Georgia Gazette

I'm Bruce Dorton, and this is Georgia Gazette. Coming up on today's program... The International Olympic Committee has awarded the 1996 Olympic Games to the City of London. Today, Georgia Gazette explores the Olympic legacy from the promise of the games to the Olympic reality Georgians are living with now. Travel with us to competition venues in Athens, Lagrange and Columbus, and tour the Olympic Ring in Atlanta with busloads of US and foreign journalists. Those stories are much more ahead on today's Georgia Gazette, but first the news from the National Public Radio. Good afternoon and welcome to the special edition of Georgia Gazette, I'm Bruce Dorton.

Today Georgia Gazette looks ahead to the 1996 Centennial Olympics, although most of the events will take place in Atlanta, including the opening and closing ceremonies, Olympic venues are spread out around the southeast in Florida, Alabama, Tennessee and Washington, DC. This spread out around the state of Georgia as well in Athens, Columbus, Savannah and Clayton County. The Olympic legacy and its reality today on Georgia Gazette, it's a radio magazine and joy it, then pass it on. The 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta marked the 100th anniversary of the modern Olympics.

A French nobleman is credited with creating the modern games, and as Sid Hoskinson tells us the Baron devoted his entire adult life to the realization and the success of his Olympic dream. Baron Pierre de Coubertin was born in Paris, January 1st, 1863. Olympic historian and University of Chicago professor John McAlloon calls de Coubertin a child of the French aristocracy and the French defeat in the Franco-Pression War. McAlloon says when de Coubertin reached adulthood, he didn't know what to do with himself, the only real goal he had was to help guide the effort to rebuild France after the war. de Coubertin tried politics, but that didn't work, so he turned his attention to education. It was in that context McAlloon says that de Coubertin discovered sports. And came to feel that the English had really made a great breakthrough in attaching sport to schools, this was with reference to the great English public schools. And he was to spend the rest of his life attempting to make France also attach sport as part

of education. That was a campaign that had a mixed result, but along the way he simultaneously discovered the Olympic Games and became the reformer who made that innovation take. There had been many attempts in the 18th and 19th centuries to revive sport competitions under the name of Olympic Games, but his was the one which took and led to the phenomenon we know today. McAlloon says de Coubertin's dream of a modern Olympics was successful for a number of reasons, including the timing of his proposal and his contact with other aristocrats and educators around Europe. He was also an organizational genius, McAlloon says, who was adept at capitalizing on the prevailing political and social wins of the times, including the education reform movement and...

An international peace movement that said the more we can find ways for nations to interact in peaceful circumstances that are at the same time very dramatic, very interesting to mass publics, the greater the likelihood of peace we turn nationalism into a positive breath and a destructive force. Another great expression of that was the world's fears of which the Olympics really began as a part were embedded in world's fears for many of the early ones. It was during this time that sports had become quite stylish as well and a mass fad for the elite in Europe and the Americas. In fact, McAlloon says the earliest supporters of de Coubertin's Olympic dream were members of the Moneyed and Educated Leisure Class. His genius was that he understood that they had to be international. Many other games that had been nationally based or regionally based Scandinavian games, for example, or early Greek games did not have the principle of representation by nation

states. Although he didn't really understand it as it was happening, the Olympic games became rather the cult of the modern nation states system, so they have expanded as the number of nation states has expanded a process which is just now completing itself, which is why there will be 197 to 200 nations marching in the parade in Atlanta. So clear was de Coubertin about the mission of the modern Olympics that the organization he established to develop and guide the games is still around in the form of the IOC, the International Olympic Committee. The first modern Olympic games took place in Athens, Greece in 1896. At the conclusion of those games, de Coubertin said, quote, every four years the restored Olympic games must give the youth of the world the opportunity for a happy and fraternal reunion, which little by little will dissipate the ignorance, which breeds hate, compounds misunderstandings, and hastens events toward merciless conflict.

