To mark 100 days from the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Nine.com.au asked you what your favourite Olympic memories were in a survey. The response was overwhelming! We chose 50 of them to re-live, one a day, before new memories are made in Paris. Scroll on for today’s memory.
The temporary stands on Bondi Beach were almost shaken down when Natalie Cook and Kerri Pottharst clinched Olympic gold.
The Australian duo was up against a phenomenal pair from Brazil, reigning world champions Shelda Bede and Adriana Behar, who they’d only beaten once from 16 matches.
But in front of a raucous crowd of 10,000 spectators at the Sydney 2000 Games, Cook and Pottharst triumphed with a 2-0 victory on the famous strip of sand.
Watch the video at the top of the page to see the moment Australian beach volleyball duo Natalie Cook and Kerri Pottharst won gold in Bondi at the Sydney 2000 Olympics!
When the Australians moved to within a point of gold, the Brazilians called a time-out. Moments later, Pottharst served, Bede dug the ball, and Behar pushed it wide.
Cook and Pottharst collapsed on the sand and tears flowed. The tightest of hugs followed.
Australian beach volleyball duo Natalie Cook (left) and Kerri Pottharst collapse on the sand of Bondi after winning Olympic gold. Getty Images
Plans to set up a 10,000-seat stadium on Bondi Beach had caused backlash, but all of a sudden the iconic beach had become the sight of a legendary win in Australian sport.
“When I looked up to see the crowd, every emotion flowed through my body,” Pottharst said in an Australian Olympic team clip many years later.
“[I was] going, ‘Wow, we did it’. There was just the most amazing amount of joy and excitement, and just that satisfaction of all the hard work that Natalie and I had put into that, and our coaches and everyone around us … It actually worked.”
Twenty years on, Cook recalled a priceless story in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald.
“Straight after we won, we had to do a drug test, so we had to drink a lot of water to make sure that we could give enough of a sample,” Cook said.
Kerri Pottharst (left) and Natalie Cook celebrate becoming Olympic champions. Getty Images
“We went up into this little side street and Channel Seven set up on the sidewalk and all of these people came out of their houses and they just mobbed us. They couldn’t believe we were in their street.
“I was busting to go to the toilet at this point, because we’d drunk all this water, and I went over the road and asked this lady, ‘Can I use your bathroom?’. I walked into her house, went to the bathroom, I came out and I’ll never forget — she just looked up at me and said, ‘Oh my god, I’m never going to wash my bathroom again’.”