Olympic Park

The State of Georgia will begin developing a 72-acre Olympic park in downtown Atlanta on a site now occupied largely by distressed residential and commercial properties, despite the protests of residents who would be displaced.At a news conference last week with Mayor Bill Campbell of Atlanta and Olympic officials, Gov. Zell Miller said he had decided to endorse the plan, which was proposed by the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, the private corporation that will stage the 1996 Olympics.

A handful of journalists were on hand to watch the U.S. women's basketball team win its Olympic opener against Croatia. It was an obvious contrast to the crammed news conference the previous day for the U.S. men's team, where reporters scurried toward Kobe Bryant and LeBron James before packing into a dense semi-circle seven or eight people deep. "This is more physical than our games," Bryant quipped as media members pushed and shoved one another. "I've seen at least two flagrant fouls.

ATLANTA -- For the fourth time in seven months, a bomb exploded in Atlanta on Friday night, injuring at least five people at a gay nightclub and causing law-enforcement officials to speculate that a serial bomber may be at large.As police investigated the bombing at the Otherside Lounge, they found a backpack containing a second bomb in the club's parking lot. Using a robot, the city's bomb squad detonated the second device without incident.Last month, a bomb was detonated outside a north Atlanta abortion clinic.

This is the last in a three-part series on Maryland-based finalists for the Service to America Medals, or Sammies, one of the highest honors bestowed on civil servants. The winners will be announced next month. One of the last pieces of evidence Olympic park bomber Eric Rudolph saw in a Huntsville, Ala., courtroom was a green Popular Mechanics toolbox covered in fake green foliage. A team of explosive experts from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, working under Michael Ethridge of Clarksville, had meticulously reconstructed Rudolph's fourth and final bombing, even purchasing the toolbox and most of the bomb's parts from the same Murphy, N.C., Wal-Mart as Rudolph had. Rudolph disguised the bomb as a plant and detonated it with a model-airplane remote control.

One of the logistical pleasures of the Olympics is the rail system, albeit a must in Homebush Bay, where there is no public parking. Along with the Olympic Stadium, several domes and other first-rate facilities, the Sydney organizing committee built a rail terminal that has moved several hundred thousand fans in and out of Olympic Park every day. It's about a 25-minute trip from Central Station in Sydney to the Olympic Park station, and it comes in...

Mary Poppins and her spoonful of sugar never met Mitt Romney and his free pin. Olympic organizers couldn't get enough buses to haul 20,000 spectators from roadside parking to the site of ski jumping and luge. That mile-long stretch of road has a grade of 10 percent, with an Olympic difficulty factor: an altitude of more than 7,100 feet. By offering a commemorative "Gold Medal Mile" pin, officials enticed thousands to pound the pavement. A low-power radio station run by Utah Olympic Park - KUOP - took requests from walkers with cell phones.

ATLANTA -- The party was over on Peachtree Street. The scores of late-night Olympic revelers had been pulled back into a dangerous world in one awful, sobering moment, and the reality of it all was just starting to sink in."It was just madness," said Eason Jacob of New York. "I've never been around anything like that before in my life."Jacob was one of the thousands in downtown Atlanta who felt the sonic thud of the pipe bomb that exploded in the Centennial Olympic Park, killing one person, leading to the death of another and injuring 111 more.

This is the last in a three-part series on Maryland-based finalists for the Service to America Medals, or Sammies, one of the highest honors bestowed on civil servants. The winners will be announced next month. One of the last pieces of evidence Olympic park bomber Eric Rudolph saw in a Huntsville, Ala., courtroom was a green Popular Mechanics toolbox covered in fake green foliage. A team of explosive experts from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, working under Michael Ethridge of Clarksville, had meticulously reconstructed Rudolph's fourth and final bombing, even purchasing the toolbox and most of the bomb's parts from the same Murphy, N.C., Wal-Mart as Rudolph had. Rudolph disguised the bomb as a plant and detonated it with a model-airplane remote control.

ATLANTA - Olympic park bomber Eric Rudolph, who led federal authorities on a five-year cat-and-mouse game in the woods of North Carolina, showed a defiant face in court yesterday, boasting in a statement that he had "deprived the government of its goal of sentencing me to death." Rudolph pleaded guilty yesterday to four bombings as part of a plea agreement that will allow him to escape the death penalty. In the morning, he appeared before a judge in Birmingham, Ala., where he pleaded guilty in the 1998 bombing of a clinic that performed abortions.

A handful of journalists were on hand to watch the U.S. women's basketball team win its Olympic opener against Croatia. It was an obvious contrast to the crammed news conference the previous day for the U.S. men's team, where reporters scurried toward Kobe Bryant and LeBron James before packing into a dense semi-circle seven or eight people deep. "This is more physical than our games," Bryant quipped as media members pushed and shoved one another. "I've seen at least two flagrant fouls.