The peacekeeping mission of the games remains its first priority, and historians say that's why the nations of the world continue to support the Olympics, even in times of war. De Coubertin served as the president of the IOC until 1925. It was during his tenure that he moved the organization's headquarters from Paris to Switzerland. The Baron was taking a stroll in Lagrange Park in Geneva in the fall of 1937, when he died suddenly, he was 74. I'm Sid Hoskinson. Last week, the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games packed reporters from around the world into three buses and took them around Atlanta to show off the city's progress at the Olympic sites. One of those on the tour was Peachtates, Susanna Capelito. You'll flee on your right, the beginnings of the Centennial Olympic Park, and for those of you who don't know the history, this was actually one of the most important women

in the world. AOC spokeswoman Lynn May explains the plans for the 50-acre park, which right now is nothing more than a pile of dirt between downtown high rises. This call for a fountain and outdoor amphitheater, and pedestrian walkways paved with thousands of Olympic bricks, engraved with people's names. So far, AOC has sold 175,000 of the $35 bricks, but that's a far cry from the 2 million bricks Olympic organizers hope to sell by the start of the games. The Japanese Chamber of Commerce will help some. It plans to sell 100,000 of the bricks in Japan, but the names will be spelled out in English. On the campus of Georgia Tech, where crews are cleaning up the new Aquatic Center, it took more than 2 million gallons of water to fill the facility's 50 meter racing pool

in the 25 square yard diving pool. Except for the construction mess, the new Aquatic Center is finished and ready for its first test event. The nation's bank, synchronized swimming, World Cup, said to start August 1st. Charlie Duke, who oversaw the construction of the swimming pools, says he expects to see some new world records set there. This should be one of the fastest pools in the world, if not the fastest. The conditions are right so that the fastest times can be achieved in the pool, the way the water recirculates in the pool and the water flows out. For example, there's a rollout gutter system, and the easiest way to describe it is when you create a wave in the water, it goes across the pool and if it hits another edge, it bounces back, which creates cross currents. A rollout gutter, when the wave gets to the edge, it rolls off the edge. I'd love to see, you know, as many world records as possible. Still on a construction on the Georgia Tech campus is the Olympic Village, where 14,000 Olympic athletes and officials will live during the games.

ACOG's Russ Chandler is known as the mayor of the Olympic Village because he is the project manager. We're going to some of the best housing in the world here. These units or apartment units, when the athletes are gone, there'll be private bedrooms, two baths for four students with a living room and a kitchenette. The incredible housing here will be left for future generations of students for Georgia Tech and Georgia State. Two of the dorms have been a cause of real concern. The high-rise buildings were built atop slab foundations, and that's resulted in excessive settling. One has shifted more than nine inches instead of the expected two inches. Olympic organizers hired a consulting firm to check out the dorms. In their finished report, the consulting engineers blamed the foundations. And they recommend the buildings be regularly inspected to catch any serious structural or electrical problems that may arise in the future. But they say the buildings should pose no danger to people staying in them.

In addition to the dorms, Olympic Village Mayor Russ Chandler says a huge, but temporary dining hall will also be built on the Georgia Tech campus to serve the Olympic family. We'll be able to seat 4,000 people at any time, and athletes will consume quite a bit of food. It's open 24 hours a day. What we have determined the average consumption of calories of athletes is 10,000 calories a day. They consume two kilos of vegetables or fresh fruit per day, so it's a tremendous logistic effort in feeding all these athletes in here. Acox media venue tour of the Olympic ring also included stops at the Georgia Dome, side of the basketball and gymnastics competitions, the new field hockey stadium on the campus of Atlanta University, and the new Olympic stadium, which is now half finished. Most of the journalists on the tour were impressed with Atlanta's readiness. Frank Rechtmann is a reporter for German television.

It's hot and humid, and I'm amazed from this town how fast they built all these places where the sport events will take place, like we saw the swimming, that it's finished this week also, and this is typical American way compared to Barcelona. That was not as well organized. Back on the bus, French sports writer Christoph Camarons also feels reassured about Atlanta's Olympic progress. People are excited to have the games, and everybody wants to make it the best game ever, and I think we have to trust the American people for the organization. I think it will be good games. And Atlanta, well, it's not a well-known city around the world, and the first impression

you have, well, it's not as pretty, as beautiful, for example, as San Francisco, or cities like even New York, who have an architecture, a certain unity. Also pleased with the pace of venue construction is Marc Curtis, a 1978 graduate of the University of Georgia, who now works as a sports anchor for an NBC affiliate in Phoenix, Arizona. The tour served as his homecoming. In fact, our reports are dealing with the overwhelming thing that I sense is that the southern hospitality is just going to win everybody over, right? It was sort of a trademark, and it was a marketing tool, but I think it's really true. I have just sense that more than anything, more than the facilities and the athletic prowess of the athletes, the southern hospitality is what the 96 Summer Olympics will be remembered for. But not all journalists on the bus were enthusiastic. He wrote, with the Japanese Kyoto News Service, things, there's no way Atlanta can be ready

