THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 28, 1996 TAG: 9607280229
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: The Olympics '96: From Atlanta
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
From Atlanta
LENGTH: 68 lines
Until Saturday, the restaurant in the Main Press Center afforded one of the loveliest views of Centennial Olympic Park.
Now the third-story windows overlook a crime scene.
Overnight, dozens of ominous, little red flags had sprouted from the grass, now littered with shrapnel from the pipe bomb that went off in a crowd at 1:19 a.m.
Under a tent, men with FBI jackets examined a crater about 6 inches deep and 3 feet in diameter. Yellow tape and metal barricades kept people out of the park, while inside the restaurant, photographers leaned their telescopic lenses against the windows and took pictures.
Will this, then, be the snapshot we carry away from the Atlanta Games?
Of law men sifting through the wreckage of a dream? Of the Olympic flag lowered to half-staff?
``The spirit has been tainted,'' said Matt Ghaffari, the American who won silver in Greco-Roman wrestling.
Ghaffari stood in front of the press center Saturday morning. Like the rest of us, he waited while a sweep of the building was conducted. His wrestling complete, he had reported to work as an Olympic volunteer.
``The negative stigma of this is going to say,'' he said. ``The '72 Olympics was the terrorist attack, '96 in Atlanta will be the pipe bomb.''
Ghaffari wasn't asked to compare the magnitude of the two tragedies, which is just as well. There is no comparison.
Still, if the Games went on in Munich while Arab terrorists were murdering 11 members of the Israeli delegation, the games would have to go on Saturday without missing a beat.
When the hard rain of morning passed, the streets of the Olympic ring filled with smiling people headed for their venues.
At the press center, an official for the Atlanta Committee of the Olympic Games was pleased to announce that attendance at all events would be up over the day before.
``Attendance at the Olympic Stadium,'' he said, ``is 95 percent capacity.''
Somewhere in this city, I'm sure, people are grieving. They are not, one presumes, in possession of wildly expensive Olympic tickets.
Or in the streets, swigging beer at 11:30 in the morning.
On Spring Street near the Westin Hotel, people took turns having their pictures taken with a man dressed in a bird suit.
Around the corner, the ``New Orleans Good Time Cafe,'' one of the makeshift kiosks that gives downtown a tacky feel, blared Dixieland music from a sound system.
In the next block, a woman waved a Bible and promised damnation to evil fornicators, while cops and National Guardsmen in fatigues looked on from behind barriers.
Centennial Park was closed. But otherwise, it was business as usual.
Though the sky was somber and threatening, it did not reflect the mood of the Olympic customer, who seems to have adopted an attitude articulated by U.S. basketball player Charles Barkley: ``If we go home, we let the a------- win.''
Nobody suggests we go home. But not everyone can pretend that the bomb hasn't changed these Olympics.
``The person who is competing today is worried that their family won't be safe getting to the venue to see them,'' Ghaffari was saying. ``That will be on their mind.''
A bear of a man at 6-foot-4, 286 pounds, Ghaffari appears invulnerable. But the explosion assaulted his Olympic ideals.
``My joy is lessened today,'' he said. ``I'm sad for everybody.''
Sorry Charles, but it feels like the bad guys won.
KEYWORDS: OLYMPICS by CNB