Nikki Webster, as she swam and swooped 30 metres above the ground in Stadium Australia last night, looked down on the fishes below her and 110,000 people looking up.

“It’s so gorgeous when you’re up there. It looks just amazing,”she said.

To be the one who walked alone into the stadium with a beach blanket and zinc cream took a lot of confidence but to “fly” as well was an act of sheer bravery.

“I’m not scared of heights and I wasn’t frightened at all,” said Nikki. “I just enjoy it.”

A photographer who was at the stadium earlier this year to see Nikki strapped for the first time into the harness that hoisted her to rafter height – eight storeys up – says she is fearless.

“She squealed and laughed and loved every minute,” the photographer said.

“The biggest buzz is when I fly up. The audience has no idea because it has been such a big secret,” Nikki said.

Nikki is an elfin 13-year-old with toffee-coloured eyes and honey-blonde hair who goes to school at the McDonald College in North Strathfield. On Thursday afternoon, with her mother waiting in the car to drive her home, she sat by a fountain in the grounds of Olympic Park with a few minutes to talk.

Her brother Scott, 16, saw the show in its final dress rehearsal on Wednesday and was amazed that she had kept it a secret.

“Wow” is what he said.

Her parents, Tina and Mark, had tickets for last night’s show and her little dog, Star, got to wag his tail madly when they all got home.

The directors of the opening ceremony, Ric Birch and David Atkins, chose Nikki in a round of casting calls and auditions that began more than a year ago.

They knew what a great show business break it would be for whoever was cast and in a vaudevillian voice Birch said: “She’s goin’ in a nobody and comin’ out a star.”

“She’s very special,” he said.

“It is an extraordinary thing for a 13-year-old girl to be out in the middle of the arena; the only moment in the entire ceremony where there is just one person in that four acres.”

To the world, she is an overnight sensation, but Nikki has many other show business credits, including in The Sound of Music and Les Miserables as well as television and film roles.

When she felt the stress of the hours of Olympic rehearsals and needed to unwind before she could sleep, she would dance, which is what she loves most.

In a real pinch-me-I-must-be-dreaming moment, Nikki says that Olivia Newton-John came up during rehearsals and told her that she had an amazing voice.

“She’s my idol,” said Nikki.

“I just love watching her. She’s my inspiration.”

To her great giggling delight, she got her first fan letter from a little boy in the cast who was desperate to have a turn in the high-flying harness. “I’m not scared of heights,” he wrote, “and I hope you can find time in your busy, busy, busy schedule. Please ring me.” She did and broke the bad news to him gently.

For children, especially the little ones who watched the opening ceremony with its huge themes, Nikki helped to keep the pageant in scale.

“It gives kids a better reading of what the Olympics is about and that we’re all together in one world,” she said.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald