(FUVEST - 2000 - 1 FASE)The Sydney Olympics billed

(FUVEST - 2000 - 1ª FASE)

The Sydney Olympics – billed as the Green Games – open in exactly 64 weeks, on 15 September 2000. In bidding for the Games, the Sydney delegates promised that theirs would be the most environmentally-friendly Games ever. But there are growing doubts that Sydney will deliver on its promises, even though Australia holds a commanding lead in the race to develop key environmentally-friendly technologies.

The biggest single obstacle to the Green Games is the site itself. The land around Homebush Bay, in western Sydney, was an industrial graveyard previously used by chemical giants such as ICI and Union Carbide – infamous for the Bhopal plant leak on 3 December 1984 that poisoned thousands in India.

Their legacy was toxic waste in unmarked sites. The bodies associated with the bid knew about this, and saw the Games as a way to clean up the mess and create a new community. Thus Sydney’s bid document featured a glorious artist’s impression of a ceremonial entrance on the waterfront, where, beneath fluttering bunting, Olympic athletes and grandees arrive from downtown on eco-friendly water taxis. It was, says Murray Hogarth, environmental correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald, “an absolutely key facet of the bid”.

THE FRIDAY REVIEW

The Independent 25 June 1999

 

Choose the question for the statement: “...the Sydney delegates promised that theirs would be the most environmentally-friendly Games ever.” (lines 4-7)