1996 became a jubilee year in the modern history of Olympism - exactly one hundred years before that, the tradition of regular meetings of the strongest athletes was revived, and games with the first serial number took place in Greece. It was expected that in order to maintain a historical connection between ancient and modern Olympiads, these summer games will also be held in Athens, but the American city of Atlanta won the vote of the IOC members.
In addition to Atlanta and Athens, Belgrade (Yugoslavia), Manchester (England), Melbourne (Australia) and Toronto (Canada) had chances to host the XXVI Summer Olympic Games. But these cities consistently dropped out in the first four rounds of voting at the 96th session of the International Olympic Committee. In the final round, 51 out of 86 MPs voted for Atlanta.
Atlanta is a half-million city in the Southeast of the United States, which is the administrative center of the state of Georgia. It was founded in 1837 as one of the stations of the railroad under construction to the Midwest. Then he had the name Terminus, and the status of the city and the new name of the settlement received a decade later. In the history of the country, Atlanta is known as a place that, during the civil war between the north and south, was burned by the army of the northerners in 1864, and at the beginning of the twentieth century there was a mass riot of the black population.
By the time the Olympics were held, Atlanta had become an ultra-modern city, the capital of the “new South” and a center of business activity, whose architecture is dominated by the styles of “modern” and “postmodern”. The tallest building, Bank of American Plaza, is 312 meters high - the country's tallest skyscrapers are found only in Chicago and New York. For the opening of the 1996 Olympics, an 85,000-seat multipurpose stadium was built in the city, which is named the Centennial Olympic Stadium. It was he who became the main arena of the competitions, the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies of the XXVI Summer Olympic Games.
The then US President Bill Clinton opened the games, and the legendary Mohammed Ali lit the Olympic flame at the stadium. The Americans won the largest number of awards - 101. Despite all the modernity of the city, the organization of the information systems and transport support of the Olympiad, as well as the subordination of the schedule of games to the commercial interests of sponsors and organizers, came under serious criticism.
