In the Centennial Games, athletic competition survived a tragic interlude by Richard Hoffer the end of these Olympics, the Centennial Olympic Park bombing had barely survived as a metaphor. In some quarters this terrifying episode had been reduced to the status of a civil disturbance, a weird stunt gone horribly wrong. Midweek musings upon Munich had been overtaken by Atlanta astonishments. There was the fastest man alive (there always is, but this man was faster), the world's best athlete, a swim darling or two, a courageous pixie. There was redemption, endurance and surprise. The bombing? It stood as a shrill reminder that our national smugness was no longer a geographical right. But as shattering as it was, as scary as it was in the immediate aftermath, it grew distant, crowded into a corner of history by the Olympic hubbub. There were world records, unprecedented doubles, debate over a red-haired, green-eyed swimmer, who was treated more rudely than she should have been. There was a dinger-hitting doc named Dot. And controversy, unrelenting controversy, over a relay team. There was, for the first time, beach volleyball (and a minifuror over a player's breast implants) and mountain biking (no implants that we know of there). As TV requires, there were tears of defeat, a huge wrestler quaking in his thwarted obsession. And there were tears of victory, another huge wrestler, this one racked by his ultimate achievement. All of which gives you an idea of how much fizz builds up when something as volatile as hope is capped for four years. There was still the Dream Team, but by now it was regarded as so far outside the realm of fair play that hardly anyone paid attention to its players, except to note their comings and goings at Atlanta restaurants. Instead, other U.S. teams that proved nearly as dominant—women's basketball, soccer and softball—drew the enthusiastic following that the original Dreamers did. What had been a family-style party turned to horror early on Day 9 when rescue vehicles replaced revelers at the park. photographs by Heinz Kluetmeier, Robert Beck (above left), Richard Mackson (above right) These Olympics had enough at the end to disarm any bomber, and that was as much Atlanta's doing as the athletes'. The host city, in organizing these Games, had decided that nothing, save for a few bus routes (a thousand bus rides, a thousand stories), could be left to chance. Unsure that sports alone would be adequate, or perhaps unsure of its own indigenous appeal, Atlanta developed a parallel universe for its millions of visitors, a kind of county fair—plywood booths and Ferris wheels everywhere you looked. It was a surplus of civic gimcrackery, the likes of which had never been seen at the Olympics. This was not popular with everybody, especially certain members of the International Olympic Committee, who derided the sidewalk celebration (or merchandising—your pick) as so much "commercial clutter." And it was true that the commercialization of the Games reached some kind of zenith (or nadir—again, your pick) in Atlanta. There's a big bill to foot, no question, but you have to wonder what the foreign visitors were telling the folks back home about America's apparent chemical dependence on Coke. The circus atmosphere of Atlanta's downtown streets may have been inevitable, but in Centennial Olympic Park, a 21-acre preserve of corporate tents and sponsored soundstages laid out over bricks engraved with the names of individual donors, it was institutionalized. There was the Bud bar and the Swatch museum, and long lines to get into both. The park was a kind of town square for these Games, and as strange as it was, it probably characterized this nation better than the events themselves. The park had no architectural pedigree, no history, no sense of importance. Yet it drew huge crowds who were there maybe as much to cool off in the Olympic-rings fountain as to trade souvenir pins (is this a great country or what?). And families, with tickets or without, seemed to be having fun. After the explosion, blood stained the bricks at Centennial Olympic Park and flags flew at half-mast at Olympic Stadium. photographs by David E. Klutho, Lynn Johnson (above right) And fun is what seemed most at risk after the bombing. This park-cum-block party became ground zero, a pipe bomb exploding during a late-night concert, the mall's congenial spirit instantly destroyed by crude shrapnel, screws and nails flying into the darkness. One woman was killed in the blast, a Turkish cameraman died while rushing to cover its aftermath, and 111 people were hurt, jeopardizing the Games, so skittish were organizers. After the Munich slaughter 24 years before, it seemed a vaguely familiar notion, the Olympics as war: You could go and you might never come back. But it was quickly understood that the bomb, going off in this part of Atlanta, was not a threat to the Olympics but just one more injury to the American way of life. There was, by the end of the Games, no clear understanding of why the bomb was set off. It was terrible, of course, blood on the bricks where families had walked, a continuing erosion of innocence. But three days later, the athletic events themselves barely missing a beat, the park reopened, scrubbed, reconsecrated, an example of patriotism during a time when medal counts alone were no longer good for much chest thumping. Here they could proclaim, Americans don't back down. Yet they do; just by degrees. If you thought to look around as a mournful trumpet gave way to a rollicking gospel choir during that Tuesday morning ceremony, you might have imagined watchtowers where there were none before. In the end the athletes reigned, as Jearl Miles celebrated the 4x400 relay win with teammate Maicel Malone's son, Jaylyn. photograph by Robert Beck The tragedy had at least one restorative effect. The efforts of Atlanta, which had seemed a little bumbling and not a little mercenary, now reflected a simpler theme: Atlantans just want to have some fun. Toward the end of the second week, the city's intentions were more clearly understood and better appreciated. The park even seemed quaint in its recovery, and the entrepreneurs no longer came across as so nettlesome. People did seem to be having fun. Anyway, there were these Games, a conglomeration of a lot of stuff you wouldn't ordinarily cross the street to see but that were now, for whatever reason, riveting. A ponytailed archer was the hero one day. Badmintoners, race walkers, ribbon-waving gymnasts and kayakers all had their day in the sun. And then there was the stuff that's always riveting to sports fans but that was now all-important to everybody. These were critical things to decide. Who's fastest? how much can a person lift? how high can he jump? Every four years, we need to know. And, as usual, not a few of these questions were answered with a drama that was genuine, even beyond the broadcasters' ability to generate pathos out of, well, often nothing. Graying, 35-year-old Carl Lewis lingered stubbornly at center stage and then uncorked a jump that won gold, his ninth in four trips to the Olympics. Then, that not being drama enough, the old egotist lobbied for a spot on the U.S. 4x100 relay team. Many breathless newsbreaks later, Lewis was still not running the anchor. No doubt he left town smirking when that team, after much debate over whether history (and Lewis) or fair play needed to be observed, lost to Canada. Except for when the U.S. boycotted or was disqualified, it was the first time American runners had failed to win the 4x100 relay. Stories: Dan O'Brien, who was favored to win the 1992 decathlon and then didn't even make the U.S. team, proved finally that he was as good as advertised. An 18-year-old woman (we think you know her name) limped to the runway and made the vault of her—and our—lifetime, bad leg and all. There were dozens of stories and, as usual, all were unexpected yet predictable, all amazing yet reassuring. And once more they were able to lift us above the confusion and the random meanness of spirit that dog us. Their message, encrypted in these Games, is the same every four years: You'd be surprised at what I can do; you'd be surprised at what you can do. And, of course, we are surprised. Every time, we're surprised. 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