ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, August 5, 1996 TAG: 9608050105
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Our Eyes in Atlanta
DATELINE: ATLANTA
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
NOTE: Above
For the second time in 12 years, the nations of the world came to the United States to play their Summer Games.
Expect them to be back soon.
The rest of the globe might not be too thrilled to hear this, but the Olympics need to be in the U.S. with a certain regularity.
It is U.S. corporate support that has fueled the Olympics since their second visit to Los Angeles in 1984, where Peter Ueberroth's promise to put on a commercially rooted Games turned a $223 million profit.
The Olympic movement gets its push in the States, and with the competition for marketing bucks, the Olympics need to be up close and personal with the people putting their millions into a festival they see only once every four years.
The U.S. Olympic Committee has told this to the IOC. The 2000 Games are in Sydney. The 2004 Games will be awarded in September 1997, and no U.S. city is among the 11 contenders.
If the Summer Games don't return to the United States in 2008, then 2012 would seem a certainty. John Krimsky, the USOC deputy secretary-general and the man who sells the Olympics in this country, said support will demand that.
Moving the Winter Games to alternating bienniums with the Summer Games will only help the Olympics. Salt Lake City has the 2002 Winter Games, which will help keep the Olympic flame burning in this country.
However, unless you're talking figure skating, the U.S. really doesn't get into the Winter Games. We are not good cold-weather sports. That's why the U.S. needs another Summer Games 12 or 16 years from now.
Atlanta beat Athens, Belgrade, Toronto, Manchester and Melbourne for the Centennial Games. The leading candidates in 2004 appear to be Cape Town, Rome and Stockholm, maybe not in that order. The list also includes Athens (again), San Juan, Buenos Aires, Istanbul and St. Petersburg - the Russian one.
When Atlanta was chosen as the U.S. bid city for 1996, it was picked by the USOC over Minneapolis-St. Paul and San Francisco.
Asked during these Games which U.S. city is best equipped, in terms of venues, to stage a Summer Games, a USOC executive who wanted anonymity listed Seattle and the Twin Cities.
Seattle has been host to a Goodwill Games, which will come to New York City in 1998. The Big Apple has expressed some Olympic interest for 2008, as have Chicago and Cincinnati. Houston was very visible in its lobbying in Atlanta for a "next century'' Olympics or at least a Pan American Games.
And why should the United States get its fifth Olympics so soon when so many are waiting? Besides the obvious financial answers, the IOC should check its history books.
After the financial bath taken by Montreal in 1976 and the boycotted Moscow Games that were little more than a Soviet party, the IOC had one city that really wanted the '84 Games. It was Tehran.
Los Angeles, with Ueberroth's leadership, said the Games didn't need government sponsors. He was right. He showed the Olympics a different way, a way that's worked here. Atlanta will turn a profit.
And, other than the transportation problems, Atlanta has done a nice job staging the Games. ACOG has sandwiched the Centennial Park bombing with hospitality and organization at the venues. The weather even cooperated.
The Bubba Games have been an unfailingly friendly Olympics, and have provided a platform - often the medal stand - for taking women's sports to new heights.
Atlanta has sold a record number of tickets, approaching 8.7 million. The pre-Games sales projection was 7.9 million. No Olympics sold more, and Sydney will have only 5.5 million to peddle.
If Atlanta erred, it was in allowing too much commercial clutter downtown. Every corner was occupied by someone selling something. There were plaster Elvises and Rhetts and Scarletts, rubber Gumbys and live Darth Vaders.
Wasn't Izzy bad enough? It was a tacky sight, and it wasn't necessary. However, it did speak of our entrepreneurial side, which saved the Olympics 12 years earlier.
Because of professional sports franchises in this country, the United States has the best infrastructure to stage the Summer Games. It has NBC, which is paying $3.5 billion for Games from Sydney through 2008 - and don't think the peacock network won't be lobbying for "home'' Games to boost ratings.
So, Georgia's capital city and the United States said, "Bye, y'all'' to the visitors from 196 visiting nations Sunday.
See you again soon.
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Flag bearers enter Olympic Stadium at the closingby CNBceremony of the 1996 Summer Games. color.