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Roy, HG leave Fatso home

He was one of the biggest stars of the Sydney Olympics, but Fatso the wombat has been cruelly dumped from Channel Seven's Athens coverage.

Fatso, as he appears at Homebush now

Four years ago, he was feted by the likes of Michael Klim, Susie O'Neill and Grant Hackett, and described as the unofficial mascot of the Games.

But the fat fellow will spend this year's Games watching the action on television, from the glass box where he is kept in the North Sydney office of Seven executive chairman Kerry Stokes.

While HG Nelson and Roy Slaven, who introduced Fatso to an adoring audience on their show The Dream in 2000, are Athens bound, they have decided to leave their furry friend at home.

The pair have declined to comment on their reasons for ditching Fatso, whose Olympic involvement will be limited to appearing in Seven's promotional campaign for the Games.

Roy and HG will introduce a new mascot for Athens, but will not reveal its identity until they unveil The Dream at the Games in August.

It's a far cry from the heady days of the Sydney Olympics when Fatso's popularity outstripped that of the official Games mascots Millie, Ollie and Syd.

The rise of the marsupial with the oversized behind attracted the ire of the Australian Olympic Committee, which had purchased the rights to the boxing kangaroo from Alan Bond, and spent a fortune promoting Millie, Ollie and Syd.

At one point, there were suggestions that Fatso was under threat from the International Olympic Committee, forcing IOC director general Francois Carrard to publicly announce that the wombat was quite safe.

Fatso's popularity showed no signs of waning post-games. He was one of the Olympic stars in contention to give his name to Sydney's new SuperCat, along with Ian Thorpe, Cathy Freeman and Susie O'Neill.

Fatso was eventually auctioned by Seven as part of a charity fund-raiser and bought by Stokes for $80,450, raising almost as much as Ian Thorpe's iconic FastSkin suit which sold for $100,000.

While Fatso has lived a reclusive life since his moment of Olympic glory, his legacy lives on at Sydney Olympic Park where an effigy of the wombat has been mounted as part of the Games Memories tribute to those who left their mark on Sydney 2000.

[original article]
By Rachel Browne
July 18, 2004
The Sun-Herald

Posted by thinkum at July 17, 2004 06:56 PM