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Overall
Grade: C+
A report card on the first days of the Games: Transportation: F Does anyone in Atlanta not have a horror story? Bus drivers, even those who stay on the job, don't know where they're going; MARTA can't handle the thousands of passengers clogging its platforms; and ACOG can't even get all the athletes to their events on time—the ultimate failure. The IOC has rightly called ACOG on the carpet for the can't-get-there-from-here fiasco. Hospitality: A Y'all sure are friendly! Crowd Management: D Not to sound alarmist, but a tragedy could yet occur at these Games if ACOG can't find a better way to move spectators in and out of venues. At opening ceremonies and in the Georgia World Congress Center, site of eight sports, the crush of humanity has been frightening. All it would have taken was a bit of excessive pushing and shoving for scores of people to be suffocated or trampled. Ambience: C- No one ever accused Atlanta of being beautiful, but did it have to give itself over completely to huge inflated beer bottles, giant Gumbys, advertisement-covered crowd barriers and tacky boardwalk-abilia? Security: A The blocked-off roads and X-ray machines are a pain in the neck, but hey, we're all still O.K. Competition: A From superb gymnastics to tight swimming races to Japan's amazing 1-0 soccer upset of Brazil, the Games are off and running. And that's what it's supposed to be about, right? The Atlanta Journal-Constitution runs a daily column inviting readers to call in and "vent during the Olympics." Some responses have been downright cheeky, but for sheer chutzpah, none can match Dream Teamer Charles Barkley's vintage whine, which appeared elsewhere in yesterday's edition of the paper. "The rooms are tight," he griped about the Omni accommodations he and his multimillionaire teammates have been enjoying. That's not an unreasonable complaint from someone of Barkley's bulk and obviously refined tastes. But Charles loses all sympathy with this petulant coda: "... especially with all the stuff they give us along the way." Whew! Open the vents.
China's Wang Yifu When Wang Yifu of China steps to the line today for the 50-meter pistol event, one of his aims will be to erase the specter of his collapse in Saturday's 10-meter event. On his final shot, with a seemingly insurmountable lead of 3.8 points, Wang (above), the event's 1992 champion, shot a 6.5, the worst score of the 3,080 shots fired by the 50 competitors. After his misfire, Wang, 35 and reportedly a diabetic, staggered and fainted. While winner Roberto Di Donna of Italy was being hoisted on his teammates' shoulders, Wang was being carried from the venue on a stretcher. Though he soon got to his feet, Wang was so exhausted he could not collect his silver medal. "Pressure is the key in our sport," said Di Donna later. "He felt it in the final." We'll see how he handles it today.
Silver and bronze may not glitter quite as brightly as gold, but they certainly do glitter, a fact that has seemed lost in the Olympian hype. you don't win silver. you lose gold declare several Nike billboards around Atlanta. Unfortunately, that misguided message captures the tone of much of the coverage and promotion of the Games. The winner-take-all ethos dates to the time of the ancient Games, when life-sized statues were erected to commemorate victors and also-rans were shamed. But just making today's Olympics is a phenomenal feat, and qualifying for a final race or game is extraordinary. Though we understand why U.S. silver medalist Eric Namesnik was disappointed after losing to nemesis Tom Dolan in Sunday's 400-meter individual medley (Olympic Daily, July 22), it's still disheartening to hear him say sadly, "People always tell me I'm second fiddle." In a world population of some five billion, second fiddle—and third fiddle, for that matter—is something to be proud of.
Sunday's dressage performance by equestrians Karen and David O'Connor gave the United States the early lead in the team three-day event (which ends tomorrow) and positioned the U.S. for a medal run. Afterward, David wasn't sure to whom he should whisper sweet nothings: Karen, who happens to be his wife, or Giltedge, his horse, who is owned by candy-bar heiress Jacqueline Mars. Guess he didn't even like the cowboys.
American swimmer Misty Hyman At the U.S. swimming trials in March, Misty Hyman of Phoenix barely missed making the team in the 100- and 200-meter butterfly. But since then, with help from nature's swimmers, she has proved herself to be of Olympic caliber. Inspired by a Scientific American article describing how fish use spinning thrusts of their tails to boost speed, Hyman and her coach, Bob Gillett, developed the "fish kick." Hyman (above), who enters the water sideways and uses a horizontal kick instead of the butterflyer's traditional vertical thrusts, got faster as she perfected her style. At a May meet she beat all four U.S. Olympic butterflyers. Her 2:11.32 time in the 200 propelled her to No. 1 in the U.S. rankings. Curiously, Hyman is an Aries, not a Pisces.
Wall-to-wall coverage of the Games in foreign lands goes on even though many events are shown at times usually reserved for test patterns. In Australia, the gold medal shooting effort of native son Michael Diamond was seen live on Network Seven at 7 a.m. Well, not exactly. The network was in commercial as Diamond made his decisive shot. All of Sweden is agog over the strong performance of its athletes, and—Herregud!—table tennis hasn't even started yet. Hours after much of the country tuned in at 3 a.m. on Monday to watch the men's 4¥200 relay team swim to a silver, the Expressen in Stockholm splashed the headline: silver-fiskarna! (That's "silverfish," folks.) Perhaps no nation was as swept up by Olympic triumph as Japan after its soccer win over Brazil on Sunday. "The game began at about 7 a.m., when everyone was commuting," says Yoko Kagawa, a reporter with Chunichi Shimbun, "but there are TVs at many subway stations, and everyone was watching." Shimbun's banner headlines read historic moment! grabbing miracle! open the door of history! Finally, the triumph of swimmer Michelle Smith in the 400-meter individual medley galvanized Ireland even though it happened, as one Irish journalist put it, "at half-one in the morning." Some pubs are open late for the Games, including one near Dublin frequented by Smith's father, where the revelry went on all night. Now, that's a sports bar. For months after his arrest for the murder of former U.S. Olympic wrestler Dave Schultz on Jan. 29, millionaire jock-sniffer John du Pont continued to disrupt the wrestling community. Sixteen wrestlers, including 136.5-pound Olympian Tom Brands, became pariahs by continuing to accept money from du Pont's Team Foxcatcher. (Brands is no longer affiliated with Foxcatcher.) But if you think the du Pont saga had taken its final weird turn, guess again. Last month, the zoning board in Newtown (Pa.) Township, where du Pont's 800-acre estate is located, ruled that several changes believed to have been ordered by du Pont after his arrest violated local zoning laws. Among the new features are a barbed-wire fence, a guardhouse, several rusty bear traps and a sign at the front gate proclaiming the property foxcatcher prison farm.
Linda Jackson Canadian road-racing cyclist, on her post-Olympic dreams of having a child: "First I need a date." |
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SI Olympic Dailies
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