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Sporting News, The, Oct 9, 2000 by Mark Shimabukuro

These Olympics belonged to many people: Marion Jones, members of the U.S. swimming and baseball teams, wrestler Rulon Gardner to name a few. But in the end, they belonged most of all to Cathy Freeman because she came to belong to so many people.

If that wasn't evident after she lit the Olympic flame at the opening ceremonies, it was during the medal ceremony after she won the 400 meters, when she became the focus of the largest sing-along in recent memory. It was an image that will endure as long as any from these Games.

The pressure she faced to win was so heavy that she dropped to the track in relief after crossing the finish line. She wanted to win for herself, but she had to win for Australia, where she is considered royalty, and especially she had to win for her fellow Aborigines, a people who have been persecuted and discriminated against for centuries and who never before could claim an individual gold medalist. "I could feel the crowd all over me," she said. "I felt the emotion being absorbed into every pore of my body. I just had to sit there and get normal with it."

Being embraced by an entire community--an entire continent--can be smothering, yet Freeman breathed life into these Olympics like no one else. In the process, she inspired countless others who seek to make a difference or hope to one day rise as gracefully to an occasion much larger than themselves.

"I made a lot of people happy tonight," she said after her race. "I'm very proud."

She has a lot of company.