aboriginal flag. The nation went ballistic. A full 70 per cent, I'm proud to say, supported her totally, while 30 per cent decried it loudly. Among these was one Arthur Tunstall, the leading sports official of the time, under whose writ she ran, and when he threatened her with dreadful consequences if ever she did it again she became an instant cause célèbre. Her silver medal in 1996 further entrenched her as a national sporting icon and since that time barely a week has gone by without her making the news in one way or another. A lot of this has been to do with things entirely removed from running, but all of it has made gripping reading. Throughout the early part of her career, her coach and manager Nick Bideau, a one-time Melbourne sports journalist, was also her lover and partner, and he was famously and fiercely protective of her. When their romantic relationship hit the rocks three years ago, Bideau remained as her manager, while she took up with her new love, American Nike executive Sandy Bodeker. (Are you still with me?) Freeman and Bodeker married last year, and shortly thereafter her relationship with Bideau soured to the point where she soon tried to sever all ties with him, starting with their business relationship. As we speak the matter is before the courts, in a particularly protracted legal struggle over an all-encompassing contract she allegedly signed with Bideau several years ago, giving him the rights to market her. At least both parties have agreed to hold everything until after the Olympics. As if that wasn't putting enough pressure on her, she subsequently gave an interview to a journalist from The Sunday Telegraph in which she waded into the most soul-destroying issue on Australia's national agenda: the practise of four decades ago whereby authorities would remove many Aboriginal children from their parents to be adopted by white families, and the failure of the current government to apologise for these acts. "I was so angry because they were denying they had done anything wrong, denying that a whole generation was stolen," Freeman was quoted as saying, and was soon leading most news bulletins because of it. Shortly, she will turn up back here again, ready to race, ready to rock 'n' roll, ready - we hope - to carry the expectations of a nation on her shoulders. It seems extraordinary that such a slender young woman should have such expectation placed upon her, but if she's feeling it, it doesn't show. As a matter of fact, just a couple of weeks ago, she added to the pressure by stating that she wanted to run in the 200m as well, to see if she could get another medal. Whatever. As I write there is every reason for optimism that she will actually win the gold medal in at least the 400m. Her recent form has been good, and most crucially she has been substantially injury-free. Her greatest presumed rival is the Frenchwoman Marie-Jose Perec, winner of successive 400m gold medals at the Barcelona and Atlanta Games, but this season they have yet to meet on the track. That pleasure awaits them. And Australia. Eamonn Condon WWW.RunnersGoal.com
