On a September morning in 1990, the citizens of Atlanta,
Georgia, considered the “hub” of the southeastern United
States, were ecstatic as they woke up to stunning, not
really expected, but hoped for, news. Indeed the entire state
of Georgia, as well as the nation, celebrated what was now
fact, Atlanta had been selected to host the 1996 Summer
Olympics, known formally as the Games of the XXVI Olympiad
and informally as the Centennial Olympics.
The birthplace of the Olympics, Athens, Greece, had been favored
by many to win the bid as host city for the 1996 event since it
would mark the 100th anniversary of the modern Games.
And when the US went to bed the night of September 17,
1990, it was Athens in control of the voting of the International
Olympic Committee, up three votes over Atlanta, the nearest
of five other cities around the world competing for the Games,
and only one more round of voting to go.
Then September 18, 1990, arrived to meet the amazement and
delight of the city of Atlanta, and the entire United States.
On this, the final date of voting, the IOC, meeting at the 96th
Session in Tokyo, Japan, cast 51 votes for Atlanta and only 35
for Athens, predicting Athens could not improve its infrastructure
sufficiently enough in time to successfully host the 1996 Games.
The world’s Olympians, still years away from qualifying, would
be Atlanta bound in due time, and would want to brush up on
their English rather than Greek.
Nearly six years sounds like a long time but, considering all the
tremendous tasks at hand in preparing for an Olympics, it isn’t.
Atlanta’s Olympic Committee set out soon after their successful
bid to prepare for Games costing a total of $1.8 Billion to host,
using no public funds for the first time in Olympic history,
only ticket sales, advertising, commercial endorsements and
private money. As might be expected, the Atlanta Games received
a bit of critical opinion for being over commercialized and less exciting
than previous Olympics.
Some 19 venues for the Atlanta Olympics were constructed,
renovated, altered, or otherwise prepared for use, including
those as far away as Savannah, Gainesville, and Columbus, Georgia,
as well as Birmingham, Alabama and Polk County, Tennessee.
Centennial Olympic Park, still in use today, was designed and built
as the “town square” of these Games, a place for concerts, souvenir
and food sales, and general gathering of the hoards to simply sit,
rest, talk, and refresh.
In spite of the overall success of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics,
with several world records broken, a record 197 nations
participating, 14 of which were making their Olympic debut,
and 10,320 athletes having taken part in 271 events in 26 sports,
these particular Olympic games will always be best remembered for
the tragic occurrence at Centennial Olympic Park in the wee
hours of July 27, 1996.
A crowd of thousands had gathered in the park for a late
night concert by the band “Jack Mack and the Heart Attack”.
Sometime after midnight, a former US Army explosives expert,
Eric Robert Rudolph, who the Department of Justice didn’t
formally name as a suspect until May, 1998, nearly two years
later, planted a green US Army knapsack near the base of
a concert sound tower. Sliding the bag containing three pipe
bombs surrounded by nails underneath a bench, Rudolph
promptly left the area and the device he had constructed to deliver
death and injury to unknown innocents.
The deadly pack had a directed charge, and would likely have done
more destruction had it not been overturned at some point, likely, and fortunately,
kicked over by someone who sat down on the bench.
It wasn’t long before security guard Richard Jewell discovered
the knapsack, alerted Georgia Bureau of Investigation officers,
and Jewell and other security guards began clearing the
immediate area to allow a bomb squad to examine the
suspicious package.
Approximately ten minutes after discovery, at 1:20 AM, the bombs
exploded, killing a Georgia woman, Alice Hawthorne, when struck in the
head by a nail. The death of Turkish cameraman Melih Uzunyol is also
attributed to the bombing, having died of a heart attack suffered while furiously
running to cover the blast. The wounded totaled 111.
