World’s Athletes No Strangers To Threats Many Shrug Off Bombing As Fact Of Life, Others Vow To Stay In Olympic Village
Jing Jun Hong of Singapore still did not know about the bombing in Centennial Olympic Park by mid-afternoon when she went out to play table tennis. There are advantages to not speaking English and not turning on the television.
“I didn’t want to disturb her,” her coach, Loy Soo Han, said after Jing had lost her match Saturday. “It’s better if she doesn’t know.”
The great majority of the athletes in the Summer Games learned about the explosion early Saturday morning - some of them before they went to sleep, some when they woke up.
It did not drastically affect their training or their competition, because they are so well protected, and almost all athletes have travelled enough around the world to be familiar with the threat of terrorism and the security measures it inspires.
The one impact of the bomb was that many athletes said they would not explore Atlanta, but would stay behind the fences and the weapons and the electronics of Olympic Village security.
Some of the athletes live with violence in their homelands. Sinisia Zugic, 26, a diver from Yugoslavia, said: “We have had problems like this in my country. I feel safe here, more safe than in my country because security is very good, and I don’t think there will be any more problems.
“I think it could happen anywhere in the world now. You have these things in Europe, Africa and Asia. You have a problem with sarin gas. The stupid thing is that a group of people thinks with bombs you can solve problems. So many ways to do something or show something. Why this?”
At the tennis competition at Stone Mountain, Marc Rosset, the defending gold medalist from Switzerland, said he spends time in Paris, and that bomb threats and explosions have become an unfortunate fact of life.
For some athletes, the bomb brought flashbacks of previous horrors. Micki King, the team manager of the American diving team, recalled being in Munich in 1972 when 11 Israeli Olympians died in a terrorist attack.
“Oh, yeah, it flashes back,” she said. “These athletes are right at their peak, and then some looney bursts their bubble.” King added that she still remembers “the warmth” of the people of Munich, and “how their bubble was burst. I think in Atlanta, as well, the warmth and the spirit that is here will be restored in our memory in years to come.”
For Monica Seles, at the tennis tournament, it brought back painful memories of being stabbed by a male spectator during a match in Hamburg in 1993. Seles said she emphathized with the victims of the bombing and that she “knew how it felt” to be a victim.
Billie Jean King, the coach of the women’s team, said Seles displayed a “let’s-get-through-it” attitude, and King added, “The whole team feels it almost gives them more motivation to get out there and compete and show people what the Olympics is really all about.”
Some athletes at the track and field stadium felt their routine was affected by the heightened security. Sharon Hanson, an American competitor in the heptathlon, arrived at 6:30 a.m. for a warmup at nearby Chaney stadium, and was told that her personal coach and therapist would not be allowed into the track.
“To be honest, while I was training to come here, I wondered if something was going to happen,” Hanson said. “I think it was in the back of everyone’s mind.”