Summer Games

Historians and those who measure time may quibble over whether the just-concluded Winter Olympics are the last Games of the millennium, but, from a television standpoint, the event is about to enter a new era.That's because, starting with the Summer Games of 2000 in Sydney, Australia, NBC will take over telecast control of the Olympics -- winter and summer -- through 2008. And right off the bat, NBC executives will be confronted with the decision of whether, in the wake of CBS' diminished ratings return for the just-completed Nagano Games, to shake up the tried and true formula of presenting the Olympics to an American television audience.

PHILADELPHIA -- Cities considering a bid for the 2008 Olympics received sobering lectures yesterday on everything from legal liability to international politics, but several representatives, including those from Baltimore, came away undeterred."

If the Olympics come to Baltimore in 2008, you can make $10,000 in two weeks subletting your house to a visiting potentate.As long as you're willing to build a chicken-wire pen in the back yard to house his goats.If the Olympics come to Baltimore in 2008, you can go for the gold on behalf of your country -- as a duckpin bowler.Honest, hon.The International Olympic Committee usually allows one "local" sport onto the docket at each Olympics as a demonstration event, such as curling in Calgary and ballroom dancing in Sydney, Australia.

For Atlanta, the Olympics are over. But for Sydney, the countdown is just beginning.Sydney will be the host city for the 2000 Summer Olympics, which takes place Friday, Sept. 15, 2000, through Sunday, Oct. 1, 2000 -- springtime in Australia. Sydneysiders, as the city's residents call themselves, are ready to roll.No modesty here. "I've got a vision of Australia staging the greatest Olympics ever," said Mal Hemmerling, chief executive of the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG)

ATLANTA -- The slight 69-year-old man runs alone on the orange track of the empty Olympic Stadium. But there are ghosts following him: Paavo Nurmi, the "phantom Finn" and greatest Olympic long-distance runner ever. Emil Zapotek, whose gold-medal Triple Crown in the 5,000- and 10,000-meter and marathon races remains unduplicated. And Lasse Viren, the village policeman who ran like a pale, silent river to two gold medals each in Munich and Montreal."I'm breaking all their world records," he thinks as he laps around the track 25 times for 10,000 meters, or six miles and change.

Days until opening ceremonies: 28.Torch update: Louise Logan, a volunteer worker at a Prince George's County hospital, carried the torch up the Capitol steps in Washington.Update: Several thousand tickets to the opening and closing ceremonies of the Summer Games go on sale at 9 a.m. today. The tickets, which cost $636 apiece, can be obtained by calling the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (404-744-1996) and through ACOG's Internet site. There is a limit of two tickets per customer, and a Visa card is the only form of payment accepted.

More than 100 Marylanders were selected as Olympic torch-bearers for their "extraordinary" volunteer work and their designation as "community heroes" by the United Way of Central Maryland and for their impact on someone's life through Coca-Cola's "Share the Spirit" program.Each honoree walked, ran or used a wheelchair to carry the torch for 1 kilometer (five-eighths of a mile) of the distance from the Pennsylvania border to Baltimore, where the torch stayed Wednesday night, then yesterday to Annapolis and Washington.

When the 1992 Olympic Games were played in Barcelona, Spain, beach volleyball was literally an afterthought. Shortly after the flame was extinguished, shortly after the millions of athletes, officials and fans went home, an international tournament was held some 200 miles away."

Moving for the second time in four months to pre-empt the rest of the television industry from the marquee sporting event in the world, NBC yesterday locked up Olympic telecasts for the Summer Games of 2004 and 2008 and the Winter Games of 2006 for a combined bid of $2.3 billion.Yesterday's announcement came after the network -- which will carry the Atlanta Games next summer -- already had committed $1.25 billion to the International Olympic Committee in August to get the Summer Olympics of 2000 in Sydney, Australia, and the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002, bringing its outlay to the IOC to $3.55 billion.

When Billy Church and Scott Bunting met four years ago, it was a sailing match made at Elk Neck State Park.Bunting, a computer systems manager with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was a skilled sailor from Aberdeen who volunteered to help Special Olympic athletes like Church during the Maryland State Special Olympics Games at Elk Neck. Church welcomed him."I can pull ropes and I'm not afraid of the water," said Church, 32, who works at his father's car dealership, A-1 Sales Inc., in Havre de Grace.