Here's the second Olympic Daily from 1996. I really noticed the date for the first time. Saturday, July 29, 1996. What idiot decided July in Georgia was a good time to do anything outside, let alone the Olympics? For some reason I thought we held the games in September. Oh well, it could have been worse, it could have been August. August in Atlanta suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. Blazing hot, then massive thunderstorms with tornadoes and hail and frogs dropping from the sky, then blazing hot again the next day and 150% humidity thanks to the storm. My absolute favorite season is fall, obviously.
This magazine has a ton of filler in it due to the Opening Ceremonies being the only event the day before. There are only two pictures of the ceremony though, the cover photo and this fantastic two page spread in the magazine:
That is significantly cropped from the full picture. I couldn't fit the whole thing on the scanner. One thing I regret is not going to a single event at the Olympic Stadium. Although I've been to The Ted plenty of times, I would have liked to have seen it once before a big slice was taken out of the stadium to convert it to the Braves' park. This photo is neat in that it is from the perspective of being almost right behind home plate in Turner field. You can see the upper deck curving out on either side and poor old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium way in the background. I'm glad this picture is of generic flags and dancers and such, and not the infamous "Pickup Trucks With Cheerleaders" bit that caused such a stir.
Speaking of southerners being uncouth at the games, there's a fantastic article in there written by
Gerry Callahan about the pickpockets, street hustlers and proselytizers that descended on downtown Atlanta for the games. The alternate title of the article is perfect: "I Went To The Olympics And A Flea Market Broke Out". That was a pretty good description of the Games in many ways. This was without a doubt the biggest thing Ever to happen to the South since Sherman came to town, and everyone looking for a piece of the action descended like locusts. The biggest hustlers through were the organizers, who marketed, merchandised and sold the Olympics to death.
Since there was a lot of space to kill in this issue most everything in it was a fluff piece promoting what was to come or giving a behind the scenes look at the games. There is a huge article chronicling the last second finishing touches put in place days before the Games began. The new sports introduced this year were featured, including Women's Soccer which became of of my enduring memories of the Games, and the very TV friendly Beach Volleyball. Like all issues of SI a few pages were reserved for a Scorecard section that had smaller articles and factoids about the events. Some tidbits were insightful such as boxer
Lawrence Clay-Bey getting a brutal first round draw to match up against 1995 World Champion Alexei Lezin (Which was changed for some reason to an even more difficult match with
Wladimir Klitschko), to goofy stuff like the guy who made his house into the New Mexico Consulate when a resident of Santa Fe was denied ordering tickets by phone since he was from a foreign country. The thing that really caught my eye was this quote from the athlete who ended up having the biggest moment of all in the Olympics:
The feature article in the issue was a piece on the Men's Basketball Dream Team. It had a big picture of Hakeem Olajuwon in front of a flag backdrop that I'm pretty sure was used in at least two trading card sets. The main thrust of the piece was how this Dream Team was a classy group of professionals, unlike those thug hoodlums from the 1994 Dream Team. They then illustrate this fact with the absolute best photo of the issue, Charles Barkley stalking some unsuspecting reporter possibly for
this.
Damn, I love Charles...
This magazine has a ton of filler in it due to the Opening Ceremonies being the only event the day before. There are only two pictures of the ceremony though, the cover photo and this fantastic two page spread in the magazine:
That is significantly cropped from the full picture. I couldn't fit the whole thing on the scanner. One thing I regret is not going to a single event at the Olympic Stadium. Although I've been to The Ted plenty of times, I would have liked to have seen it once before a big slice was taken out of the stadium to convert it to the Braves' park. This photo is neat in that it is from the perspective of being almost right behind home plate in Turner field. You can see the upper deck curving out on either side and poor old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium way in the background. I'm glad this picture is of generic flags and dancers and such, and not the infamous "Pickup Trucks With Cheerleaders" bit that caused such a stir.
Speaking of southerners being uncouth at the games, there's a fantastic article in there written by Gerry Callahan about the pickpockets, street hustlers and proselytizers that descended on downtown Atlanta for the games. The alternate title of the article is perfect: "I Went To The Olympics And A Flea Market Broke Out". That was a pretty good description of the Games in many ways. This was without a doubt the biggest thing Ever to happen to the South since Sherman came to town, and everyone looking for a piece of the action descended like locusts. The biggest hustlers through were the organizers, who marketed, merchandised and sold the Olympics to death.
Since there was a lot of space to kill in this issue most everything in it was a fluff piece promoting what was to come or giving a behind the scenes look at the games. There is a huge article chronicling the last second finishing touches put in place days before the Games began. The new sports introduced this year were featured, including Women's Soccer which became of of my enduring memories of the Games, and the very TV friendly Beach Volleyball. Like all issues of SI a few pages were reserved for a Scorecard section that had smaller articles and factoids about the events. Some tidbits were insightful such as boxer Lawrence Clay-Bey getting a brutal first round draw to match up against 1995 World Champion Alexei Lezin (Which was changed for some reason to an even more difficult match with Wladimir Klitschko), to goofy stuff like the guy who made his house into the New Mexico Consulate when a resident of Santa Fe was denied ordering tickets by phone since he was from a foreign country. The thing that really caught my eye was this quote from the athlete who ended up having the biggest moment of all in the Olympics:
The feature article in the issue was a piece on the Men's Basketball Dream Team. It had a big picture of Hakeem Olajuwon in front of a flag backdrop that I'm pretty sure was used in at least two trading card sets. The main thrust of the piece was how this Dream Team was a classy group of professionals, unlike those thug hoodlums from the 1994 Dream Team. They then illustrate this fact with the absolute best photo of the issue, Charles Barkley stalking some unsuspecting reporter possibly for this.
Damn, I love Charles...
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