During rehearsals in the week leading up to the Sydney 2000 Olympics Opening Ceremony, Nikki Webster, then 13, didn’t know if she was going to be able to fly across Stadium Australia or not.

Webster, now 32, had been picked after months of auditions to have a starring role in the Opening Ceremony that would go on to make her a household name around the world.

However things were a bit tense on the day leading up to the showstopping performance.

“The only thing I was nervous about was being able to fly, because that was a major part of it,” she said.

“I think in two of the dress rehearsals the week before it was so windy that I couldn’t fly.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, but I wasn’t allowed to.

“Then on the day I remember the wind picked up in the afternoon and I thought it wasn’t going to happen, but thankfully it did.”

For five minutes Webster was strapped into a harness as she flew across Stadium Australia in her little pink dress, before landing and later on going on to sing Under The Southern Skies.

She was part of a magical Opening Ceremony that to this day is considered one of the best in Olympic history.

The Sydney Olympics will celebrate the Games’ 20 year anniversary next year and while there were some incredible sporting performances, no doubt the event was kicked off emphatically with the Opening Ceremony.

It was a time for the Australian entertainment and creative industry to have their moment.

It was a night that Australia showed the world what we could do and part of that was through the eyes of little Nikki Webster.

Webster also had a unique insight into an event on the night that could have changed how the world viewed the night historically.

No doubt many of us can recall the moment when the ring of fire that Cathy Freeman ignited stalled on its journey upwards toward the cauldron at the top of the Olympic stadium.

Millions of Aussies watched in agonising silence when the Sydney Olympic cauldron halted above Freeman’s head.

Webster says she knew exactly what was going on when the Olympic flame cauldron suffered a glitch and Freeman was left standing there as the whole world waited for her to light the Olympic flame.

The nervous tension of the Opening Ceremony organisers was palpable.

“I had my ear pieces on so I did wonder what was going on with the cauldron, but I think Cathy and the team and the way they handled themselves was amazing,” she said.

“She was so composed, and whatever happened mechanically, they sorted it out.”

It was a night she will never forget.

“It was pretty awesome,” she said.

“When you do a musical you do eight shows a week for eight months, you live and breath it and you go through so many emotions. But this was one night, I had to get it right with one performance.

“It worked out so well, and then it was over.”

Going back a few months earlier before the Sydney Olympics, Webster revealed it was a top-secret operation even landing the role.

She had been a child performer all of her life, performing on Good Morning Australia with Bert Newton as well as in musicals such as Cinderella which caught the attention of Olympic organisers.

“It was very, very hard, about six months of auditions,” Webster said of getting the role.

“I don’t think people realise how intense it was.

“I was pretty much only told a couple of weeks before the Opening Ceremony that I got the gig and I’m sure they had their reasons as they wanted to keep it very organic.

“But at the time it was very stressful, I was thinking, ‘am I going to get this role or not?’”

“I had to sign confidentiality forms at the time.”

It was a very long process as organisers wanted to make sure they had the right girl for the starring role in the Opening Ceremony.

Perhaps also the organisers didn’t let her know if she got the role because of the extraordinary secrecy around the Opening Ceremony.

“So from the first audition we didn’t hear anything for months and then it was just a process of elimination,” Webster said.

Over those few months even though she didn’t know if she had the role or not, Webster continued to rehearse under incredible secrecy.

“The role kept developing,” she said.

“I think originally from my understanding she was only going to fall asleep and dream, and the rest of the Opening Ceremony was going to be her dream.

“However they wanted her in each segment.

“So it was pretty awesome to be working with everyone and working out how it was all going to happen.”

The organisers got it 100 per cent right by choosing Webster. Confident for her age and naturally media savvy, she was the perfect choice.

The day after the Opening Ceremony was absolutely chaos for Webster and her parents Tina and Mark.

Before social media even existed, her Opening Ceremony moment had gone viral.

“We had media requests from around the world,” she said.

“Every single room in my house had a different news crew in it the next day.

“My Mum and Dad were trying to make pancakes for everyone. It was just fun, we met people from all around the world. It was all part of the learning experience.”

Suddenly Webster was not your average Sydney school and things were soon to change forever.

Soon after the Opening Ceremony she signed with powerful record company BMG, which was later became Sony BMG.

In June 2001, following on from the September 2000 Olympic Games, her single Strawberry Kisses was released and ended up going to No. 2 on the Australian ARIA singles charts.

“My life kind of just changed,” she said.

“All the dreams that I planned out that I would do after school finished, like recording music, making outfits, a clothing range, all came true when I was 13.

“There was no book on how to deal with it. There were no instructions on how to deal with management, how to work it out and what we should do.

“We were kind of learning together as a family. It was an interesting experience.”

Because of her profile Webster was offered opportunities overseas, but she is glad she stayed in Australia.

“There were plenty of offers straight after the Olympics to pack up and move to America, and maybe I would have had a different career if I did, who knows?” she said.

“But as a family we wanted to stay in Australia, my brother was young and we were growing up. So we stayed.”

Webster ended up releasing three albums in Australia, the last one Let’s Dance in 2004.

The lead single from that album, also called Let’s Dance, was co-written by Delta Goodrem and former Australian Idol judge Mark Holden.

While all her albums were released before she finished high school, Webster doesn’t have any regrets about how her career has gone.

Just like she was when she was 13 when the world got to know her, she is incredibly positive to this day.

“I’m always so positive about everything that has happened,” she said.

“The people I met, the things I got to do. It’s been absolutely amazing.”

Now married to Matthew McMah, the couple have two children, Skylah, 5, and Malachi, 1.

She runs three dance schools in New South Wales and that is now her passion.

Webster has shown Skylah little clips of her Opening Ceremony performance and she looks forward to showing it to her in its entirety.

“I think she is ready to watch the whole thing,” she said.

“To understand the culture of Australia, the deep sea dreaming, and how the whole thing was represented.”

Webster also looks back at the Sydney Olympics with a sense of innocence; the world was such a different place back then.

“It was before September 11, before all of that,” she said.

“Thankfully we didn’t have any extra concerns about security. I’m glad as a child I didn’t have those extra concerns.

“No one was thinking about that. It was all about bringing everyone together and putting Australia on the map.”

She will always have a special place in Australian history, on that night on September 15, 2000, when the world’s eyes were on Sydney, Australia.