th Summer Olympic Games
| Where? | Atlanta |
| Which Olympics? | The twenty-sixth (summer) |
| How long was it? | From 18 July till 4 August |
| Joining countries: | 197 |
| Athletes: | 10788 |
| Whereof women: |
When Atlanta was chosen to be the host city of the Olympics of 1996, took the delegation-members of Athens off the gloves. If they wanted the Olympics, they should do their best.
These Olympics costed 1.6 billion dollar, whereof 1 billion for the stadiums.
Atlanta liked two weeks the epi-centre of the world. Bill Payne (president of the organisationcommittee): "It is for us not open for discussion that we don't set down a overwhelming success, simply because these are the United States of America." What he said was right, the USA is the country of the unlimited possibilities.
You sometimes had to be 5 hours in a queue to get an accreditation. There were exaggerated security reasons. There was inflexibility and desorientatition too by the thousands of volunteers of the organisation.
But maybe meant Payne something else about these "mighty" Olympics. That is than at the financial level of these Olympics. Even to see a training you had to pay!! Payne again: "I came to an as firm as a rock belief that the United States of America could give justice and subservience to the Olympic Movement at this important moment in the history."
You could doubt of justice. During the softbal-final (woman) were the Americans favoured (unjustly) twice. A Chinese was given out, while she was in clearly. And the Americans got a homerun, while the ball had to hit behind the line, whereby the ball should be invalid. After 10 minutes of protest of the Chinese the match went on, with the counting homerun of the Americans. The coach of the Chinese said after the match to the press: "We think that you understand why we lost this match."
In the quarter-final too of André Agassi against Wayne Ferreira (South Africa), became Agassi by a few blunders of the officials the winner, and could play the semi-final.
During the openings ceremony there was a dead man. The Polish chieff de mission got after entry on the midfield a hart-attack. He was removed immediately but he died at the way to the hospital. His name was Evgebiusz Pietrasik (48 years old). The doctors said that it had nothing to do with the heat, which harassed Atlanta for a while. The show went on, but after termination announced that the parade of athletes have to be shorter.
There was a bomb outrage too during these Olympics. By this bomb became the security reasons more strictly. There could come damage claims too through the bomb, by the sponsors, who invested for millions in the event. But the organisation said: "We can't yield to terror." You can say something for that.
When the dutch medal-winners came back home of the Olympics, they did homage in the Knights' Hall, where they were received by the queen, and got a tour through The Hague. And that was only the first day of their homageweek.
The medals of these Olympics
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