THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 10, 1996 TAG: 9604100504
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
With 100 days to go until the Summer Games, we are told that the biggest problem facing Atlanta is not what we think.
It's not stadiums that fall down. Or the threat of terrorism.
It's not gridlock on the highways, or where to hide the homeless when the world comes to visit.
By now, people even seem to be taking in stride the infamous Atlanta crime wave - otherwise known as price gouging.
No. What apparently most worries the folks running the 'Lympics in 'Lanta is the oncoming heat and humidity.
Asked recently what he most feared might wilt enthusiasm for the Coca-Cola Classic, Billy Payne, president of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, said, ``I'd put the weather probably at the top of the list.''
So, then: Let the sweating begin.
If Atlanta doesn't like that motto, I offer another: Better muggy than a mugging.
The ACOG is free to print these suggestions on bumper stickers. Consider it my donation to the Olympic effort.
As for the heat, a 39.3 percent chance of above-normal temperatures for the Olympics are predicted by the National Weather Service.
The opening ceremony is July 19. On that date last year, the temperature in Atlanta was 98. The next day it was 99. By July 25, the mercury climbed to 102.
Officials are taking precautions to help Olympic athletes, including the horses in the equestrian competition, deal with the extreme heat. But the fans? They're on their own.
``An elite athlete,'' pointed out Dr. David E. Martin, professor of cardiopulmonary care sciences at Georgia State University, is better equipped for the excessive heat ``than the average blob who's a spectator.''
Paying customers, he says, ``need to pretend they are Olympians and prepare. They need to start walking three or four miles a day.''
As if some of the poor blobs won't suffer enough as it is.
It has been estimated that a family of four with an average of $1,500 worth of tickets to Olympic events will pay $2,600 to stay six nights in a motel about 100 miles from town.
And after creeping into Atlanta on buses, ticket holders will be required to pass through metal detectors at each venue, while their handbags and backpacks are searched.
Security in Atlanta will be heavier than the air that advances a thunderstorm, and tighter than at any previous Games. The result will be a slow procession of overheated folks filing into each event.
Nobody doubts the Olympics are going to look good on television, but what impression will Atlanta leave with the people actually breathing its hot, heavy air?
Georgia Attorney General Mike Bowers said he'd rather walk the streets of Sarajevo than venture into downtown Atlanta. With an endorsement like that, who needs outsiders sniping away?
To stage these Olympics, Atlanta must absorb insults, combat terrorism, inconvenience the average working stiff, dislocate the homeless, tie up traffic, squeeze 2 million hot, sweaty people inside the 3-mile wide Olympic Ring, overcharge visitors, ask spectators to walk single-file through metal detectors, and threaten every man, woman, child and horse with heat prostration.
All this to identify the world's best synchronized swimmer.
It's worth it, don't you think? by CNB