The President of the IOC .

Volunteering can and should be the most rewarding of experiences. So it was on this occasion as a volunteer driver at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Summer Games. I put my name down to be a volunteer driver in August 1998. Later in 1999 I was contacted to go for an interview so they could check me out and do a driving test. All went well as expected as many years before I had completed a police advanced driving course whilst being a member of the constabulary. Anyway in March 2000 we drivers had to do a thorough training course in Olympic protocols. Much of the success of the volunteer programme can be attributed to the Tafe college pre-event training which went for a week. In addition to this there were a number of briefing sessions which tuned all of the many thousands of volunteers of what to expect and what was expected of them…

My job at the Olympic Games which I engaged in virtually full time, 7 days a week for four weeks was to be dedicated IOC member driver.  Although I did not have to  and I probably took off three days in that time.  I had the honour of driving My Chiharu Igaya IOC member for Japan and Silver medal winner in the slalom at the 1956 Winter Olympic Games. In a nutshell I covered 7000 kilometre in four weeks. When I took delivery of the brand new GM Holden Statesman sedan it had 17 kilometres on the clock when I finished my four week stint it was 49 kilometres shy of 7,000 K's. I was up well before dawn every day I took the car to the depot near Sydney Airport washed & chamois the car and filled it to the brim with petrol. I then would collect Mr Igaya at the Regent Hotel where he was a guest and drive him& his wife and or his son to various meeting, events and function around Sydney. On the First day I had the privilege of driving to the Opening ceremony. Security was always tight and remembers this was before 9/11. The army would scan my vehicle for bomb devices etc even though I have a massive access all area stickers on the car.

the second day again I was privileged to witness the triathlon event outside the Sydney Opera house I set next to Mr & Mrs Igaya in the box seat on the forecourt of the Opera House to witness the event. Most days I would finish up exhausted the adrenalin charge you got from witnessing the event was incredible. My main wish which came true was that Susie O’Neill swimmers and Cathy Freeman would win gold. And they did both deliver Gold Medals in spectacular fashion. To be continued....watch this space...