As athletes stood in the center of the field and blue lights sparkled in the stadium stands, the Olympic flag was raised.
During the athletes' oath this year there was an additional explicit pledge to not use drugs.
But the surprise of the evening was the carrying of the torch by 400m runner Cathy Freeman, an Aborigine.
Standing in the middle of a pool of water, Freeman lit the Olympic torch, which then raised above her looking much like a flying saucer with a hole in its center.
After she stepped out from under the flaming torch and stepped to the side the flame climbed to the top of the edge of the stadium while a waterfall cascading down below it.
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