Atlanta Ga Athletics

Atlanta staged the first upset of the 1996 Olympics on Tuesday, winning the right to host the games over sentimental favorite Athens and four other cities. The announcement here by the president of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch of Spain, triggered a massive celebration in Atlanta and recriminations by some bitter Athens representatives.

Two billion dollars. That's the federal government's preliminary estimate of the total it put out to help put on the Los Angeles and Atlanta Olympic Games combined with its projected expenditures for the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. By far the bulk of the amount, about $1.4 billion, is headed for Salt Lake City. Atlanta's 1996 Summer Games got $605 million and the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles drew a mere $75 million, according to the study, released by the General Accounting Office.

In his office overlooking the imaginary circle from the Georgia World Congress Center through the heart of Atlanta, the so-called Olympic ring, Billy Payne, a former Georgia Bulldog defensive end and now organizing committee president for the 1996 Summer Games, has a small television screen that allows him to monitor construction of the Olympic Stadium. With each feed, the Centennial Olympics, which begin one year from today, become more real to Payne.

In a sweeping plan that would bring the NHL back to two cities, introduce it to two others, guarantee seven years' labor peace and change the face of the league, the NHL's Expansion Committee recommended Tuesday the addition of four teams by 2000. It also urged realignment to two conferences, each with three five-team divisions. As outlined in the committee's report, Nashville, Tenn.

World-class athletes. Visitors from the White House. Computer glitches. Sound familiar? Less than two weeks after the Olympic caravan pulled out of town, competition began Friday--before considerably smaller crowds--for the 1996 Summer Paralympic Games. About 3,500 disabled athletes from 127 countries are competing in the same venues as the Olympians for 10 days in what organizers call the second-largest sporting event in the world.

The last guests have straggled home and Atlanta's marathon coming-out bash--that's the Olympics to y'all--finally has wound down. And can't we just keep the lights down for a while until we work through this hangover? Six years in the making, the Games of the XXVI Olympiad--once they finally got here--were everything Atlanta desired--and feared. The world turned its gaze on this brash young city that had been furiously turning backflips, trying to get everybody's attention.

This afternoon, shortly before the Olympic torch begins the last leg of its journey to the city's new stadium to signal the start of the XXV Olympiad, another smaller, ragtag relay will begin at the crypt of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Away from the cheering masses, runners will carry the flame through an African American neighborhood that has seen better days and on to the steps of the state Capitol.

The inaugural event in the Olympic Stadium today might be the best international track and field meet in the United States since the Los Angeles Summer Olympics, the ones in 1932. "If you recall, there were some 37 countries that were not there in 1984," said Ollan Cassell, executive director of USA Track & Field. "It was called the boycott Olympics. This may be a better track competition than you saw there."

With tractors roaring in the distance and hard-hatted workers roaming the periphery, a U.S. Justice Department official recently stood on the playing field of Atlanta's new Centennial Olympic Stadium and pronounced it "the most accessible stadium in the world."

Los Angeles, 1984. Atlanta, 1996. The Olympic comparisons were already beginning Tuesday, and they were quite favorable to Atlanta. At least, the Georgians are off to an easier start. "The only thing certain about the Olympic movement is that there's always change," Peter Ueberroth, leader of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, said Tuesday after hearing that Atlanta was selected as site of the 1996 Games.

World-class athletes. Visitors from the White House. Computer glitches. Sound familiar? Less than two weeks after the Olympic caravan pulled out of town, competition began Friday--before considerably smaller crowds--for the 1996 Summer Paralympic Games. About 3,500 disabled athletes from 127 countries are competing in the same venues as the Olympians for 10 days in what organizers call the second-largest sporting event in the world.

The Centennial Olympics, 100 things to remember: 1. Ali, y'all. 2. An Olympic bombshell. 3. Michael Johnson's golden slippers. 4. Touched by an angel: Martino giving her swimming bronze medal to a cancer victim. 5. A one-legged Strug. 6. Karolyi carryin' Kerri. 7. India-Pakistan field hockey. 8. Michelle Smith, triplin' for Dublin. 9. Belgian swimmer Fred Deburghgraeve. Easier done than said. 10. Floyd Mayweather, featherweight fighter: "I know I won. You know I won." 11. Ecuador, a gold medal.

The last guests have straggled home and Atlanta's marathon coming-out bash--that's the Olympics to y'all--finally has wound down. And can't we just keep the lights down for a while until we work through this hangover? Six years in the making, the Games of the XXVI Olympiad--once they finally got here--were everything Atlanta desired--and feared. The world turned its gaze on this brash young city that had been furiously turning backflips, trying to get everybody's attention.

On the last day of the Olympics, the man who organized and directed this country's previous international sports event, the 1994 World Cup of soccer, was highly critical of the '96 Summer Games. Alan Rothenberg, president of the U.S. Soccer Federation and chairman of Major League Soccer, said in an interview Sunday that, although the competition was exciting and generally well received, so many other things went awry that the general legacy of the Atlanta Olympics will not be positive.

Matt Ghaffari probably had the toughest job at the Atlanta Olympics. The U.S. super-heavyweight had to wrestle Russia's Alexander Karelin, perhaps the most feared athlete in the world. The 286-pound Karelin likes to lift foes over his head, then smash them to the mat. Sometimes, opponents get pinned on purpose to avoid meeting Karelin because they fear for their lives. In the final, Ghaffari lost to Karelin, 1-0, in overtime.

Attn: His Excellency Juan Antonio Samaranch President International Olympic Committee Your Excellency, Please accept my sincere congratulations on a splendid Olympics. I bought loads of souvenirs, including an official Izzy anti-shrapnel vest. By the way, how did you get to be "Your Excellency"? Were you promoted from "Your Very Goodness"? There aren't enough blowhard titles in America. If I had a title, I'd like it to be something that would help me get chicks, like "Your Mammoth Groinship."

After months of controversy and discord, city and state officials broke ground over the weekend for Atlanta's $209-million Olympic stadium. But as dignitaries such as Georgia Gov.

In the "Little Saigon" district of Orange County, there is a Vietnamese radio personality who has enjoyed playing a song called "Nhi's Epee." The tune was composed in honor of Nhi Lan Le, 32, who fled the real Saigon after its fall, attended a high school here in Georgia, and, a couple of years ago, took up the sport of fencing. Driving home from long days of practice as the Olympics drew near, Nhi broke down crying, imagining herself representing her adopted country.

It would be easy to sit here and chronicle all that went wrong with these Olympic Games. You know, it wasn't the heat, it was the stupidity. That is not the intention. Yes, there was some trouble getting to venues, if you consider trouble a bus driver asking a writer from Kazakhstan for directions. Yes, the organizing committee came to be known as A-CLOG. Yes, Harry Houdini would have had trouble escaping one of these flesh-packed MARTA trains.

So, this is how they do the Summer Olympics. As a veteran of Winter Games from Lake Placid to Lillehammer and points in between, I thought I'd know what to expect from this first working experience at the Summer Games. And I did. To a point. For apart from the obvious--snow in the winter, no snow in the summer--there are some differences. The big difference, of course, is just that, BIG!