ATLANTA - Olympic park bomber Eric Rudolph, who led federal authorities on a five-year cat-and-mouse game in the woods of North Carolina, showed a defiant face in court yesterday, boasting in a statement that he had "deprived the government of its goal of sentencing me to death." Rudolph pleaded guilty yesterday to four bombings as part of a plea agreement that will allow him to escape the death penalty. In the morning, he appeared before a judge in Birmingham, Ala., where he pleaded guilty in the 1998 bombing of a clinic that performed abortions.

Mary Poppins and her spoonful of sugar never met Mitt Romney and his free pin. Olympic organizers couldn't get enough buses to haul 20,000 spectators from roadside parking to the site of ski jumping and luge. That mile-long stretch of road has a grade of 10 percent, with an Olympic difficulty factor: an altitude of more than 7,100 feet. By offering a commemorative "Gold Medal Mile" pin, officials enticed thousands to pound the pavement. A low-power radio station run by Utah Olympic Park - KUOP - took requests from walkers with cell phones.

SYDNEY, Australia - James Carter listened for boos and jeering whistles when he was introduced to the crowd before the final of the men's 400-meter hurdles at Olympic Park last night. "I was hoping I wouldn't hear anything," he said. He didn't. The packed house of 110,000 at Olympic Stadium barely responded to his name. It meant he had survived the biggest mistake of his life - barely. "I just don't want people to have that as their image of me," said Carter, a Baltimore native who went to Mervo.

One of the logistical pleasures of the Olympics is the rail system, albeit a must in Homebush Bay, where there is no public parking. Along with the Olympic Stadium, several domes and other first-rate facilities, the Sydney organizing committee built a rail terminal that has moved several hundred thousand fans in and out of Olympic Park every day. It's about a 25-minute trip from Central Station in Sydney to the Olympic Park station, and it comes in...

SYDNEY, Australia -- Today's cinema schedule lists an 11 a.m. showing of "Alien," with subtitles in Hungarian. On one of the pool tables, a man from Moldavia is teaching a girl from Bangladesh how to break. A large Cuban flag hangs from a balcony near the main entrance. Complete with a view of the flame atop the 110,000-seat Olympic Stadium, the Olympic Village is where approximately 15,000 athletes and coaches from around the world have gotten their mail this month. The 24-hour dining hall can seat nearly 5,000.

ATLANTA -- For the fourth time in seven months, a bomb exploded in Atlanta on Friday night, injuring at least five people at a gay nightclub and causing law-enforcement officials to speculate that a serial bomber may be at large.As police investigated the bombing at the Otherside Lounge, they found a backpack containing a second bomb in the club's parking lot. Using a robot, the city's bomb squad detonated the second device without incident.Last month, a bomb was detonated outside a north Atlanta abortion clinic.

ATLANTA -- They're lucky it wasn't worse, lucky it didn't happen in the middle of the day, lucky it was only a homemade bomb.One is dead and 111 are injured. But at the most disorganized Olympics in recent memory, a far greater number of people is at risk.Too many people, too little space, too crazy a world. Even if the Games were running as smoothly as possible, they'd still be unmanageable.When $301 million worth of security is still not enough to ensure safety, are the Olympics really worth the trouble?

SYDNEY, Australia -- Today's cinema schedule lists an 11 a.m. showing of "Alien," with subtitles in Hungarian. On one of the pool tables, a man from Moldavia is teaching a girl from Bangladesh how to break. A large Cuban flag hangs from a balcony near the main entrance. Complete with a view of the flame atop the 110,000-seat Olympic Stadium, the Olympic Village is where approximately 15,000 athletes and coaches from around the world have gotten their mail this month. The 24-hour dining hall can seat nearly 5,000.

LESSONS FROM Atlanta?If Baltimore can learn anything from the way Georgia's state capital performed as host for the XXVI Olympiad this summer, it probably doesn't involve sporting facilities.Oriole Park at Camden Yards is every bit as good as Olympic Stadium, which will become the home of the Atlanta Braves.But Baltimore could take a lesson from the way Atlanta used the Olympics to build a "legacy" of improvements that will benefit the city long after the event.Chief among them is Centennial Olympic Park, the 21-acre public space created as a new town square for the city.

ATLANTA -- They're lucky it wasn't worse, lucky it didn't happen in the middle of the day, lucky it was only a homemade bomb.One is dead and 111 are injured. But at the most disorganized Olympics in recent memory, a far greater number of people is at risk.Too many people, too little space, too crazy a world. Even if the Games were running as smoothly as possible, they'd still be unmanageable.When $301 million worth of security is still not enough to ensure safety, are the Olympics really worth the trouble?