in time. I would like to very much, but at the same time, I'm very afraid that it is, I mean, now it is under construction most, and I'm just afraid it is, whether it's completed or not, you know, joined a little game in the last next year. You think it's not going to be completed? I don't think so, but I'm just curious about that. Our reporter's opinions differ on Atlanta's Olympic readiness. One thing they agree on that by August of next year, they will have told everything there is to tell about Georgia, words, and all. I'm Susanna Capeluto. Peach Dade commentator Lee May has some thoughts now on the Olympics and the city where he lives and works. Back in the 1970s, when I worked for IBM and lived in Cleveland, I traveled to other cities for meetings. At the obligatory cocktail party, we'd stand around introducing ourselves to one another. And when my turn came, I'd say my name and then say, I'm from Cleveland. You know, it never failed.

As soon as I'd say I'm from Cleveland, somebody in the group would say, with fake sadness. I'm sorry. Well, that's all changed now. Nowadays when I go out of town and introduce myself and mention Atlanta, nobody says, I'm sorry. Everybody says Atlanta, the Olympics, you're getting the Olympics. Well, yes, we're getting the Olympics. But by the reverent tone in the way people's eyes cloud up when they talk about the 96 games, you think we were getting good schools in a city without crime or without hate. And of course, neither is the case. Now, right here, I'd better say that I love it that Atlanta has the Olympics. I love it more than most people. I'm sure because my wife, Lynn, works for the Atlanta Olympic Committee. But while I'm glad she's there, and I'm happy that the games will be here, I am concerned that too many hopes and dreams are riding on less than a month of summer games.

These are games, aren't they? The world's best athletes, running and jumping and swimming and playing ball, and trying to knock one another senseless in a boxing ring. Unfortunately, I know a lot of people who think that going for the goal means making a buck. Hey, Atlanta's got the Olympics. That's the place to be. Wonder if I can move my T-shirt business there and get rich. Or do you think it's too late for me to get one of those big jobs? Well, the answer to that one is, yes, it is too late. Ask Lynn. When I travel around and hear these kinds of questions and see the hope in people's eyes, I never step on their dreams by reminding them that the games will change the city more than they will change lives in the city. There will be buildings and green spaces and a whole lot of publicity, but the poor will still be with us, and the rich will simply get richer.

No I don't say this to the hopeful strangers I meet, and still I say, come on over. And let me give you my wife's telephone number. Leave me as a journalist and gardener and author, he lives in Atlanta with his wife, Lynn. God's looks and desires, they'll never fail, when spring time comes to Atlanta, G.A.N. Late March, early April, among the pine and maple, those blooming flowers everywhere, well you may have heard of all the peaches and all the pastry streets, I've seen more streets of where the name of a peach tree, and all the peaches that I'll ever eat, all the woods and the zillions, they'll never fail, when spring time comes, when spring

time comes, when spring time comes to Atlanta, G.A.N. Athens is the only Georgia site outside Atlanta to host more than one Olympic event. And like other host cities, the resources of this university community will be put to the test as an estimated half million people visit next summer. It's just a year to go until the games, many and Athens are excited about what the future will bring, but there are others who wish the Olympics would just go away. W.G.A.'s Melinda Ware has the story. Athens will be responsible for more events, more athletes and more visitors than any other Olympic site outside of Atlanta. Three sports will be featured at the University of Georgia, the soccer, metal rounds, volleyball preliminaries and rhythmic gymnastics.

650,000 tickets are up for sale for the Athens events, and while ACOG hasn't yet released preliminary ticket sales numbers, local organizers are expecting sell-out crowds. According to UGA spokesman Tom Jackson, Athens residents may find themselves outnumbered six to one over the course of the two-week period next summer. Dick Hudson is a university's Olympic liaison. He says residents won't feel so outnumbered every day all the time, but Hudson believes that even the busiest Olympic days will contribute to a uniquely positive atmosphere. And I think the community people here can take more of a personal satisfaction because we're not as big as Atlanta, and I think the people in the community are going to have the opportunity to not only see some of the athletes who are training here, but meet some of them. And I think when the games come, they're going to be a little closer to them also at that time. So no, I think that we're going to get it, I won't say as much attention as Atlanta, but I think the attention we get will certainly be very positive and be very inclusive. But some people say they don't want the attention.

