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It is difficult to consider it has been 26 years this week for the reason that Centennial Olympic Video games have been in Atlanta. They started on July 19, 1996, and wound up August 4th. To discuss with them as Atlanta’s Video games will not be totally correct. Competitions have been held all through the state, from Athens to Gainesville to Savannah and even one in Ocoee, Tennessee.
Most everybody is aware of the story at the moment about how native actual property legal professional and former UGA soccer star Billy Payne determined to acquire the bid for the a centesimal anniversary of the fashionable Olympic Video games. The overall consensus was the occasion can be staged in Athens, Greece which has been dwelling to the 1896 Olympic Video games.
Payne, who had by no means been to the Olympics, didn’t know when the choice was made or how, enlisted the assistance of a small group of mates to set out on what many – together with me on the time – thought was a wild goose chase to win the bid for Atlanta. And he did it.
In my lengthy life, I’ve met and have been related to numerous exceptional individuals however Billy Payne exceeds all of them. He is likely one of the brightest and most-driven individuals I’ve ever identified and one of the crucial respectable. Though I didn’t know him on the time – I joined the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Video games after Atlanta received the bid as managing director of communications and authorities relations – I grew to become and nonetheless am fiercely loyal to him.
The Video games themselves have been extraordinarily profitable. Greater than 10,000 athletes set 32 world information and 111 Olympic information. We offered extra tickets to girls’s competitions alone than Barcelona had offered whole tickets 4 years earlier. Greater than 209 million individuals watched the 1996 Centennial Olympic Video games on tv which made it the most-watched occasion in tv historical past on the time and a few 5 million noticed the competitions in particular person, aided by 50,000 volunteers who gave new that means to the time period “Southern hospitality.”
Additionally, the Centennial Olympic Video games have been privately-funded, that means taxpayers weren’t left holding the bag as soon as the Video games have been over as has occurred in numerous cities earlier than and after Atlanta.
The darkest second was the night of July 27, when a bomb went off in Centennial Olympic Park. We had been assured by the FBI that whereas there was all the time the potential for a random act of terror, the company had the individuals and sources to shortly determine and apprehend the perpetrators. Eric Rudolph who set off the bomb eluded seize for five years till he was arrested climbing out of a dumpster by a rookie deputy sheriff in North Carolina.
Within the meantime, poor Richard Jewell was the sufferer of a worldwide media feeding-frenzy. Ten thousand media representatives, all assured that he was the perpetrator and all making an attempt to scoop one another. Jewell was fully exonerated. He turned out to be the winner. The media and the FBI have been the losers.
That brings me to the most important loser of all: Town of Atlanta. Town blew a golden alternative to seem like the nice worldwide metropolis it claimed to be. Officers licensed an ambush advertising and marketing program geared toward our sponsors although sponsor {dollars} have been serving to guarantee town can be spared committing any tax {dollars} for the Video games.
Mayor Invoice Campbell’s sidewalk distributors program did nothing however clog metropolis streets and crush the goals of quite a lot of small companies that purchased into the scheme. The enterprise group was afraid to talk up lest they incur the wrath of a risky mayor who may make a racial difficulty out of a potato chip. The native media have been higher suited to cowl a highschool soccer recreation than one thing as advanced because the Olympics.
Maybe the most effective factor to come back out of the 1996 Olympic Video games was a brand new profession. Mine. I used to be requested by an area paper to evaluate town’s efficiency after the occasion was over. I used to be not sort for the entire causes acknowledged above. The column attracted nationwide consideration. I used to be requested to put in writing one other one after which one other one. As of this present day, I’ve penned some 2,000 columns and am nonetheless swinging for the fences. Twenty-six years have handed and the Centennial Olympic Video games are a distant reminiscence. There have been six Olympiads since ours. However wanting again on these 17 days in July 1996, I’m proud to say I used to be part of the most effective Video games ever.
Dick Yarbrough is an award-winning columnist.
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