These Atlanta Games are appropriately the final American Olympics of this, the American Century. They opened in the shadow of a terrible anxiety, the possibility that an airplane was bombed because of these Games and all they stand for across the world. For the throngs in Hotlanta that shock gave pause, a moment to mourn; then they returned to the business of gold medals, of number-oneness and of tackiness run amok. Why? Go no further than what a sterling fellow known as The Mailman – Karl Malone of the U.S. men’s basketball team – replied to the innocent Dane who inquired why ex-actly it is that two points are awarded for a basket. Why? ““Because that’s how we do it here in America,’’ saith The Mailman.
That’s why.
Too commercial? Never came the person to The Games of Atlanta who said: you can’t put a price tag on it. If it is here, you can. There are now even seminars conducted by professional Olympic-pin traders lest such benign behavior remain a mere hobby. Too bland? ““Devoid of atmosphere,’’ decried The Daily Telegraph of London and a (Greek?) chorus of foreign critics. Without tradition. Philistine. A flea market. All fair. And yet:
How utterly magnificent to see Muhammad Ali materialize to light the Olympic torch – he who once threw his gold medal in a river to protest American injustice, he who shakes now from the plethora of blows his brain took in his certifiably Olympic sport. Did such poignant irony ever light the flame anywhere but in Atlanta?
And the spectators, paying up to $620 a ticket, roared, as they did all night at the opening ceremonies, cheering the almost primitive effects – candle silhouettes on gauze, oooh, ahhh – amusements few in the crowd would accept elsewhere, even on public-access cable. Are we ever so wonderfully childish as we are at the opening ceremonies of the modern Olympics?
Withal, though, security was capricious. For a gymnastics practice session at the Georgia Dome, officious rent-a-guards backed up a line of (mostly) women for an hour, funneling them (even crying babes in arms) through one metal detector. Meanwhile, four NEWSWEEK photographers waltzed into the opening ceremonies, before the presidential presence itself, lugging their large ominous work bags, without so much as a hi-y’all.
Ah, but if security were Coca-Cola, the world would be safe from all evil. This is said without being cynical or judgmental, but merely in awe. The ubiquity of Coke at these Olympics is simply breathtaking. If only Pepsi were an anabolic steroid, these Games truly would be drug-free.
The International Olympic Committee was up to its usual Inspector Clouseau standards in matters vital. The IOC vigilantes forced a popular local drive-in, the Varsity, to cease and desist in the distribution of pins that featured a design wherein onion rings resembled Olympic rings. And the IOC was just beside itself with those unrepentant devils from Nike. Unlike ““Official’’ Olympic sponsors, who fork over big time to be associated with the non-onionized Olympic rings, Nike invests similarly obscene amounts in its own athletes. ““Nike is here supporting Nike,’’ a furious Dick Pound, IOC vice president, exclusively revealed at an IOC Economics 101 lecture. Even worse, Nike has constructed a temple of fun and retail cheek by jowl to the Centennial Park that is far more entertaining than any of the official exhibits in the Olympic industrial park.
But no more carping. The Olympic Games have begun. Within barely an hour of the first gun, a world record had fallen to a Belgian breaststroker. Raise a cherry Coke on high to him, and check your McDonald’s Watch & Win tags (my own promises a free small fries on July 30 if an American triumphs in the Weightlifting Over 108kg). Keep the dial to NBC, where all the world is a field of play, and pray that not again will you have to turn to CNN. Above all, understand that Atlanta is a quintessential American city of these times and that these are our Games because they are hers. Revel in the glory of the Olympics as athletic majesty or be repelled by the Uglympics that lie all above and about them, but understand that they both fairly reflect what the United States isas we find ourselves peering into the mouth of the millennium.
