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| Michael Johnson at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta |
KEY FACTS
Dates: July 19 - August 4
Other candidate cities: Athens, Toronto, Melbourne, Manchester, Belgrade
Mascot: Izzy, a two-headed multi-coloured toad
Participants: 10,318 (3,512 women)
Participating nations: 197
Disciplines: 26
Events: 271
Medals given out: 1,933
IOC president: J. A Samaranch (Spain)
Games declared open by: Bill Clinton (President of US)
Last relay bearer of the Olympic flame: Muhammad Ali (former Olympic and professional boxer: US)
Flame lit by: Muhammad Ali
Olympic oath read by: Teresa Edwards (basketball - United States)
Television rights: $896.952 million
Accredited journalists: 19,161 (including technicians)
ANECDOTES
Replacement medal
The IOC presented Muhammad Ali with an Olympic gold medal to replace the one which he allegedly lost after the Games in 1960. The story goes that Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, threw the medal into a river in a fit of rage after being refused entry to a “whites only” restaurant in Ohio.
Hong Kong Star
Lai Shan Lee bagged a last gasp medal for Hong Kong at their eleventh Olympics with a gold in wind surfing. It was the port city's first ever medal at their last ever Olympics as the city then became part of China.
Straggler
Laos’s Sirivanh Ketavong took an astonishingly long 3h 25 min and 14 sec to complete the marathon. She crossed the finish line an hour after Ethiopia's Fatuma Roba, eventual winner of the event. Yet Ketavong’s name would not feature in the final results — the sheet having been finalised and sent 20 minutes before her arrival.
EXPLOIT
If Carl Lewis, previously indisputable as king of track and field, was left to pick up only one medal in Atlanta, then a significant consolation was that his ninth Olympic gold assured him of a permanent place in the history of the Olympic Games. But it was his compatriot Michael Johnson who would become the main attraction in Atlanta, with a double gold victory in the 200m (and world record of 19:32sec) and 400m.
SUMMARY
Twenty-four years after the Munich massacre, the Atlanta Olympics of 1996 fell victim to a bomb planted in a city centre park by an American right-wing extremist that killed two and injured more than a hundred.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) were swift to declare that the Games would go on.
The bomber was identified and the FBI offered a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest, getting their man five years later.
Two days ahead of the opening ceremony a TWA plane had crashed into the seas off New York killing all 230 passengers. The two incidents led to an atmosphere of paranoia.
The choice of Atlanta had originally caused quite a stir, many believing Athens should have hosted them while during the event itself there was virulent criticism of both rampant consumerism and overt partisanship from the US public. IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch dealt the Games its death blow when he failed in his closing ceremony speech to give the habitual thanks to Atlanta for hosting “the greatest Games ever”. Lewis, Johnson and gymnasts bring home joy. But these unloved Games did in fact provide some excellent sporting spectacles.
America’s Michael Johnson managed a groundbreaking double gold in the 200m-400m sprint with the added spice of setting a world record time of 19.32sec in the shorter race.
Carl Lewis joined Finland’s all time great middle distance runner Paavo Nurmi in the record books by securing his ninth title, which came in the long-jump and was his fourth consecutive gold in the event. Canada’s Donovan Bailey went some way to erasing the memory of Ben Johnson’s shame by winning the 100m sprint and also smashing the world record with a time of 9.84sec.
