Inside the Maracana Stadium during the Rio Olympic opening ceremony – news.com.au, August 7, 2016
Some of the dancers and acrobats were worth watching too but I found myself tuning out a bit when the young boy filling the Nikki Webster role started wandering around in a maze of mirrors.
Rio Olympics opening ceremony highlights: Gisele Bundchen, goon bags, teen rapper and oily Tongan – foxsports.com.au, August 6, 2016
THE KID
TWELVE year old Brazilian rapper MC Soffia went from viral sensation to performing in front of a global audience of millions.
The Sao Paulo youngster’s songs about black pride and female empowerment have struck a chord with fellow youngsters. Her instant ascension into the world spotlight mirrored that of Sydney 13-year-old Nikki Webster, who played a significant role in the Sydney opening ceremony 16 years ago.
Here’s What You Missed From The Rio Opening Ceremony – junkee.com, August 6, 2016
Recent opening ceremonies have become increasingly extravagant affairs. Who could forget the Queen of England throwing herself out of a helicopter, or the sight of thousands of Chinese performers moving in perfect harmony like their lives literally depended on it? Not to mention Sydney, where we had Nikki Webster and an Olympic cauldron that got stuck halfway up a waterfall. So yeah, good luck topping that.
7 Craziest Moments From Past Olympic Opening Ceremonies – cbs8.com, August 5, 2016
4. Sydney 2000 — Deep Sea Adventure
Australia put on a quite a show for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, wowing the masses with its deep sea dreaming segment — and confusing everyone when a young Nikki Webster conked out in the middle of the stadium to start the performance.
Brazil’s party beats our party pies – SMH.com.au, July 5, 2014
For our part, Qatar has a date with destiny in 2022 that should rightfully have been Australia’s. But even as we settle for the 2015 Asian Cup, I still wonder if we would really do justice to the madness of the biggest festival in “football”.
We would probably draw up boring mascots, make an aged Nikki Webster fly again and get the Australian Youth Orchestra to sing Midnight Oil or something like that. Thrilling. But it would not involve the displacement of thousands upon thousands of homeless people (well, maybe a few), protests in the street or infrastructure collapsing. We are a bit boring like that.
SCG farewells baseball and welcomes ghosts of the past – SMH.com.au, March 24, 2014
According to NSW Minister for Sport and Recreation Gabrielle Upton, the arrival of ”the Big Show” was the “biggest” thing to happen to Sydney since Nikki Webster magically glided through the air at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
Philip Barker: Sochi 2014 produced Opening Ceremony to give you goosebumps – Inside the Games, February 8, 2014
It was precisely 20:14 hours when it all began.The sound of Borodin’s haunting Polovtsian Dances accompanied the ascent of a little girl called Luvov, played by 11-year-old Liza Temnikova from Krasnodar, a would be Olympic gymnast. Her flight on the high wire recalled the performance of Australian youngster Nikki Webster, who also flew through the air at the Sydney 2000 Summer Games.
“What mattered most was to have a little girl, not a woman,” said artistic director Andrei Boltenko. “It was a heavy workload for Liza but we decided to take the risk. We wanted her to be kind and human.”
Report: St Jerome’s Laneway Festival, Melbourne 2014 – Faster Louder, February 1, 2014
As always, Al Montfort threatened to overshadow Dick Diver’s music with his droning, deadpan chat, and Laneway was no different. He encouraged vigilante attacks on Education Minister Christopher Pyne, and promised the crowd a Lorde duet, with the New Zealand star descending to the stage via a zipline, “just like Nikki Webster at the Sydney Olympics.”
The Sovereign Wife – milkbarmag.com, July 16, 2013
Genevieve Wood: What’s the best Australian costume moment?
Owen Phillips: I really don’t think you can go past Nikki Webster’s pink hibiscus dress circa Sydney 2000. Not many other people could have pulled that colour off as well as she did.
High Contrast: unsung hero of the Olympics – inthemix.com.au, July 31, 2012
With a performance from the Arctic Monkeys and a Hey Jude rendition from Beatle Paul McCartney rounding out the Ceremony, London’s impressive efforts have been lauded one of the best Olympic openers ever – but hey, we’ll always have Nikki Webster.
Greatest opening ceremony moments – BigPond Sport, July 27, 2012
4. Nikki Webster sings “Under the Southern Skies” – Sydney 2000
Webster went from being a regular 13-year old schoolgirl to an international superstar after her various roles at the opening ceremony in Sydney. She participated in an act which encapsulated the country’s love of the beach, and another which highlighted Australia’s Aboriginal heritage. But it was her singing of “Under the Southern Skies” which particularly caught the attention of the crowd, and the world. Organisers were so impressed with her performance that she was asked to sing at the closing ceremony. She then landed a deal with record company BMG.