This random sampling of residents downtown at lunchtime earlier this week reflected a wide range of attitudes towards Athens' role in 1996. Well, my cousin's going to be in one of the events, so all of my relatives are coming, but I don't want to be here. I think it'll be too crazy. I don't even think I'll be able to ever get home to Marietta. I'm neither looking forward to it nor not looking forward to it. I just don't get all that excited by the Olympics at all. So I guess I don't care, it would be the appropriate answer. I ran over on sunset, and there's a real good chance, we're not going to be able to renew our lease because landlord's going to want to rent the house out for the Olympics. And I think it's going to be really great for the people and Athens that already have money that are going to be able to make more of it, but for those of us that are working class and barely making ends meet, I think we're going to wind up real bad shape because of it. I think a lot of us are going to lose our homes for the summer, somehow have to go someplace else.

I mean, our landlord's already hinted at that for us, so that's basically how I feel. The people who already have money are going to make more of it, and the people that don't are going to wind up worse off. Looking forward to it. I think it's going to bring a lot more money into the Athens area for the local and small businessmen. I think I'm a local locksmith, and I just should generate business for us for people losing, locking keys, and needing keys, and the rental property business for people renting houses with new keys and stuff like that, but I think it's going to be great. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing a different variety of people in Athens, and I like people, so I'm looking forward to meeting a lot of people, and I'm looking forward to a lot of the businesses booming in Athens. I'm not looking forward to having all traffic, it's just going to be horrendous, you know? So, I kind of want to get out of town, but then again, I want to go and be part of the excitement. I don't think it's going to be any different than it is, than it is now. You've got traffic, you've got people, granted you will have more people, but more people

is more money, so it's good. I think it's going to balance out in the long run, like I say, more people, more volume for me, and that's what I'm interested in, so I'm looking forward to the Olympics. It's going to be mutually beneficial for everybody, I think. But the games begin. Local officials say they'll be ready for the crowds when the games do begin. Speakers ranging from the UGA Swimming Coach to State Representative Louise McBee rallied a downtown crowd on Wednesday, as the official one-year countdown mark was celebrated. Runners carrying an Olympic-inspired torch for the Georgia Games passed through town on their way to Atlanta. Britain's 96 president, Dink Neesmith, told the crowd of about 200 that the Olympics will be a success, because local people are working so hard in preparation. And when the world finishes its visitation to Athens, University of Georgia, North East

Georgia, we want them to say, wow, this community, this institution, these people deserve a gold medal too, and with your help, that can be done. Thank you very much for being here today. Smith's University counterpart, Dick Hudson, says the world is already paying attention to Athens. I have seen articles over the last year, a year and a half, in the London Times, in the Japanese Times, in the Jerusalem Post, in a German newspaper. What we're seeing ongoing is much what the whole world saw leading up to say the Little Hammer Games, or the Barcelona Games, starting about six to eight months before, in some instances, even earlier than that. There are articles written about these communities, and of course, Athens is the community we're talking about. So there have been articles and newspapers already around the world. I spent the day today with some people from Australia, who will be going back home and writing about Athens, Georgia. The publicity we're getting is ongoing, and will continue to grow probably exponentially over the next 12 months.

Pre-Elympic training begins in Athens next week, when the national teams of Australia and Sweden arrive to work out in the sweltering Georgia heat. Hudson believes the logistics and planning surrounding pre-Elympic training will be one of the biggest challenges facing Athens in the next year. He says while there's a lot of work yet to do, local planners are right on schedule. Still, as an organizer of the largest Olympic site outside of Atlanta, a complaint Hudson often hears is about the sheer numbers of people coming to town. He's also talked to people who worry their lives will be disrupted by the Olympics, and they just say they don't want to be here when the games begin. I think the overall community feeling is positive. There are concerns. There certainly are people in any community who are less progressive than others, and I think we'd always need to have some caution in anything that we're doing that addresses something to this magnitude. But I think more people are positive than negative, a number of people on occasion I've talked with who raise some concerns, but when I point out to them the schedule of the events in Athens and when all these things are taking place, usually they say, well,

it's not as bad as I thought it might be. I think you can see that the community can function as it typically does. I'm not going to say that there won't be some inconveniences, but I think it's going to come rather well. And I think there are always going to be some people who wish it wouldn't come. This event, like so many others, it will come, it will go, will be fine. Although most Olympic attention will be focused on Atlanta in the upcoming year, Athens will be faced with a myriad of new challenges. What permanent effect the Olympics will have on the city of 90,000 remains to be seen, but few doubt that this time next year, life in Athens will be anything but routine. I'm Melinda Weir reporting. Athens resident on Peach State commentator Pete McCommons takes a stork attitude about the Olympic Games. I've decided that my Olympic concession will be real southern cornbread. The ingredients are inexpensive. It's a famous southern edible that all the foreigners will want to experience.

