Cathy Freeman, the Aboriginal athlete who won gold at Syndey 2000

This is the story of a free woman and a revolution that lasted 49”11. A woman who in her life had left late, from far away, from that place where the last remain last, without hope of changing their fate. Her name is Cathy Freemanhe is fifty-one years old, with a network of wrinkles on his face and creaking knees, but he reserves for the world the same smile – bright, definitive – as when he was twenty-seven and one day many years ago – it was September 25, 2000 – wrote the history not only of the Olympic Games, but of an entire people.

Cathy Freeman was born Catherine Astrid Salome Freeman in Mackay, Australia, facing the Coral Sea. She is Aboriginal. The Australian Aborigines, whose ancestors settled on the island continent about 60 thousand years ago, are today recognized as one of the oldest living cultures in the world. But theirs is a story of segregation, poverty, imprisonment, no access to education. Until the end of the 60s in Australia the rights of Aboriginal people were governed by the law on flora and fauna, they were considered like animals. For decades, children of mixed marriages have been systematically taken from their parents, in what is recognized as the stolen generation. In this climate of oppression and abuse, Cathy Freeman grows up. Her mother could not move without permission from the police. Grandpa couldn't talk to white people about her. She herself is looked at with distrust, hostility and annoyance.

Cathy Freeman – Sydney 2000

Stu Forster

Sport, athletics, running are his refuge, his lifeline, his way of finding a place in the world. Running faster than others opens up an unexpected possibility for her, that of a redemption, which cannot ignore the pride of belonging to a humiliated and subjugated people. At the 2000 Sydney Games Cathy was chosen – amid controversy – as the athlete who would last carry the Olympic flame. It is she – in the opening ceremony – who lights the brazier with the Olympic flame. Her perfect day was September 25, 2000, when – sheathed in a tracksuit from head to toe – she won the women's 400 meters race. His is a historic medal, the first Olympic medal won by an Aboriginal.

That day Cathy waves two flags, the Australian one and the Aboriginal one. At the end of the race, beyond the finish line, she bends on her knees and remains there, with her head in her hands. On her shoulder she has a tattoo: Cos I'm free. He wanted three-colored shoes, the color of the flag of his people: black for the skin, red for the earth and yellow for the sun. The image goes around the world, Cathy – overwhelmed by emotion in the delirium of the stadium – becomes a symbol. It took her 49 and 11 to make the revolution and nail the bad conscience of white Australians to the wall. One night, one destiny, a new world. You never run alone, someone happens to carry the weight of the history of an entire people on their shoulders. They are the best, they are the ones who stay.