Parody site wins Olympic gold

Then visit www.silly2000.com -- a parody of the official Olympics Web site www.olympics.com.

silly2000.com, which flaunts a countdown to the day the Games are over and the moto "keeping you sane through the Games", offers a range of spoof Olympics material that will put a smile back on the face of anyone trying to dodge the event.

"We saw the Olympics as a prime target for parody," Craig Reucassel, one of the site's editors told ZDNet Australia.

The site is a natural extension of the group's satirical newspaper The Chaser -- which was swamped with amusing SOCOG content as the organisers of the Sydney Olympics were constantly targeted by media in the lead up to the Games.

"[SOCOG] seem to be screwing up less now than they were then," Reucassle said, but the site's content continues to rack up about 100,000 page impressions a day.

"It [silly2000.com] seemed like a good way to get attention," Reucassel said. "The tough part was coming up with a logo we wouldn't get sued over."

Hoping to get a reaction from the bigwigs at SOCOG, silly2000.com's staff sent a fax to them asking that they take down the official olympics.com Web site, claiming it was a "juvenile, amateurish attempt to parody silly2000.com".

However, so far the site hasn't garnered any response from SOCOG. "They seem fine about it," Reucassel said.

With the Sydney 2000 summer Games now underway Reucassle seems unsure of the site's future.

"Maybe we'll move onto Athens," he said.