1996 Summer Olympics

Atlanta was selected on September 18, 1990, in Tokyo, Japan, over Athens, Belgrade, Manchester, Melbourne, and Toronto at the 96th IOC Session. The city entered the competition as a dark horse, being up against stiff competition.[5] The US media also criticized it as a second-tier city and complained of Georgia's Confederate history. However, the IOC Evaluation Commission ranked Atlanta's infrastructure and facilities the highest, while IOC members said that it could guarantee large television revenues similar to the success of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.[6] Additionally, former US ambassador to the UN and Atlanta mayor Andrew Jackson Young touted Atlanta's civil rights history and reputation for racial harmony. Young also wanted to showcase a reformed American South. The strong economy of Atlanta and improved race relations in the South helped to impress the IOC officials.[7] The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) also proposed a substantial revenue-sharing with the IOC, USOC, and other NOCs.[7] Atlanta's main rivals were Toronto, whose front-running bid that began in 1986 had chances to succeed after Canada had held a successful 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, and Melbourne, Australia, who hosted the 1956 Summer Olympics and after Brisbane, Australia's failed bid for the 1992 games (which were awarded to Barcelona) and prior to Sydney, Australia's successful 2000 Summer Olympics bid. This would be Toronto's fourth failed attempt since 1960 (tried in 1960, 1964, and 1976, but defeated by Rome, Tokyo and Montreal).[8]

Greece, the home of the ancient and first modern Olympics, was considered by many observers the "natural choice" for the Centennial Games.[6][7] However, Athens bid chairman Spyros Metaxa demanded that it be named as the site of the Olympics because of its "historical right due to its history", which may have caused resentment among delegates. Furthermore, the Athens bid was described as "arrogant and poorly prepared", being regarded as "not being up to the task of coping with the modern and risk-prone extravaganza" of the current Games. Athens faced numerous obstacles, including "political instability, potential security problems, air pollution, traffic congestion and the fact that it would have to spend about $3 billion to improve its infrastructure of airports, roads, rail lines and other amenities".[6][9][10] Athens lost its bid to host the games to Atlanta in 1990, but was later chosen to host the 2004 Summer Olympics in September 1997 after Atlanta hosted the previous year.

1996 Summer Olympics bidding results[11]
City	NOC Name	Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5
Atlanta	United States	19	20	26	34	51
Athens	Greece	23	23	26	30	35
Toronto	Canada	14	17	18	22	—
Melbourne	Australia	12	21	16	—	—
Manchester	Great Britain	11	5	—	—	—
Belgrade	SFR Yugoslavia[12]	7	—	—	—	—

All times are in Eastern Daylight Time (UTC-4); the other, Birmingham, Alabama uses Central Daylight Time (UTC-5)

Participants at Summer olympics 1996
Blue = Participating for the first time. Green = Have previously participated. Yellow square is host city (Atlanta)

Number of athletes

A total of 197 nations, all of the then-existing and recognised National Olympic Committees were represented at the 1996 Games, and the combined total of athletes was about 10,318.[28] Twenty-four countries made their Olympic debut this year, including eleven of the ex-Soviet countries that competed as part of the Unified Team in 1992. Russia participated in the Summer Olympics separately from the other former countries of the Soviet Union for the first time since 1912 (when it was the Russian Empire). Russia had been a member of the Unified Team at the 1992 Summer Olympics together with 11 post-Soviet states. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia competed as Yugoslavia.

The 14 countries making their Olympic debut were: Azerbaijan, Burundi, Cape Verde, Comoros, Dominica, Guinea-Bissau, Macedonia, Nauru, Palestinian Authority, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The ten countries making their Summer Olympic debut (after competing at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer) were: Armenia, Belarus, Czech Republic, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Slovakia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. The Czech Republic and Slovakia attended the games as independent nations for the first time since the breakup of Czechoslovakia, while the rest of the nations that made their Summer Olympic debut were formerly part of the Soviet Union.

The marker at the entrance to Centennial Park in downtown Atlanta

The 1996 Olympics were marred by the Centennial Olympic Park bombing on July 27. Security guard Richard Jewell discovered the pipe bomb and immediately notified law enforcement and helped evacuate as many people as possible from the area before it exploded. Although Jewell's quick actions are credited for saving many lives, the bombing killed spectator Alice Hawthorne, wounded 111 others, and caused the death of Melih Uzunyol by heart attack. Jewell was later considered a suspect in the bombing but was never charged, and he was cleared in October 1996. In 2003, Eric Robert Rudolph was charged with and confessed to this bombing as well as the bombings of two abortion clinics and a gay bar. He stated "the purpose of the attack on July 27th was to confound, anger and embarrass the Washington government in the eyes of the world for its abominable sanctioning of abortion on demand."[29] He was sentenced to a life sentence at ADX Florence prison in Florence, Colorado.

The 1996 Olympic cauldron in 2011

The Flair Monument, erected in remembrance of the games

Preparations for the Olympics lasted more than six years and had an economic impact of at least $5.14 billion. Over two million visitors came to Atlanta, and approximately 3.5 billion people around the world watched at least part of the games on television. Although marred by the tragedy of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, they were a financial success, due in part to TV rights contracts and sponsorships at record levels.[30]

Beyond international recognition, the Games resulted in many modern infrastructure improvements. The mid-rise dormitories built for the Olympic Village, which became the first residential housing for Georgia State University (Georgia State Village), are now used by the Georgia Institute of Technology (North Avenue Apartments). As designed, Centennial Olympic Stadium was converted into Turner Field, which became the home of the Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball team from 1997 to 2016. The Braves' former home, Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, was demolished in 1997 and the site became a parking lot for Turner Field; the Omni Coliseum was demolished the same year to make way for Philips Arena (since renamed State Farm Arena). The city's permanent memorial to the 1996 Olympics is Centennial Olympic Park, which was built as a focal point for the Games. The park initiated a revitalization of the surrounding area, and now serves as the hub for Atlanta's tourism district.[30]

In November 2016, a commemorative plaque was unveiled for Centennial Olympic Park to honor the 20th anniversary of the Games.[31][32]

After the Braves' departure from Turner Field, Georgia State University acquired the former Olympic Stadium and surrounding parking lots and reconfigured the stadium for a second time into Georgia State Stadium for its college football team.

