Atlanta Games Abound In High-Tech Devices

The 1996 Olympics have been called the first high-tech Games, an oft-repeated superlative that tends to get lost in the unending hype that clatters around Atlanta.

At a “cyberspace” conference Friday, some of the top dogs of the Olympic and high-tech fields got together to shed a little light on what it all means. Fittingly, a few took part from as far away as Australia via satellite videoconferencing.

Using a dizzying array of computers, telephones, data processing equipment, printers, televisions and fiber optic connections, Atlanta organizers are promising to break new ground in reporting results, providing security and beaming the action around the world at the 1996 Summer Games.

The impact extends to such mundane business as getting athletes out of bed. Athletes in Atlanta will use pagers for wake-up calls from their coaches.

Another example is the Synchronous Communications Accessing Real-time Live Event Television system, a joint project of BellSouth, Scientific-Atlanta and Panasonic. The system, known as SCARLET, will allow journalists to cover several Olympic contests at the same time from one point.

Technology also is shaping the athletic competition itself, U.S. Olympic Committee President LeRoy Walker told the conference.

High-tech tools already are being widely used to monitor the health and performance of athletes, as well as to design equipment and training facilities, he said.

“All of us recognize that many of the records set in track and field … are the result of changes that technology has brought about in synthetic surfaces,” said Walker, speaking from Durham, N.C.

The bottom line? “At the Games, we’ll be cyberspacing at the edge,” said John L. Clendenin, chairman of BellSouth.

Points south

The pin people are coming.

Plans have been announced for the Atlanta Pin Pal Show of Pins and Memorabilia, a collectors’ gathering to be held in Atlanta at the Castlegate Hotel and Conference Center Nov. 11-12.

Though several Olympic pin collecting clubs are active in Atlanta, this is billed as the first large-scale show of its kind before the 1996 Games. It won’t be the last.

“Centennial Collectibles,” an officially sanctioned show that will occupy 90,000 square feet at the Atlanta Merchandise Mart, also is in the works. Part of the Olympic Arts Festival, it will begin July 19 - the day of the opening ceremony.

Imagine this

Olympic sponsor Visa is looking for a few good artists.

The San Francisco-based credit card company has launched the Visa Olympics of the Imagination, a 20-nation art contest for children ages 11 to 13.

The contest challenges the young artists to create their vision of a futuristic Olympic sport. Twenty-nine winners will go to the Atlanta Games, and their work will be exhibited at the Olympics and reproduced as commemorative post cards.

Entry forms are available by writing to Visa Olympics of the Imagination, Visa (M1-12A), P.O. Box 8119, San Francisco, Calif., 94128-8999. The deadline is Jan. 22.

Marching to Georgia

The Atlanta Olympic Band has grabbed a role in the 1996 opening ceremony.

The band, which includes more than 300 of Georgia’s best high school and collegiate marching musicians, has been around since Atlanta first bid for the Games in 1989.

Members, even those who want to be in the band year after year, must be nominated by their school’s band director and audition annually. Auditions for the 1996 band will be held early next year; nomination forms will be distributed in January.