Quite a ComebackAtlanta and its no-frills games recovered nicely from the bombingby Gerry Callahan
EACH DAY an anxious crowd watched in awe as they performed with great courage under unimaginable pressure. They laughed at fear, ignored the danger and paid $45 to sit in the Ejection Seat, an absolutely harrowing carnival ride that resembled a human sling shot and flung daring tourists into the Atlanta sky.
The ride was hard to miss for anyone who spent time in the downtown area the past 17 days. It was right next to the Ferris wheel, not far from the bucking bronco. The amusement park was just one of the countless sideshows that complemented the official Olympic competition and made the Atlanta Games a unique and unforgettable experience.
The Ejection Seat added to the carnival atmosphere.
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As we look back at Atlanta in the rearview mirror, we are left to ponder some of the great unanswered questions of the Centennial Games, such as: Did the Atlanta police blimp ever pull the Budweiser blimp over for speeding? Wasn't it nice for the city to provide a T-shirt vendor for each and every tourist? Are you born a pin collector or is it a learned behavior? And why, oh, why didn't some kind soul fully inflate Gumby so he could stand tall and proud before the world?
This city often felt as if it had all the ambience of a frat party, but sometimes frat parties can be fun. Atlanta never promised its two million guests wine, cheese and linen tablecloths, but it did vow to show the world a Southern-fried good time, and it delivered—no frills, and no jacket required. Maybe Atlanta didn't appeal to everyone, but it sure seemed to have kept a few people smiling for a couple of weeks.
There was concern before the Olympics that Atlanta would be remembered more for insufferably high temperatures than for anything else, but as it turned out, it was not so much the heat as the humanity: Oceans of people poured up one street and down the other while vendors, scalpers and sidewalk preachers trolled for customers against the tides. The tourists came from different countries and spoke different languages, but they seemed to flow together in remarkable harmony, peacefully coexisting amid the chaos. At any given NFL game this fall, there will surely be more fights and more hostility between fans of the same team than there were amid the millions of people who converged on Atlanta from around the globe.
The only thing more impressive than the way they acted before 1:25 a.m. on Saturday, July 27, was the way they reacted afterward. The most memorable Olympic stories are always about comebacks, and this time the host city and all its guests pulled off the best comeback of these Games. The bombing in Centennial Olympic Park left two people dead and more than 100 injured, but it seemed to pull the two million survivors together. A moment of silence was offered at the venues later that day and the park was closed for three days, but the Games went on and so did the celebration.
Of all the surreal snapshots that we take home from Atlanta, none bares the essence of the Olympic spirit more than the sight of reopened Centennial Park on a warm, breezy night: Ray Charles on stage, dozens of children running through the fountains, the tall pillars of bright lights illuminating the scene, Michael Johnson shattering the world record in the 200 on a giant TV screen and the crowd exploding in screams and applause. The park was a wide-open, 21-acre party that required no admission fee or credential, a place that pulsated with the unpretentious excitement of kids and families and regular folk. Kings and queens and VIPs were welcome at the park, but they had to wait in line at Bud World just like everyone else.
Off to the side of the stage, near the site of the explosion, a memorial to the victims grew like a sunflower on the side of a hill. Flowers and flags from
various countries were placed around a cardboard sign that read pray for peace.
NBC, with all its hokey soundtracks and endless slow-motion replays, could not relay the feel of the Games the way a five-minute walk through Centen-nial Park could. Here, obviously, was the heart of the Atlanta Games, and despite the explosion, it was beating still.
In Atlanta this morning there are people who insist their Olympics will not be remembered first and foremost for the bombing, but they, of course, are deluding themselves. On the list of lasting images and sounds, nothing comes close to the explosion that blew a hole in the middle of the 17-day Olympic celebration. If you were in the city, you will never forget where you were or what you were doing when it happened. You hoped it was, as one of the first rumors went, a blown speaker or transformer. Then you sat shocked and saddened in front of the TV as the awful truth was reported: It was a crude pipe bomb in a knapsack. It was an act of terrorism. Murder at the Olympic Games.
You didn't draw the shades and hide under the bed in the hotel for the next eight days, but you walked a little softer, felt a little jumpier. Large, unchecked crowds made you wonder. Security was extremely tight everywhere. Bomb scares were phoned into various locations around the city. Your hotel was evacuated because someone spotted a suspicious package. It turned out to be a clothes iron, but the alarm still went through you like a jolt of electricity.
How could you put the bomb out of your mind? How could anything else be the lead story of these Games?
In a way, the competition became part of the healing process. Johnson won his first gold medal, in the 400, three nights following the blast, and after the race his first words were in memory of the blast's victims. On the news each evening, the straight-faced investigation updates were immediately followed by smiling sportscasters, live from the venues. On the day after Carl Lewis's stunning victory in the long jump, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution came out with something that was even more dramatic: a headline in its daily extra edition naming Richard Jewell, a security guard at the AT&T pavilion, as a suspect. The street hawkers shouted, "Extra! Extra!" as if they were playing roles in a black-and-white movie, and the crowds on the sidewalks stopped in their tracks, shocked and saddened all over again. The man who had been hailed as "the real hero of these Olympics" for spotting the knapsack and helping to clear away the crowd, was being investigated. How could it not make your head spin right off your shoulders?
The ground near the bomb site became a garden of sorrow.
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Still, the athletic achievements of the Games, while clearly overshadowed, will not be lost: Kerri Strug, the 87-pound gymnast who proved she was mostly heart and guts, will end up on a Wheaties box. Lewis assured himself a permanent place in the greatest-athlete-ever debate, and Johnson may yet spark a genuine interest in track and field in this country. Dan O'Brien, a symbol of underachievement when he failed to make the U.S. Olympic team four years ago, finally won the gold in the decathlon, and Canada's Donovan Bailey ran the fastest 100 meters in history.
Michelle Smith, the Irish swimmer, passed all the drug tests and proved to be a fierce competitor in the pool and out, winning three gold medals and a bronze and never backing down from the people who accused her of using steroids. Amy Van Dyken made sure the U.S. swim team was led by a gutsy asthmatic after all, winning four gold medals, while Tom Dolan struggled after grabbing one. In a moment that was spliced out of every awkward child's dream, Van Dyken dedicated her final victory to "all the nerds out there." An outcast in high school, Van Dyken said she hoped her victories would serve as an inspiration to "all the kids who are struggling." With her four golds around her neck and a smile as wide as the pool, Van Dyken was a picture of joy and personal triumph, an awkward kid who had grown into an Olympic hero.
The night should have belonged to her, but nearly five hours later the bomb went off and ripped a hole through the heart of the Olympics. No event at the Atlanta Games seemed quite so important anymore. Maybe none ever will.
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