The 1996 Olympics are the most recent edition of the Summer Olympics to be held in the United States. Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympics, 32 years after the games were held in Atlanta.[33]

The 1996 Summer Olympics relied heavily on commercial sponsorship. The Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Company was the exclusive provider of soft drinks at Olympics venues, and built an attraction known as Coca-Cola Olympic City for the Games.[34]

The Games were affected by several instances of ambush marketing—in which companies attempt to use the Games as a means to promote their brand, in competition with the exclusive, category-based sponsorship rights issued by the Atlanta organizing committee and the IOC (which grants the rights to use Olympics-related terms and emblems in marketing). The Atlanta organizing committee threatened legal actions against advertisers whose marketing implied an official association with the Games. Several non-sponsors set up marketing activities in areas near venues, such as Samsung (competing with Motorola), which ambushed the Games with its "'96 Expo".[35][36] The city of Atlanta had also licensed street vendors to sell products from competitors to Olympic sponsors.[37][38]

The most controversial ambush campaign was undertaken by Nike, Inc., which had begun an advertising campaign with aggressive slogans that mocked the Games' values, such as "Faster, Higher, Stronger, Badder", "If you're not here to win, you're a tourist", and "You don't win silver, you lose gold." The slogans were featured on magazine ads and billboards it purchased in Atlanta.[35] Nike also opened a pop-up store known as the Nike Center near the Athletes' Village, which distributed Nike-branded flags to visitors (presumably to be used at events).[39] IOC marketing director Michael Payne expressed concern for the campaign, believing that athletes could perceive them as being an insult to their accomplishments.[39] Payne and United States Olympic Committee's marketing director John Krimsky met with Howard Slusher, a subordinate of Nike co-founder Phil Knight. The meeting quickly turned aggressive, with Payne threatening that the IOC could pull accreditation for Nike employees, ban the display of its logos on equipment, and organize a press conference where silver medallists from the Games, as well as prominent Nike-sponsored athlete Michael Johnson (who attracted attention during the Games for wearing custom, gold-colored Nike shoes), would denounce the company. Faced with these threats, Nike agreed to retract most of its negative advertising and PR stunts.[39]

A report prepared by European Olympic officials after the Games was critical of Atlanta's performance in several key issues, including the level of crowding in the Olympic Village, the quality of available food, the accessibility and convenience of transportation, and the Games' general atmosphere of commercialism.[40] IOC vice-president Dick Pound defended criticism of the commercialization of these Games, stating that they still adhered to a historic policy barring the display of advertising within venues, and that "you have to look to the private sector for at least a portion of the funding, and unless you're looking for handouts, you're dealing with people who are investing business assets, and they have to get a return."[37]

The financial struggles faced by many later Games, such as the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, have led to more positive re-appraisals of the management of the 1996 Games. Former JPMorgan Chase president (and torchbearer) Kabir Sehgal noted that in contrast to many later Games, the 1996 Olympics were financially viable, had a positive economic impact on the city, and most of the facilities constructed for the Games still see use in the present day. Sehgal contrasted the Games' bid — a "grassroots" effort backed almost entirely by private funding, with the only significant public spending coming from infrastructure associated with the Games — to modern "top-down" bids, instigated by local governments and reliant on taxpayer funding, making them unpopular among citizens who may not necessarily be interested.[13]

At the closing ceremony, IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch said in his closing speech, "Well done, Atlanta" and simply called the Games "most exceptional." This broke precedent for Samaranch, who had traditionally labeled each Games "the best Olympics ever" at each closing ceremony, a practice he resumed at the subsequent Games in Sydney in 2000.[41]

In 1997, Athens, Greece would be awarded the 2004 Summer Olympics. Along with addressing the shortcomings of its 1996 bid, it was lauded for its efforts to promote the traditional values of the Olympic Games, which some IOC observers felt had been lost due to the over-commercialization of the 1996 Games. However, the 2004 Games heavily relied on public funding and eventually failed to make a profit, and contributed to the financial crisis in Greece.[42][43][44]

• 1996 Summer Paralympics
• Olympic Games celebrated in the United States
  • 1904 Summer Olympics – St. Louis
  • 1932 Summer Olympics – Los Angeles
  • 1932 Winter Olympics – Lake Placid
  • 1960 Winter Olympics – Squaw Valley
  • 1980 Winter Olympics – Lake Placid
  • 1984 Summer Olympics – Los Angeles
  • 1996 Summer Olympics – Atlanta
  • 2002 Winter Olympics – Salt Lake City
  • 2028 Summer Olympics – Los Angeles

• Summer Olympic Games
• Olympic Games
• International Olympic Committee
• List of IOC country codes
• Use of performance-enhancing drugs in the Olympic Games – 1996 Atlanta

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 1996 Summer Olympics.

External video

The Atlanta 1996 Olympic Film on YouTube

• "Atlanta 1996". Olympic.org. International Olympic Committee.
• "Results and Medalists—1996 Summer Olympics". Olympic.org. International Olympic Committee.
• Official Report Vol. 1 Digital Archive from the LA84 Foundation of Los Angeles
• Official Report Vol. 2 Digital Archive from the LA84 Foundation of Los Angeles
• Official Report Vol. 3 Digital Archive from the LA84 Foundation of Los Angeles