Of Olympic secret and camera phones

Sometimes, just sometimes, those of us who embrace technology wholeheartedly take it for granted.

Just about the biggest sporting secret around the globe every four years is the Olympic cauldron in each host city. That and the details of the opening ceremony, especially relating to the lighting of the flame, are guarded even closer than State secrets.

So when I recently told a group of youngsters the story of an Olympic gaffe, their jaws dropped.

It was at Sydney in 2000. The authorities were testing the cauldron to ensure that the recessed design would work perfectly as it emerged from its plinth at the stadium. But the organising committee did not realise that there was a group of journalists at the stadium who witnessed the top-secret test.

A couple of days ago, I went in search of a colleague who was in charge of coordinating all coverage of the Sydney Olympics. When I jogged his memory, he grinned as he summoned up the details. He and I both remembered that authorities breathed a sigh of relief because there were no photographers among the assembled media.

I wondered aloud why not one of them had captured the sight of the emerging cauldron.

That's when I realised that very few mobile phones came equipped with decent cameras, back in 2000.

David McMahon is a freelance writer based in Australia.