Huge Olympic rings on Sydney Harbour Bridge from 2000 Games sell for $17,000 at auction

SYDNEY – The five massive rings from the Sydney Harbour Bridge which were the focal point of celebrations during the 2000 Olympics have been sold for 21,000 Australian dollars ($17,000).

The steel rings, measuring 70 by 40 metres (230 by 130 feet) when assembled and weighing 50,000 kilograms (110,000 pounds), had been in a storage shed south of Sydney. When businessman Bernard Maas recently bought the shed, he discovered the rings inside.

On the eBay auction site, the lot attracted 17 bids topped by a man in Sydney’s Pyrmont, an inner-city suburb near the harbour.

“He put a bid in and ended up winning … he was having a bit of a chuckle and wasn’t too sure what he was going to do,” Maas said Thursday.

Maas said there was a crane above the shed where the rings were stored, so loading them into trucks would not be a problem.

“But the big job is transporting them really, because they’re such a massive structure,” he said.

Maas said he was surprised by the purchaser of the rings, which remained in good condition.

“I thought if anything they might have gone to an institution or something,” he said. “The Olympic precinct would have been nice, to see them in there.”