Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 16, 1995 TAG: 9507170033
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ATLANTA LENGTH: Long
Olympics organizers have said it until they are as blue in the face as their official mascot, Izzy: The 1996 Atlanta Games will be on time, on budget and the best ever.
Their chance to prove it is one year away.
Once the improbable dream of Atlanta lawyer Billy Payne and a few of his pals, the moment of truth finally is coming into view. With 85,000 people filling a new stadium, and millions more watching live on prime-time television, Atlanta's torch will be lighted on what figures to be a typically humid evening July 19, 1996.
In turns envied, admired and derided for landing the Centennial Olympic Games, Atlanta has long waited for the opportunity to prove to the world that this Deep South city is not in too deep.
In many big ways, Atlanta appears ready to make good on its promise.
A majestic Olympic stadium and other sports venues across and beyond the city are taking shape, some nearly completed. Television rights have been sold for record sums, and ticket sales are off to a strong start.
The area's best and brightest have devised a plan they assure will prevent gridlock in this car-crazy town. Jackhammers furnish Atlanta's summer soundtrack as crumbling bridges and streets are rebuilt.
City leaders teem with confidence.
``Nobody thought Atlanta had a chance of winning the Olympics, and I think it's that same cynical sense that causes people to doubt our ability to do it,'' said Mayor Bill Campbell.
``All you can do is to do the best you can,'' he said. ``The best revenge is living well.''
If Payne, the president of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, ever entertained doubts Atlanta's Games would be a roaring success, he has hid them well.
``I've always felt good,'' Payne said. ``That's my job.''
Skeptics, he said, will be proved wrong. Yet things keep happening to encourage the doubters:
Hotels are accused of flouting a law designed to bar price-gouging. Rural Barrow County refused to let Somali athletes train, a payback for wrongs against U.S. troops in 1993. Organizers angered people across the state by giving politicians a break on hard-to-get tickets. Advocates for the poor say the city has blown a once-in-a-lifetime chance to help Atlanta's neediest citizens.
And money, always money, stays in the forefront.
Unlike most Olympic Games, Atlanta's are being financed without major government help.
So even as the pages of the calendar flip toward the final months, the organizing committee likely will be searching every nook and cranny to raise enough dollars from corporate sponsors to meet its $1.58 billion budget.
That could mean more deals that make Olympic purists cringe - such as the one that made ``Wheel of Fortune'' and ``Jeopardy'' the official game shows of the Games. The Games have put an ``official'' stamp on everything from jet planes to pistachio nuts.
What has long made folks in Atlanta cringe is the thought that their city, a mere babe on the international stage, will embarrass itself before the largest audience in history.
Atlanta residents, even those who eagerly await the Games, are impatient for proof the city really is ready.
``The biggest thing the Olympics are going to do for Atlanta is we'll truly become an international city 15 years before we would have ... but we've got to get on with the show,'' said Stuart A. Peebles, who owns an office-supply store a few blocks from three of the major Olympic venues.
``I've had people ask me on the street: Where do you buy a foreign newspaper in Atlanta? Where's a foreign exchange? We've got to start doing that,'' he said.
The allegations of price gouging by some Atlantans prompted state consumer officials to begin several investigations, although no charges have been brought.
The Somali team quickly found a new training home in Gordon County. And the organizing committee is playing down the dispute as an isolated incident.
The committee staunchly defended its ticket policy, even though some lawmakers who were potential recipients denounced it. The plan won praise from Dick Pound of the International Olympic Committee, who said at least the politicians were paying for their seats.
With most of the Olympic activity occurring downtown, Atlanta's penchant for traffic jams has resident Dick Ehni concerned. A traffic management plan that closes most downtown streets to individual cars offers scant comfort, he said.
``You can't plan enough,'' Ehni said. ``All you need is one rotten apple to mess up ... and all heck breaks loose.''
The traffic may run as calmly as a Georgia creek. The city may shine like none before. The athletes may run, jump and dive into the record books.
But to some, the Games already have failed.
``Five years ago, I had high hopes for what the Olympics could do to benefit the community. It's a dead issue now,'' said the Rev. Tim McDonald, who heads the Olympic Conscience Coalition, an advocacy group for the poor in Atlanta. ``A few people have benefited - in the construction industry, particularly.''
The huge influx of money into Atlanta for the Games should have created a windfall of job training programs and development in poor neighborhoods, McDonald said.
McDonald's notion of lost opportunity is not universally shared in Atlanta's poor neighborhoods.
In Summerhill, a community near the site of the Olympic stadium whose vacant lots provide a jarring contrast to the skyscrapers that tower nearby, banks are financing construction of new homes and businesses.
``No doubt about it. First Union and NationsBank wouldn't be here if not for the Olympics,'' said Douglas Dean, a Summerhill community leader.
``Crumbs from the table,'' said McDonald, who plans demonstrations during the Olympics to bring attention to problems such as homelessness.
``When the international press comes in, they're going to be looking for an issue. And we're going to give it to them on a silver platter,'' he said. ``I don't have a monopoly on truth, but there is another side of the story than Billy Payne's.''
by CNB