XXVI Olympiad

Carl Posey

Description

XXVI Olympiad, the twenty-fourth volume in The Olympic Century series, begins with the celebration of the centenary of the modern Olympic movement at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games. Atlanta played host to a then-record 197 nations, many of which did not exist when the modern Olympics began in 1896.The Atlanta Games were an Olympics of firsts: they were the first Summer Games since 1920 that were not celebrated in the same year as the Winter Games, and 14 nations would win their first-ever Olympic medal in Atlanta. The book profiles heroes of the Games like sprinter Deon Hemming, who won the first ever gold medal for Jamaica, and the US women's soccer team, which claimed gold in the first Olympic tournament for women in that sport. Other athletes profiled include Canadian sprinter Donovan Bailey, who won the dramatic 100-metre final in a world record time of 9.84 seconds, then went on to add another gold in the 4x100 relay. The book also recounts the tragic bombing of Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta during the Games that killed two people and injured 111 others.Following Atlanta, the book explores the 1998 Winter Games of Nagano, Japan. It profiles stars like 15-year-old American figure skater Tara Lipinski, who became the youngest ever Winter Olympic champion in an individual event, and Norwegian cross-country skier Bjorn Daehlie, who won three golds to take his personal total to eight from three Games.Juan Antonio Samaranch, former President of the International Olympic Committee, called The Olympic Century, "The most comprehensive history of the Olympic games ever published".

Informations

• Publié par: Warwick Press Inc.
• Date de parution: 18 novembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781987944235
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

THE OLYMPIC CENTURY THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE MODERN OLYMPIC MOVEMENT VOLUME 24
THE XXVI OLYMPIAD
ATLANTA 1996 NAGANO 1998
by Carl A. Posey
W
Warwick Press Inc. Toronto
Copyright 1996 WSRP
The Olympic Century series was produced as a joint effort among the International Olympic Committee, the United States Olympic Committee, and World Sport Research Publications, to provide an official continuity series that will serve as a permanent on-line Olympic education program for individuals, schools, and public libraries.
Published by:
Warwick Press Inc., Toronto
www.olympicbooks.com
1st Century Project: Charles Gary Allison
Publishers: Robert G. Rossi, Jim Williamson, Rona Wooley
Editors: Christian D. Kinney, Laura Forman
Art Director: Christopher M. Register
Picture Editors: Lisa Bruno, Debora Lemmons
Digital Imaging: Richard P. Majeske
Associate Editor, Research: Mark Brewin
Associate Editor, Appendix: Elsa Ramirez
Designers: Kimberley Davison, Diane Myers, Chris Conlee
Staff Researchers: Brad Haynes, Alexandra Hesse, Pauline Ploquin
Copy Editor: Harry Endrulat
Venue Map Artist: Dave Hader, Studio Conceptions, Toronto
Fact Verification: Carl and Liselott Diem Archives of the German Sport University at Cologne, Germany
Statistics: Bill Mallon, Walter Teutenberg
Memorabilia Consultants: Manfred Bergman, James D. Greensfelder, John P. Kelly, James B. Lally, Ingrid O Neil
Office Staff: Diana Fakiola, Brian M. Heath, Edward J. Messier, Brian P. Rand, Robert S. Vassallo, Chris Waters
Senior Consultant: Dr. Dietrich Quanz (Germany)
Special Consultants: Walter Borgers, Dr. Karl Lennartz, Dr. Dietrich Quanz, Dr. Norbert Mueller (Germany), Ian Buchanan (United Kingdom), Wolf Lyberg (Sweden), Dr. Nicholas Yalouris (Greece).
International Contributors: Jean Durry (France), Dr. Fernand Landry (Canada), Dr. Antonio Lombardo (Italy), Dr. John A. MacAloon (U.S.A.), Dr. Jujiro Narita (Japan), C. Robert Paul (U.S.A.), Dr. Roland Renson (Belgium), Anthony Th. Bijkirk (Netherlands), Dr. James Walston (Ombudsman)
International Research and Assistance: John S. Baick (New York), Matthieu Brocart (Paris), Alexander Fakiolas (Athens), Bob Miyakawa (Tokyo), Rona Lester (London), Dominic LoTempio (Columbia), George Kostas Mazareas (Boston), Georgia McDonald (Colorado Springs), Wendy Nolan (Princeton), Alexander Ratner (Moscow), Jon Simon (Washington, D.C.), Frank Strasser (Cologne), Val ry Turco (Lausanne), Laura Walden (Rome), Jorge Zocchi (Mexico City)
All rights reserved. No part of The Olympic Century book series may be copied, republished, stored in a retrieval system, or otherwise reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without the prior written consent of the IOC, the USOC, and WSRP.
eBook Conversion: eBook Partnership, United Kingdom
ISBN 978-1-987944-24-2 (24 Volume Series)
ISBN 978-1-987944-23-5 (Volume 24)
CONTENTS
I AMERICA S GAMES
ESSAY: LEGENDS
II THE FOREIGN LEGION
III ANATOMY OF A SCANDAL
IV MOMENTS IN TIME
Appendix
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS / PHOTO CREDITS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
THE CENTENNIAL AND THE SOUTH
More than just another Olympic Games, Atlanta 1996 was the 100th anniversary of the world s grandest sports festival. That milestone and the ethos of the American South were the two motifs of the Games long and elaborate opening ceremony.
It began with drums booming a summons to the nations of the world. A horde of children and colorfully clad figures representing spirits poured onto the Olympic stadium s infield, maneuvering to form patterns: the interlocking Olympic rings, a 100 commemorating the centennial, and a dove symbolizing peace.
Next came the tribute to the South, New and Old, starting with a football-night theme that featured ranks of cheerleaders and a phalanx of silver pickup trucks. In their wake, Gladys Knight sang the nostalgic Georgia on My Mind, the Games unofficial anthem. As its strains died away, the eerily lit field filled with dancers whose shimmering, diaphanous garb evoked the soft mysteries of firefly-laden Southern nights.
Revving up again, the pageant paid tribute to the Mississippi River, the Civil War, and the South s postwar rebirth before moving about two and a half millennia back in history to pay homage to the ancient Olympics. The centerpiece here was a tableau of giant shadows representing the athletes of Greek antiquity. Runners followed with banners from all the modern Games, linking past and present and cuing the current Olympians to take the field.
It was the largest parade ever assembled for an Olympic Games, with 197 delegations and almost 11,000 athletes and officials. These centennial Olympians would participate in a record number of events, 271, and 209 million Americans would cheer them on by tuning in an average of26 hours of TV coverage during the 16-day spectacle. Once all the athletes in the Parade of Nations were assembled, the Olympic flag was raised, and President Bill Clinton declared the Games open. Then came a tribute to Atlanta native son Martin Luther King Jr., the great civil rights leader, followed by the lighting of the Olympic flame by boxer Muhammad Ali.
AMERICA S GAMES
ATLANTA 1996
In some respects, Michael Johnson s blazing speed seemed almost improbable. He had a curiously tapered physique with a large, heavily defined thorax atop a muscular lower body that looked as if it belonged to a smaller man. His running style was strange, too---a stiff-backed scamper that reminded some people of Jesse Owens, others of Dagwood. Nevertheless, in the months leading up to the 1996 Atlanta Games, the Johnson shape had become as familiar around the world as the leggy length of Princess Diana or the metallic massiveness of the Statue of Liberty.
Indeed, the 28-year-old Johnson had become a poster boy not just for track and field or for his specialty-a counterintuitive parlay of the 200- and 400-meter sprints-but for almost everything. He was the good son, the incorruptibly clean-veined track hero from Texas, the antithesis of that other sprinting Johnson-the Canadian one named Ben-whose tangled chemistry had cost him his Seoul gold medal in 1988. Michael s image was on everything, everywhere.
He might be taciturn, he might scowl-and yet he might also be adored by all who were touched by his speed around the track, his modest demeanor on the tube, the intimations of friendly wisdom in his USA TODAY column and on multilingual websites.
Worthy challengers would meet him in Atlanta. One was even more private than Johnson, but, some said, considerably warmer: Frank Fredericks, a 29-year-old Namibian with dazzling velocity on the track. Where Johnson was a 200- and 400-meter man, Fredericks had taken a more conventional route, running the 100 and 200 meters. He had been a trainee at the Rossing Uranium Mine in Namibia and a sprinter in 1987 when a Brigham Young University coach spotted him at a meet in neighboring South Africa. Sponsored by Rossing, Fredericks had moved to Provo, Utah, to pursue his education and his sport. In 1991 he became the first foreign man to win both the 100- and 200-meter American collegiate championships. The next year he was in Barcelona, where he won two silver medals. Johnson and Fredericks went back a ways, to contests when one ran for Baylor University, the other for Brigham Young. Alike in their quiet reserve, the two runners had always been friendly opponents. Now, however, their rivalry was sharper. The Namibian champion was borne to Atlanta on a breaking wave of remarkable victories. At a meet in Helsinki, Finland, on June 25, Fredericks had run the 100 meters in 9.87. Less than two weeks later, he ran the 100 in 9.86 in Lausanne, closing in on Leroy Burrell s 9.85 world record.
Below: Namibia s Frank Fredericks leans into the turn in a 200-meter heat. In the semifinals, Fredericks ran the course in 19.98 seconds, sending a message to Michael Johnson that the winner of the final would have to finish in under 20 seconds.

