2000 Summer Paralympics
The 2000 Summer Paralympic Games or the XI Summer Paralympics were held in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, between 18 and 29 October. The Sydney Paralympics was the last time that the Summer Paralympics were organised by two different Organizing Committees. In this edition, a record 3,801 athletes from 123 National Paralympic Committees participated in 551 events in 18 sports. The 2000 Summer Paralympics were the second largest sporting event ever until that date held in Australia and in the Southern Hemisphere. Sydney was the eighth city to jointly host the Olympic and Paralympic Games. However, it was only the fourth to jointly organise both events in complete conjunction with the Olympics. This edition was also the first time that the Paralympics were held in Australia and Oceania.
Host city bid process
Historical Context and Changes to Host City Selection
Before 1993, when the International Paralympic Committee became fully operational, the process of selecting host cities for the Olympic and Paralympic Games was separate and not always well coordinated. For instance, cities would bid independently for either the Summer or Winter Olympics and the Paralympics. And these issues are results of the successful issues and demands that arose from the 1992 Summer Paralympics shared by Barcelona and Madrid and those specific ones that put the 1996 Summer Paralympics at risk, the International Olympic Committee made significant changes to the host city selection process. They started requiring cities to express intentions regarding the Paralympic Games when bidding for the Olympics. And the first of these questions were those that IOC made it mandatory to integrate both events into one organising framework starting with the 2000 Summer Olympics. However, this unified approach didn't fully materialise until the 2008 Summer Olympics held in Beijing, when the Organizing Committee for the Olympics was also responsible for the Paralympic Games. Despite this, Sydney was the last city in history to submit two separate bids: one for the Olympic Games and one for the Paralympic Games.Different process, same results
Following the success of the 1992 Summer Paralympics in Barcelona, the International Coordinating Committee for Disabled Sports was dissolved in February of the following year. Thus, the IPC assumed full functions in March of the same year. However, even before the ICC was dissolved, the IPC was in operation and had made the decision regarding the host cities for the 1994 and 1998 Winter Games in addition to the 1996 Summer Games. While the 1994 Winter Paralympics in Lillehammer were in an efficiently process and without major problems, the 1996 Summer Paralympics in Atlanta faced many obstacles due to an atypical and disjointed organisational model, resulting in a lack of communication and conflicts between the organisers of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. This led to a series of conflicts and hampered the planning of the Summer Games. Even before any attempt to cooperation, the Atlanta Olympic and Paralympic organisers had already lost all contact, which compromised joint planning from the outset. This lack of dialogue and integration led to a tortuous and fraught organisational process, marked by conflicts, legal disputes and a lack of mutual support. A clear contrast of what had happened in Barcelona, where both events were successfully coordinated by the same committee. Despite the problems with Atlanta, the IPC could not stop and takes to plan the future. It needed to continue its planning, as the processes for selecting the host cities for the 1998 Winter Games and the 2000 Summer Games were already underway. However, the chaotic experience of Atlanta had a strong impact on the IPC's decisions, putting the institution on alert and directly influencing its stance on future possibility of the joint bids. As the IPC was still a young institution with little political clout at the time, it did not have enough power to negotiate directly with the Olympic organisers. As a consequence of the lack of communications and the financial support the International Olympic Committee was forced to intervene in the relationship with its commercial partners in order to break the institutional boycott issues and consequently had to change several points in the rules relating to the process that would end with the selection of the 2000 Summer Olympics host city. The change was that the IOC was required to include topics in the questionnaires that were sent to the bidding cities with questions related to their plans for the Paralympic Games and if there were no clear responses from a city to these questions there would be a summary elimination from the respective interested from the process. This decision was seen as an important milestone in ensuring that the Olympic and Paralympic Games were planned together and on an equal place. The changes in the rules of the bidding process for the 2000 Games took some bidding cities by surprise, especially those that had not included the Paralympic Games in their initial plans. On the other hand, some bids were already more aligned with this new requirement and were able to adapt more easily and the bidding cities won a slightly extended evaluation period due to the added complexity of including the Paralympic Games. When the IOC eventually released the first evaluation results, it was realised that all five finalists were fully capable to hosting the Games. But Sydney and Beijing emerged as slightly ahead in terms of technical preparation, infrastructure, and overall vision.The New Rules Impact
Even with these new rules about the Paralympics, IPC as newborn institution still had no voting power or direct influence on the IOC's decisions, that is, it was an interested party, but not a decision-maker. Thus, it had to continue developing its own planning in parallel, trying to strengthen its institutional position and ensure that the Paralympic Games were treated seriously — even without officially having an active voice in the process of choosing the host city. With three withdrawals from the process of choosing the host city for the 2000 Summer Olympics, five cities remained as the finalists. Given the new reality and the demands of the Paralympic Games, the IOC sent the projects of these finalists to the IPC for analysis, even though the Paralympic Committee had no decision-making power.For the parasports this initiative was seen as a kindness, as they were being part of the process for the first time. Since this time he was seen as a stakeholder, even though the institution could not influence the IOC's final decision, he could now be consulted at any time.
