Talk:1996 Summer Olympics

Adressing the bribery issue

Verifiable sources need to be found concerning this issue. This CNN/Sports Illustrated article from 1999 (among others) discusses the issue of bribery in the IOC broadly. The issues should be mentioned in the 1996 Summer Olympics bids also. Also interesting is the fact that The Mitchell Commission (which investigated the Salt Lake City bid scandal) was headed by a former U.S. senator, how was this able to happen? Research needs to be done on John Coates & Andrew Young (I'd suggest most people here don't even know who they are, which is unfortunate considering that at the time they exchanged words on several occasions). In the little research I've done thus far, offering foreign aid as an incentive seems to be a reoccuring theme, one example taken from here explains: "Coates said former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young had toured Africa dispensing U.S. foreign aid commitments -- in exchange for support for Atlanta's bid for the 1996 Summer Olympics." I'd suggest that CNN is a verifiable source. Discussion on this issue must continue, and also extended to encompass the broader issue of bribery within the IOC and others, not just the 1996 Summer Olympic bid by Atlanta. Nick carson 05:15, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Use of Weasel Words

I've tagged this article due to the extensive use of weasel words in the introductory section. I don't have the time to clean it up myself right now, but this section definitely needs attention. Jhortman 14:46, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

• It'd be helpful if you specified the language you object to. --Isaac R 18:47, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
• I _think_ he's referring to the "Some felt" and "there were claims" language without references. Rjhatl 12:01, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Richard Jewell and the bombing

How come the article has no references to Richard Jewell? The guy was a hero. I want to know what happened to him.

The Munich Olympics page talks about the hostage massacre. That was a more serious event than the Atlanta bombing. But this was serious. The article is incomplete without it.

How about you visit www.vietnamcombat.net and look there.

Official song

From the text, it states that Gloria Estefan's "Reach" was the official song. I tought the official song was actually Celine Dion's "The Power of the Dream"?--Huaiwei 16:31, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You are correct that "The Power of the Dream" was the official song, though it might be somewhat inaccurate to label it as Celine Dion's song. According to the Olympic Report vol. 1, pages 170 and 361, the official song was "The Power of the Dream", composed by David Foster and Babyface with words by Linda Thompson. According to the Olympic Report vol. 2, it was performed by Dion accompanied by Foster and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. I'll go fix the article now. -- Jonel 19:33, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This is Scott, I edited the page before I realized that there were two official theme songs. One for the opening and one for the closing. Gloria Estefan did the closing, which may be why I remember it as the official theme song. So if you don't get a chance to fix the article, I will fix it later.

I remember differently

From what I remember of the opening ceremony of the Centennial Olympics, the song "Power of the Dream" was performed by an 11 year old girl with a choir of at least a hundred children performing a field routine. I don't recall Celine Dion performing the song during the opening ceremony.

-- The 11 year old girl sang the song during the CLOSING ceremonies. Celine sang the song during the OPENING ceremonies. Itsdannyg 20:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Gloria Estefan

This is still Scott. I would like to see a line included giving Gloria Estefan credit for singing the closing song. How do I go about doing that?

Izzy Wikipage

What about Izzy? He was the mascot that started the 1996 Olympics!

Unsuccessful?

Seems a bit off to refer to the games as "relatively unsuccessful". A reference for this perhaps? The games turned a profit. More than that, they did it despite the bomb and threw some exciting sporting moments and an excellent last day party into the bargain. Isn't that a success? The Athens games helped tip economy of Greece into the red. Money spent on the Olympics by the state is money not spent on hospitals, police, etc. Way I see it, Atlanta could afford more of those things after the Olympics, Athens couldn't. The IOC can complain about commercialization but they're not the ones who have to foot the bill. Phil --82.38.227.22 17:08, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Bidding Farse

Bidding for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games was surrounded in farse. Melbourne, Australia was the favourite throughout the entire process, if I remember correctly, construction had already begun on smaller projects to do with the 1996 games and celebrations were ready and waiting as soon as it was to be announced. This wasnt an assumed thing that Melbourne would win the bid, it was relativly sealed after some cities pulled out and other were majorly discredited due to inapropriate infrastructure and other problems etc. I remember when Melbourne didnt win the bid, the reaction was sheer shock and disbelief. I also remember alot of Coke signs in the city of Atlanta throughout the games. I also remember that aparently the IOC admited responsibility to the rediculous winning bid from atlanta and compensated Melbourne by giving Sydney the 2000 Summer Olympic Games. Hmmm interesting, compensating one city by giving it's self proclaimed rival the 2000 games. I think anyone will find with enough research that this is all true and should take up a large section of the article on the 1996 summer olympic games, and deserves its own article. I'm willing to contribute, but I have a feeling there may be Coca-Cola-Wikipedia team hired to vandalise this sort of stuff. Nick carson 02:05, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

No offense, but all of that is just wild speculation unless you can come up with some sort of verifiable source other than your own memory which is questionable since you were all of 4 years old at the time the '96 games were awarded (Sep. 1990). I imagine Melbournites were disappointed at not winning the games, but while Athens was most definitely the sentimental favorite by many Olympic followers, it's more than a stretch to say Melbourne was a favorite above Atlanta. It doesn't come close to being supported by the voting since Melbourne didn't have the highest vote total in any round and was eliminated after the 3rd round of voting leaving Atlanta, Athens and Toronto in contention.[1] AUTiger ʃ ^talk/_work 07:02, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I think people suspected something odd was going on though when Melbourne got 5 fewer votes in the 3rd round (eliminating it) than in the 2nd round. Why would people vote for a city the first two rounds and then switch? You would expect each city to get more votes in each round since a city is being eliminated each time. Anyway, that fact got some coverage in Australia and made people rather suspect of the entire thing (as history has shown to be true due to the revelation of bribery going on at many such ioc events).—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.214.84.132 (talk • contribs) 4 July 2007, 23:14 (UTC).

Muhammed Ali

There is little mention of him in this article even though his lighting of the torch is considered by many to be one of the most emotionally powerful moments in Olympic history. -- §HurricaneERIC§^Damagesarchive 02:11, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Name change

Since the page hasn't event been created yet, this shouldn't be too much of a problem. The IOC chaged the name of Yachting to Sailing AFTER the 1996 Olympics. So, I'm going back and making the appropriate changes to coincide with this decision. This is my reference: http://www.olympic.org/uk/sports/programme/history_uk.asp?DiscCode=SA&sportCode=SA

Incorect Emblem

The listed as the logo of these games is incorect- the real one had a background of green.

Citations Added

I added a bunch of needed citations, and I put the total number of athletes - just throwing that out there.--Daniel()Folsom ^T|_C|^U 16:00, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Citations Missing

I also just added a citations missing template - usually I would find something like this myself, but sadly I'm in a rush right now and in the time I'm gone it could probably be fixed - sorry about that.Daniel()Folsom |\^T/|\_C/|\^U/ 12:26, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Mascots?

Somebody should add the mascots, most other olympics pages have them. --AW 19:52, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Most of us tried hard to forget Izzy before, during and after the Olympics. Now that you've brought the pain back, I'll see what I can do to add something about him. AUTiger ʃ ^talk/_work 21:01, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Venues

1996 Summer Olympic Venues contains a longer list, and is up for deletion. Any useful information on it ? John Vandenberg 07:54, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Bosnia's debut....

Happened in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. Not 1996. No idea who the 13th country could have been. :) FreshBreeze 01:57, 25 August 2007 (UTC)