Then, on July 5 in Oslo, Norway, Frank Fredericks had bucked a head wind to run the 200 meters in 19.82--0.03 of a second ahead of Michael Johnson. It was not a good omen for Johnson, who had set a stunning 19.66 world record at the U.S. Olympic trials in Atlanta only the week before and who had, until Oslo, a string of 21 consecutive wins in the event. The delighted Fredericks played down the significance of his victory. I don t think anyone is unbeatable, he told a reporter after the Oslo race. No one is bigger than the sport. No one, he implied, including Johnson. And indeed, Namibia s hero had arrived in Atlanta as a contender to win his two events-the Quixote who just might beat the unbeatable Michael Johnson in the 200.
In truth, though, presumed challengers to Johnson in Atlanta were largely illusory, their presence a way of disguising the boring inevitability of a sure thing. Defeat in Oslo had lent a patina of athletic mortality to the frontrunner, but he was still the odds-on favorite to take both his events and thereby make Olympic history as the first man to do it. Johnson had won both events at the 1995 world championships, and he came to Atlanta with 54 consecutive victories in the 400 meters. Maybe it would be two gold medals plus two world records. Or maybe it would be like the dismal outcome of the Barcelona Games, where Johnson, weakened by some toxic seafood, faded miserably in the semifinals-behind Frank Fredericks, in fact. Johnson s only gold medal had been in a relay.
Sensing history in the making at Atlanta, the International Amateur Athletic Federation, with IOC approval, changed the schedule to give Johnson a bit more time between his two events, a bit more exposure. His finals slid into the further nocturnal reaches of American television prime time, requiring viewers to stay with the show right up to the climactic end. The point was to persuade people that anything could happen. Some degree