London Olympic Stadium hits home straight – The Australian, January 27, 2012
“That Sydney opening was a benchmark,” [Rod] Sheard says. “It broke the boundaries for all opening ceremonies when that little girl (singer Nikki Webster) lifted off the pitch. Since then all opening and closing ceremonies have gone aerial and quite right, too. Why have a show that’s two-dimensional in a space that’s three-dimensional? You want to use it and Beijing used it spectacularly (with gymnast Li Ning “running” around the roof of the stadium to light the cauldron)
Asian Games: China ready to dazzle again – India Today, November 12, 2010
Just to jog the readers’ memory, children have played a key role in opening ceremonies. At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Nikki Webster had created a wave and in 2008 in Beijing, Lin Miaoke was the talking point.
Starting with a bang – China Daily, November 11, 2010
Children have always been the most talented performers at the opening ceremonies of major international tournaments such as Nikki Webster at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, and Lin Miaoke at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It is not difficult to predict the Guangzhou Asian Games will also feature some talented children performers at the opening ceremony.
Great Olympic musical deceptions of our time – The Age, August 24, 2008
SOCOG officials had ordered pre-recorded backing tapes for the entire ceremony to ensure nothing could go wrong on Sydney’s big night.
This included Nikki Webster’s solo, Under Southern Skies and Human Nature and Julie Anthony singing the national anthem.
“You simply can’t embarrass yourself on the world stage – you must do whatever you can to make it perfect,” the source said.
Nikki Webster’s piece was recorded in July, almost three months before the ceremony.
Olympic Games: Week 1 – The Drum Opinion, August 18, 2008
I was mildly surprised to learn the opening ceremony team had digitally altered some of the fireworks effects for the broadcast. And though I didn’t notice it at the time – I’d fallen into a deep coma around hour three – I can’t believe the young girl, nine-year-old Lin Miaoke, who sung her little heart out and became the pride of China, was a fraud. A dirty, lying, lip-synching little fraud.
How could any Opening Ceremony organizer be so brazen as to perpetrate such a gross misleading of the viewing public, by having someone lip-synch at the games? Next they’ll be telling us the darling of the Sydney 2000 opening ceremony, Nikki Webster, can’t really fly!
Off The Field – SMH.com.au, August 15, 2008
It was also revealed that the sweet nine-year-old shown singing a stirring rendition of “Ode to the Motherland” at the opening ceremony – a la Nikki Webster at the Sydney Olympics – was in fact only mouthing the words. Moreover, she wasn’t even lip syncing to her own voice. Authorities later admitted that Lin Miaoke was just chosen to be the public face of Yang Peiyi, the girl with the voice of an angel, but with the teeth of a developing seven-year-old.
Not only were the Olympic Fireworks fake, so was the 7 year old singer – The Inquisitr, August 12, 2008
The news that television footage of the fireworks shown outside the stadium at the Beijing Olympic opening ceremony were computer generated fakes has spread online in the last 48 hours, but the latest news will be an even bigger shock: the 7 year old girl singing (China’s version of Nikki Webster) was not only miming, but the voice played wasn’t hers.
Talking Heads – Meryl Tankard – Talking Heads ABC TV, August 11, 2008
“I directed the first section of the Olympic Ceremony, Deep Sea Dreaming. Came up with the idea of having that little girl flying, Nikki Webster. I wanted to make the whole stadium look like it was underwater. Choreography is so different in that situation, because you’ve got 2,000 people, so you have to just think of it as a big painting.” – Meryl Tankard
Duck boy awes them – The Age, March 16, 2006
Sean Whitford is a precocious and dedicated talent, with Les Miserables and The Lion King already on his CV.
But, just as Nikki Webster will never grow up from — or live down — being the Dream Girl of the Sydney Olympics, after last night he will be forever known as the Melbourne Commonwealth Games Boy with the Duck.
The hits and misses of Sydney events – smh.com.au, January 15, 2005
The hits
* Three key moments from the Sydney Olympic opening ceremony: the lone horseman rides into the arena; Nikki Webster takes to the air; Cathy Freeman lights the Olympic cauldron.
Heeler loses faith in Gold – The Age, May 11, 2003
“The new image of Australian culture is a feminine image,” [Alan] McKee said, noting that the face of Australia in the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony was Nikki Webster. “It’s not surprising that the most popular icons of Australian identity, which is obviously in some way what the Logie winners are, are the people who are not just women, but you look at the kind of images of people winning them. It’s Lisa McCune, it’s Georgie Parker – they’re nice, kind, sweet, generous, they bring people in, they listen to them, they understand them. These are the qualities that we are celebrating.”
Diva Las Vegas – The Sun-Herald, March 30, 2003
She even took a note out of Nikki Webster’s book and flew high above the stage on wires during one number.