2000 Summer Olympics
The 2000 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and commonly known as Sydney 2000 or the Millennium Olympic Games/Games of the New Millennium, were an international multi-sport event which was held between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It was the second time that the Summer Olympics were held in Australia, and also the Southern Hemisphere, the first being in Melbourne, Victoria, in 1956.
Major sports event hosting in Britain during the 2010s
After Birmingham and Manchester failed to deliver winning bids for the 1992, 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games, the British Olympic Association (BOA) decided that London was the best choice to pursue the goal of hosting the Summer Olympics. The centrepiece of the London bid was the Lower Lea Valley, the location designated to be transformed into a world-class Olympic Park and Olympic Village. It would be connected via a high-speed shuttle service, dubbed the Olympic Javelin, and existing transport links capable of transferring 240,000 people per hour. After the Olympics and Paralympics close, the area will be transformed into the largest urban park developed in Europe for more than 150 years, with an area of 500 acres (2 km²), and will be home to the Olympic Medical Institute (OMI), a sports medical and rehabilitation centre. The bid called for substantial improvement of the London Underground system, which was supposed to be able to handle the Olympic crowds, and more investment into new Olympic sites throughout the city. London was considered to be the second favourite for the election after Paris, but intense lobbying by the London bid team at the later stages of the bidding process swung the votes in their favour.