digATL | The Digital Atlanta Portal

No one expected Atlanta to win the bid to host the 1996 Olympics, including most Atlantans. The ’96 Games would be the one hundredth anniversary of the modern games, and Athens, Greece, home of the modern Olympiad, had put in a bid. Atlanta, seen by many, was not even a long shot as host but an Atlanta lawyer Billy Payne was determined to win the bid. But Atlanta did win over Athens in September 1990. Dubbed by the President of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Samaranch as the “most exceptional” Olympics, thirty years later, the summer’s legacy for Atlanta is still complicated. Was hosting the Games ultimately just an opportunistic business venture, or was it motivated by a real desire to show off “the city too busy to hate”? Between a serial bomber, a charismatic lawyer and a city searching for its identity, the conclusion is still mixed to this day.