The hairs on the back of John Flynn Retirement Village resident Jeanette Robertson’s neck still stand up when she recalls her trackside view of Australia’s greatest Olympic race.
An umpire at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, like the athletes themselves, Jeanette dedicated decades of her life and spent thousands of dollars on airfares to earn her place at Stadium Australia mere metres from Cathy Freeman.
“I did not officiate on Cathy’s night because it was a 400, and there were enough umpires without me,” Jeanette said.
READ MORE:
- Bob's oar-some Olympics
- 'Kookaburra' still getting the last laugh
- Call to tackle health impacts of loneliness among older adults
“The other umpires, not rostered, were standing with me at the 200-metre mark and when Cathy ran past me, I thought ‘you need to put the burners on girl’, and she did!
“I can still vividly recall the blazing light of the flash bulbs as she swept around the track and the roar of the crowd as she claimed the coveted gold medal.
“When I do think back to it, the excitement of that night will never be forgotten.”
Cathy Freeman wins the 400m.
Jeanette’s journey to the Sydney Games, where she was one of 200 athletics officials, began 44 years earlier when she won a blue ribbon in a skipping race at the Macleod Progress Association’s sporting carnival, held to promote the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.
Jeanette said on that performance alone “my father had Olympics written all over me”.
Following success in school athletics, in 1961 Jeanette joined the Heidelberg Women’s Amateur Athletics Club and enjoyed success in sprints and hurdles. But in 1969 the race distance was increased from 80 metres to 100 metres, the height of hurdles was by raised 8cm, and the distance between them increased by 50cm.
“I couldn’t make the new event work for me and by that time I was 19, so I stepped off the track and into the infield and started officiating,” she said.
Jeanette’s first National Athletics Championships as an official was in Perth in 1972, a happy coincidence as she had moved to Western Australia earlier that year to study physical education.
Later, and following a career change to nursing at the Princess Margaret Hospital for Children, Jeanette set her sights on officiating at the Sydney Olympics.
“In 1998 the World Junior Athletics Championships were held in Sydney, and I could see that the people chosen to officiate at the World Juniors would form the core body for the Olympics,” Jeanette said.
“To be selected, you had to prove yourself as being a competent official. From 1997 to 1999, I spent a lot of money flying to Schools, Juniors and Seniors national championships wherever they were in Australia.
“I’ve never regretted the expense and time involved. To get to the Olympics you needed to qualify, so you paid the money and went.
“I loved umpiring, you really had to be on your mettle to see fairness was always observed.”
Jeanette shared her experience at the 2000 Games in the Nursing Review magazine.
Jeanette’s professionalism and robust knowledge of the rules led to her occasionally being promoted to referee, a job that required her to make the final ruling on an umpire’s infringement report.
At the Sydney Olympics Jeanette was chosen as an official for the track events, and men’s marathon.
Her next appointment after the Olympics was to the Paralympic Games.
“If the Olympics had been awesome, the Paralympics were incredibly inspiring,” she said.
Following the Olympics and Paralympics, Jeanette continued to officiate at an interclub level and fulfil her role as Officials Education Liaison Officer in WA.
In 2006 she was selected for the Melbourne Commonwealth Games.
“The only other moment that rivaled watching Cathy Freeman was watching Kerryn McCann at the MCG coming from behind to win the Women’s Marathon by 0.2sec,” she said.
“The noise from the crowd was phenomenal and just urged her on to the win.”
In 2008, Jeanette was awarded The Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for services to nursing, athletics and other volunteer organisation.
In 2015, she was made a Life Member of Athletics Australia.
While she is a self-confessed ‘poor spectator’, Jeanette will watch the Paris Games from her home at John Flynn.
“I still have a craving for the sport, it's forever with me, so my telly will be on one channel only, all hours of the day and night,” she said.
“How lucky am I to have been involved in such a wonderful sport for so many years.”
