Women's sport is set to move on to a different plane at Sydney today with the opening of the 27th Olympic Games in front of a capacity crowd of 110,000 and a television audience measured in multiples of millions.
From a situation in which participation in sport's biggest presentation was once given only to the favoured few, women will account for 38 per cent of the total entry here in Australia.
More than that, however, the showpiece track and field programme looks certain to be dominated by a woman for the first time since Fanny Blankers Koen of Holland won four gold medals in London in 1948.
Now even that superb achievement is in imminent danger of being eclipsed as Marion Jones seeks to reel in the 100 metres, 200 metres and long jump titles in addition to helping the US to victory in both relay events. That would be an achievement vast enough to defy the most fertile imaginations. And yet, it would merely showcase a much wider evolution in the standards now being achieved by women.
Sydney will offer the chance of illustrating the point to a wider public and yet, inevitably, it is athletics and Jones, in particular, which promises to provide the most compelling evidence in the long-threatened levelling of the genders.
Only the long jump, an event in which she depends on explosive power to compensate for obvious deficiencies in technique, would appear to present her with any real problems. And even here, there are few who would bet against her. If Jones looks likely to be the international personality of these Games, there is no doubting where Australian loyalties will lie. After a couple of relatively subdued runs, Cathy Freeman is back in form again and burdened with the expectations of a nation when she runs in the 400 metres.
By contrast, the men's athletics programme may suffer in comparison to the days when Carl Lewis was in full spate in the sprints and Noureddine Morceli was emperor of middle-distance running.
In spite of his victory in the world championships Maurice Greene scarcely exudes the charisma of Lewis in his prime and after a season fragmented by fitness problems, Michael Johnson is hardly the riveting personality of other years.
That is not to infer, however, that the level of entertainment will drop appreciably with Africa, as ever, likely to provide triumphs of enduring grandeur at every distance upwards of 1,500 metres.
Hicham El Guerrouj, uncommonly sluggish in some of his races this season, still looks the one they all have to beat over 1,500 metres. Algeria's Ai Saidi Sief is the new kid on the block at 5,000 metres and even with Paul Tergat to stretch him, can anybody seriously doubt Haile Gebrselassie's ability to keep his 10,000 metres title.
Those are the athletes who will dominate the second week of the Games but before that be certain names like Ian Thorpe, Alex Popov, Susie O'Neill and, not least the Cuban boxer, Felix Savon, will surface at regular intervals. On the premise that athletes frequently derive inspiration from their settings, there should be some exceptional individual performances. The Olympic complex is at once massive and compact with several venues easily accessible from the main stadium. And with an attendance ceiling of 110,000, Olympic Park is the biggest stadium ever used for the Games.
After the announcement of EPO blood testing had sent shock waves through several disciplines, one detects a certain rowing back on the IOC's part on this emotive issue. Hopefully, those signs are proved false and posterity will recall Sydney 2000 as a turning point in a drugs war which, until recently, looked unwinnable. If they are, then we can all anticipate the next 16 days with some relish.
