It was nine years ago that local lawyer Billy Payne dreamed up the notion that Atlanta – not Athens, Greece – was destined to host the centennial Olympics. The Georgia establishment smiled politely and chuckled about Billy’s folly. Everyone’s still smiling, but it now masks deep concern that Atlanta may prove not ready for prime time – and that Billy’s folly is about to become the world’s. ““We’ll be ready, we’re on schedule, we’re on budget’’ has become Payne’s daily mantra, as the head of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) cheerleads the project down the home stretch.
Of course, ““ready’’ is a relative con- cept. The torch will be lit at the new Centennial Olympic Stadium on the evening of July 19, and competition will start the next morning regardless of how bad the traffic is on Peachtree Street. But Atlan- ta’s shining moment, its world debut as capital of the New South, the culmination of 40 years of effort (chart, page 63), depends on the action outside the arenas as much as within them. The is- sue boils down to this: after the spectacular success of the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, will the Atlanta Games be a good time?
The organizers have certainly tried. They’ve finished the new venues, kept modest the dislocation of the locals (so far) and appear likely not to leave behind a crushing debt burden for taxpayers. Coca-Cola has done its part, completing an amusement park right next to the Cen- tennial Park, and Mayor Bill Campbell vetoed a nasty plan to jack up taxi fares just for the Games. But modern Olympics are Olympian undertakings; Atlanta’s Games are twice as large as those held in Los Angeles just a dozen years ago. It’s a $1.5 billion affair, with 71,000 employees ministering to more than 2 million visitors. ““I don’t have any concerns that we will not be ready to stage the competitions and bring the spectators in,’’ says Doug Arnot, ACOG’s manager of venues. ““We may be slapping some paint on in the last 15 minutes before a couple of events, but for the most part we’ll be ready to go.''
Atlanta may be ready, but will the descending hordes be ready for Atlanta – particularly its summer weather? The same officials who undersold the heat to win the Games are now ‘fessing up that Atlanta in July is hotter than … well, just about anywhere else they’ve ever held the Games. The average temperature in Atlanta from July 19 to Aug. 4 is 88 degrees, 10 degrees above the average of the last five Summer Olympics host cities (Barcelona, Seoul, Los Angeles, Moscow, Montreal). The heat effect is hard to measure. But it’s well to recall that when Atlanta last hosted a major midsummer event, the 1988 Democratic convention, the delegates nominated Michael Dukakis for president.
Some common-sense steps have already been taken to try to spare the competitors. The marathon, for example, will start in the early morning, and the horses in the equestrian competition will have special facilities for cooling down. But ACOG’s Arnot admits, ““We’re less concerned about the athletes than we are about the spectators. The athletes are better conditioned, and they’ve been preparing themselves for the heat.’’ ACOG recommends that fans drink a quart of water every hour, and it will sprinkle water stations around the venues. (The ““official’’ water sponsor, Crystal Springs, will also sell 16-ounce bottles at $2.75 each.) Ushers and medical volunteers are taking classes to recognize symptoms of heat prostration.
All that water consumption, in the natural course of events, will put quite a strain on Atlanta’s restrooms. Two thousand portable toilets have been deployed at sites of greatest need, and the Centennial Olympic Park offers no fewer than 192 tented comfort stations. In addition, local businesses and restaurants are being asked to place their bathrooms in the vanguard of Southern hospitality.
THE TWO BIGGEST MAN-MADE problems are security and transportation. Fears of terrorism were heightened by the bombing attack on U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. Last week a bomb squad rushed to inspect a suitcase and box found at Georgia Tech, as top government and Olympic officials were dedicating the athletes’ village on the campus. The items proved to be innocuous. NEWSWEEK’s Daniel Klaidman has learned that a confidential FBI teletype sent to its 56 field offices last month indicated there was no hard evidence of any terrorist activity aimed at the Olympics.
The most real threat, the FBI believes, is not foreign or domestic terrorism but organized street gangs, which view the Olympics as a major economic opportunity. Atlanta has amassed a force of more than 20,000 federal, state, local and pri- vate security personnel. While police are braced for everything from drug bazaars to credit-card scams, they appear most concerned about possible outbreaks of violent turf wars. The security team is also preparing for something out of Robert Ludlum. Its mock exercises have included a hijacking at Hartsfield International Airport; a kidnapping near Lake Lanier, where the rowing events will be held, and a chemical attack similar to the one on the Tokyo subway last year.
Atlanta’s subway system, which will be open 24 hours, is the key transporta- tion link at the Games. But it was not designed with the Olympics in mind. There is no stop, for example, within a mile of the Olympic stadium, so shuttle buses will deliver many of the capacity crowds of 83,000 to that site. ACOG has begged and borrowed buses from across the nation and organized an 11,000-person transportation force, the largest ever assembled for a peacetime operation. But Atlanta’s mass-transit plans require a one-third reduction in non-Olympics traffic and a great deal of patience from the assembled visitors.
Organizers insist that since most of the major events will occur within a 1.5-mile radius, spectators will find it fairly easy to get to the sites on foot. ““There are streets that have been dedicated exclusively to pedestrians,’’ says Arnot. ““We expect that one of the friendly experiences that people will have during the Games will be the opportunity to walk.’'
Of course, one man’s pleasant stroll is another’s forced march. And an Olympics isn’t an Olympics without gripes. (In Barcelona, people complained that because the city’s many great cafs, restaurants and clubs stayed open all night, they were deprived of sleep.) With luck, the gripes will fade along with the sounds of B. B. King and the rest of the ““Southern Jamboree’’ that closes the Games on Aug. 4, and only the thrill will remain.
Even as the civil rights movement worked its revolution accross the South,three decades of on the field racial progress helped to make it possible for Atlanta to host the 1996 Games
Georgia Gov. Marvin Girffin tries to stop Georgia Tech from playing integrated Pitt team in Sugar Bowl. Georgia Tech wins 7-0
Sprinter Wilma Rudolph wins three golds at the olympics;insists on first integrated victory party in Clarksville Tenn.
All black Texas Western defeats all white Kentucky for NCAA title. Atlanta gets major league baseball and football franchise
Defying Jim Crow laws,whites flock to see Earl(The Pearl) Monroe lead the nation in scoring at Winston-Salem University
Perry Wallace of Vanderbilt becomes the first black to play baseball in athe Southeast Confernece
Southern Cal’s Sam Cunningham runs over Alabama,persuading coach Bear Bryant to recruit blacks;in 1973 Cunningham stars in the Rose Bowl
Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves breaks Babe Ruth’s home run record. He’s lauded but gets hate mail too.
Alabama’s basketball team fields and all-black starting five
Atlanta is named host of the 1996 Olympic Games
