Whatwuzit?: The 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics Reconsidered
S Zebulon Baker (compiler), Emory University
Illustrations by Kerry Soper, Brigham Young University
Illustrations by Kerry Soper, Brigham Young University
Abstract:
This gateway looks back at Atlanta's Olympic Games
ten years after the 1996 Opening Ceremony. Many of the links featured
have become internet historic sites, not updated since the Olympic flame
was extinguished. They establish a lasting reminder of both how news organizations
reported the Games and how the Games, as the first Olympics prominently
featured on the worldwide web, have been digitally preserved. Featured
sections examine the Atlanta Games and the Olympics' engagement with civic,
regional and national identities. All illustrations on this gateway were
created by Kerry Soper and are taken from the 1996 Southern Changes
article, "The
Disposable Olympics Meets the City of Hype," by Preston Quesenberry.
They help to illustrate sentiments critical of the Games' impact on the
Atlanta landscape by highlighting the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic
Games' attempts to "clean up the city" for the Olympics and by the extensive
commercialization of the Olympic movement.
Gateway Sections:
Opening:
If International Olympic
Committee (IOC) President Juan Antonio Samaranch's address to the
closing ceremonies of the 1996
Summer Olympic Games is remembered at all, it is for his unwillingness
to bestow Atlanta's Games with the honor of "the greatest in Olympic
history" - that coveted rhetorical flourish lauding the host city's
organizing efforts. Unbridled commercialism, poor and unreliable
public transportation, a deadly terrorist attack on Centennial
Olympic Park: such significant failures shaped Samaranch's verdict
that these Olympic Games were "most exceptional," but not "the greatest."
His speech, however, gestured toward Atlanta's emerging place on
the world stage. "For one hundred years, the Olympic Games have
inspired great dreams," he rhapsodized. "Today, the dream has come
true for Atlanta, which will forever be an Olympic city."
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Samaranch's words were as much a curse as they were
a blessing. After all, the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games were an ephemeral
moment as much as a transformative mark on the city's landscape: a moment
when Atlanta would claim its place on the international stage. This gateway
reconsiders this prevailing proposition, exploring how the Games were
constructed in popular discourses and how civic boosters' desire for Atlanta's
international notoriety was juxtaposed with its history as a southern
space.
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