Thus, the IPC won the opportunity to evaluate the projects on its own and continue your own separate process to ensure that the Paralympic Games were taken seriously in the bidding proposals. In the preliminary assessment carried out by the institution in early 1993, four of the five finalists — Beijing, Manchester, Sydney and Berlin — had their projects considered viable for the Paralympic Games. Only Istanbul was eliminated, as it did not meet the minimum requirements to host the Paralympic Games. However, there was a crucial difference between the four projects.
Beijing, Manchester and Berlin presented integrated proposals, with a joint planning between the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Sydney, on the other hand, which was the best evaluated presented a separate proposal with the Paralympic Games initially outside the main plan. This happened as at the beginning of the process, Sydney's bid relied entirely on a financial model based on a 100% private funding, mirroring the approach previously used in Los Angeles and Atlanta.However, this gradually changed due to the enthusiasm of the local and national population, who managed to convince local and national authorities to commit to the two projects, transforming the proposed financial model into a public-private partnership and which resulted in a gigantic change in the project and strengthened the bids. This movement ended up being decisive in turning around Sydney's position. However, in 1992,there were legal limitations in Australia at the time, particularly related to the use of public funds and the different starts of the projects blocked the merger of the two candidacy Committees, which remained separate until 1995 when a legislative act merged them. Nevertheless, the commitment from civil society and the recent created Australian Paralympic Committee to put in place the bid was recognised and the Olympic Bid Committee assisted this group in the last minute assembly of the project. As there was little time left for the project to be completed, a simpler and adapted version of the Olympic project was put together for the Paralympics. This draft was prepared and then presented to the 10th IPC Executive Board Meeting, held in Berlin during September of the same year. This papers marked Sydney's first concrete step towards a formal commitment to the Paralympic Games and paved the way for the strengthening of the Australian bid. Despite being a simpler version of the Olympic project, Sydney's bid for the Paralympic Games stood out for its solid technical base and the logistics and a some parts was the same of the Olympic bid. Furthermore, it was the only proposal with real guarantees of being held, thanks to the commitment made by the Australian government and popular support. Meanwhile, the other three bidders — Beijing, Manchester and Berlin — faced difficulties: Beijing had political and logistical uncertainties, Manchester lacked solid financial support and ready infrastructure, Berlin suffered from internal issues related to the recent reunification of Germany. Thus, even with a leaner project, Sydney consolidated itself as the safest and most viable option to host the 2000 Summer Paralympic Games Given the lack of truly viable options, Sydney ended up being acclaimed as the host city for the 2000 Paralympic Games, with the unanimous support of the 94 National Paralympic Committees who are part of the IPC at the time. The Australian bid, despite being simple, was the only one that met the technical conditions, institutional guarantees and political stability to successfully hold the event.