Richard Jewell was initially hailed as a hero for his role in
discovering the bomb and quickly moving the spectators from
the scene, but that perception of Jewell didn’t last long. Just
four days after the bombing, various news organizations were
reporting him as a potential suspect. At that time, Rudolph
was unknown to authorities, the profile of a lone bomber
made sense to FBI and GBI investigators, and Jewell was
added to their suspect list, though he was never arrested
or named as more than a “person of interest”.
His home, where he lived with his mother, was searched, and he was unable to
leave it without a media storm of cameras following his every
move, even trips to the grocery store. An exhaustive background
search came up clean and, eventually, Jewell was again hailed
as a hero.
After Jewell was cleared, the FBI admitted it had no other
suspects, and little progress was made in the investigation
for several months. Then, in early 1997, two more bombings
took place in the Atlanta area, at an abortion clinic and at a
lesbian nightclub, convincing investigators that a hardened
terrorist was on the loose.
In short order another abortion clinic was bombed, in Birmingham, Alabama,
killing a policeman working as a security guard, and seriously injuring a nurse.
But this time investigators were able to garner critical clues, including a
partial license plate which led the FBI to identify Eric Robert Rudolph as
the primary suspect. Becoming the nation’s most wanted domestic terrorist, Rudolph
eluded capture several years until he was finally arrested on
May 31, 2003, in Murray, North Carolina.
A ninth grade dropout to join the US Army, from which he was
discharged in 1989 for marijuana use, Rudolph had connections
since early childhood to anti-Semitic, racist and anti-government
movements or groups. He was especially immersed in the extreme
sentiments of a group known as “Christian Identity”, a virulently
anti-Semitic “religious” sect fiercely opposed to abortion,
race-mixing, and homosexuality. While Rudolph lived his life
practicing all of these views, adhering to the rhetoric, he never
officially joined any of the hate groups but followed them from
outside their ranks.
Rudolph was believed to have acted independently in all four bombings,
ncluding the Centennial Olympic Park attack, was brought to trial as such,
and pleaded guilty to each accordingly.
In a written April 13, 2005 statement, Rudolph attempted to
justify his bombing at Centennial Olympic Park. Political in
nature, it read in part: ” The purpose of the attack on July 27
was to confound, anger and embarrass the Washington
government in the eyes of the world for its abominable
sanctioning of abortion on demand. The plan was to force
the cancellation of the games, or at least create a state of
insecurity to empty the streets around the venues and thereby
eat into the vast amounts of money invested.”
As it was, officials and athletes of course agreed that, despite
the tragedy, the Olympic spirit should prevail and the games
should continue as planned. The 1996 Atlanta Olympics were
remarkable in many positive ways, setting several records, with
more countries and athletes represented than any Olympic
Games before, and they were financially profitable.
However, in his ceremonial closing speech on August 9, 1996,
IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch said “Well done, Atlanta”
and called the Games “most exceptional”, but he broke precedent in
failing to refer to them as “the best ever” as he had at every closing
ceremony while he was IOC president.
Many think this was an intentional omission due to certain issues
such as the Atlanta Games’ over-commercialism, as well as technology
and transportation problems. Not to mention the City of Atlanta had
been found to be competing with the IOC for advertising and sponsorship dollars,
which obviously didn’t please Samaranch.
But it’s also reasonable to think the IOC president simply couldn’t
bring himself to say “best ever” of Olympic Games in which two persons
lost their lives and more than 100 others injured due to terrorism.
Four years later, Samaranch closed the Sydney Olympics by calling them
“the best ever”.
To be spared a possible death sentence, Eric Robert Rudolph
agreed to a deal with federal prosecutors and revealed the
location of a stash of dangerous explosives he had buried in
Cherokee County, North Carolina. He will live out his days at
ADX Florence supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, where
he is serving four life terms without possibilty of parole.
He’ll have some rather well known, but not particularly desirable, company
to spend the rest of his life with at ADX Florence:
Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber); Terry Nichols (1995 Oklahoma
City bombing); Ramzi Yousef (1993 World Trade Center bombing);
and Zacarias Moussaoui (9/11/01 attacks on the World Trade Center
and Pentagon)
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