Centennial Olympic Park

 

Hi ya'll!! 

Does anyone remember the Olympics held in Atlanta in 1996? 

 

 

The 1996 Summer Olympics, known officially as the Games of the XXVI Olympiad and unofficially as the Centennial Olympic Games, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Atlanta, Georgia, from July 19 to August 4, 1996. A record 197 nations  took part in the Games, comprising 10,318 athletes. The Games had several iconic moments, some specific to particular sports, others extending far beyond the scope of athletics.

 

Muhammad Ali was the 'secret unveiling' of the Olympic torch lighter. 
Ali, standing proudly with the torch in his right hand, his left arm shaking from the Parkinson’s disease that had unfairly stripped him of his otherworldly strength, speed, and agility, gave these Olympics its crowning moment before the Games even began.  And that happened in Atlanta. 

 

Michael Johnson won the gold in the 200 meters and 400 meters. He set Olympic records in both. And did it in gold shoes. That happened in Atlanta

  

Kerri Strug landed a vault on one foot (the other foot was broken) to clinch the gold medal for “The Magnificent Seven,” the first for the United States women’s gymnastics team, and then was famously carried off  the vault line by coach Bela Karolyi. That’s Olympic lore. And that happened in Atlanta.  
 

 One of John Williams’s greatest works, “Summon the Heroes,” was created for the Games, as was Gloria Estefan’s Grammy-nominated “Reach.” There was Jackie Joyner-Kersee. And Dan O’Brien. And Carl Lewis. And Karch Kiraly. And gold medals for the United States in the inaugural women’s soccer and softball competitions. The first independent Olympics for 11 ex-Soviet nations, as well as an independent Russian team for the first time since 1912. There were an overwhelming number of feats to celebrate in these games. And they all happened in Atlanta.

But so did that bomb. Three pipe bombs, to be exact. And with that bomb, a city’s relationship with its own Olympic Games forever changed.

A walk through Centennial Olympic Park in 2016 doesn’t actively remind you that this is a place where one woman, Alice Hawthorne, was killed; a Turkish cameraman, Melih Uzunyol, suffered a fatal heart attack; and another man, Richard Jewell, had his life ruined when he was wrongfully accused as the Olympic Park bomber. The real culprit, Eric Robert Rudolph, was found in the North Carolina woods seven years later. (Grantland)

There are still landmarks easily observed and enjoyed by those that live in Atlanta and visitors. There is a park, the words “Centennial” and “Olympic” and the beautiful Olympic Rings fountain which does a water dance to various songs like the William Tell Overture - on the photos below you can see the various levels of the water as it responds to the music.

The view of Atlanta from the Olympic Park is also pretty awesome.

 

Pierre de Coubertin (Pierre de Fredy, Baron de Coubertin) is the founder of the modern Olympic Movement, the inspiration and organizer of the first Olympic Summer and Winter Games.  There is a bronze statue of him in the Centennial Olympic Park.

 

 

Off we go to see some other amazing place !!

More soon 🌞