Olympics Inconvenient, But Well Worth Trouble
All around the Olympic city these days, people seem to be grumbling.
About Olympic construction stalling traffic. About not getting good tickets. About leases being terminated to make room for Olympic visitors.
The complainers draw a mild rebuke from Billy Payne, the ever sunny president of the Atlanta Olympic organizing committee.
“Yeah, there’s folks that don’t like that, and that’s OK,” Payne said.
“It’s very clearly inconvenient right now, but there are things that we all endure … with tolerance and excitement because we know the final product will make the inconveniences more than worthwhile,” Payne said.
Payne underscored that with a quote he read to the recent meeting of the board of directors of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games.
Though it applies to Atlanta, it was written by Epictetus in the first century about the ancient Olympics:
“There are enough irksome and troublesome things in life; aren’t things just as bad at the Olympics? Aren’t you scorched there by the fierce heat? Aren’t you crushed in the crowd? Isn’t it difficult to freshen yourself up? Doesn’t the rain soak you to the skin? Aren’t you bothered by the noise, the din and other nuisances?
“But it seems to me that you are well able to bear and indeed gladly endure all this, when you think of the gripping spectacles you will see.”
Tent sale
Found: an Olympic housing bargain.
About 6,000 campsites are available during the Olympics at the seven U.S. Army Corps of Engineers lakes in the Atlanta region. After a $25 registration charge that includes the first night’s fee, the sites will rent for $7 to $15 a night.
“We don’t have an Olympic rate. We’re not trying to stick the public,” said Corps spokesman James N. Parker Jr.
Virtually every hotel room in the Atlanta area is booked for the Olympics. Campsites at state parks will be available from $10 to $18 a night.
The Corps lakes are 25 to 125 miles from Atlanta.
The Corps will begin taking Olympic reservations beginning Sunday. Registrations forms are available by calling 1-800-513-0833, though reservations can be made by calling the lake offices directly.
On canvas
There is now an official painting of the Atlanta Olympics.
French artist Michel Delacroix has completed “Atlanta 1896-1996,” a view of the city that blends how Atlanta will look during the Games with how it looked as a railroad town in the 19th century.
Limited editions of Delacroix’s Olympic painting sell for $1,500. Posters will be sold next year for $30.
Soccer change
The back-to-back Olympic soccer matches scheduled July 31 in Athens, Ga., have been rescheduled.
Because they are ticketed separately, officials feared a traffic nightmare when Game 1 spectators tried to leave 86,000-seat Sanford Stadium as the Game 2 crowd arrived.
So the game originally scheduled for 3 p.m. has been moved to 6 p.m. on July 30. The game originally scheduled for 8 p.m. has been changed to 6 p.m. on July 31.