It's portable. They can go right into the stadium eating their cornbread. And it's the only thing I know how to cook. It doesn't always come out right. Sometimes I scorch it or make it too gushy in the middle or use too much oil, but hey, it's southern and however you fix it is how they'll think it's supposed to be. That's the greatest attraction of the Olympics. You don't have to worry about repeat customers. It'll be sort of like doing business in Times Square. Every customer is a stranger and won't be back tomorrow. A commercial paradise. A seller's market. If you want to enjoy the Olympics, plan now to enter the lucrative hospitality industry. Unless you'll get enough Olympic enjoyment just from trying to explain to random Lithuanians why we have no public toilets. Like it or not, the Olympics is or are coming. So you might as well figure out how to make money off it. You've at least got a place to live and that could turn out to be your greatest asset.

Sure, it'll be inconvenient having to bicycle back into town every day from the woods where you're temporarily camping. But the brief annoyance will seem well worth it when you stop by home to collect that day's rent from the 15 Brazilians enjoying the corn-operated TV in your living room and drinking coaks from the machine in the kitchen. You'll have to stop by anyway to check the oil in your vehicles currently in services and rent a car. Have you reserved your bus yet? I've got a nifty 36 passenger converted Chevy Church bus fitted out with a megaphone and drink machines rigged to take the Susan B. Anthony Dollars loaded into the bill changer. Every evening after I close up the cornbread stand, I'll be offering my famous midnight tours of Athens with stops on alternate nights at the Forty-White, the Georgia Theatre, and the Atomic, Boneshakers optional, ending with an early waffle house catered breakfast under the tree that owns itself.

Entertainment, food, and history. I came up with a concept by asking myself what I would want if I were in the Athens of Greece where this Olympic should have been held. I've also got a 1962 Ford flatbed truck with room for 12 coin-operated portolettes spaced at discrete intervals. I'm going to equip it with one of those chimes like the ice cream trucks so that anybody in the crowd can just follow, I can't get no satisfaction to the out and about house, relief on the roll, foreign currency accepted. And don't get me wrong, I don't mean to be disrespectful toward the great opportunity represented by the Olympics in our town. I look forward to the various encounters with people from other countries and cultures. I want them to like Athens and have a good experience here. At the same time, they're going to bring five million dollars or so into the local economy by disrupting my life for two weeks, and I just want my share of the compensation above

and beyond international friendship. The Olympics is, after all, brought to us by the same people who bring us Georgia football. Both are good for Athens because they bring money, prestige, and athletic excitement to those who have tickets. So unless you want the Olympics to be one long agonizing game day, beating you to death with the crowds, the traffic, the gridlock, the litter, join the winning team, be positive – sell. The world is coming to Athens and it's the best of all possible worlds. For Georgia Gazette, this is Pete McCartmann's. Who's good plan when they get poorly planned?

Take us when on sale for almost all events. But in Savannah, people are still wondering whether there'll be tickets to see the yachting event. There were still problems with the Olympic yachting venue in Savannah, and with me now to discuss those, actually with me on the telephone from Toronto Canada to discuss the situation in Savannah, Paul Henderson, president of the International Yacht Racing Union. Could you briefly give me an update on the situation with yachting in Savannah? Well, the situation has three sides to it.

One is the sailors are about to show up there. Some are all ready there, and as you know, most of our sailors are rather experienced people, and so that they will give us a very good feedback on what they are finding. So we're looking forward to that, because finally we will have a test situation. We have no agreement with ACOG. We had come to a tentative agreement with the technical people, and ACOG decided to delay any formal agreement till after this regatta. We wish that hadn't happened, because we would have liked to have gone down to Savannah next week and said everything's terrific, but ACOG decided not to do that. Let me remind our audience, Paul, that we're talking to you. You're in Toronto, Canada, and you're talking to us from a car foam.

Paul Henderson, who's president of the International Yacht Racing Union. Paul, what has been the problem with logistics? Well, one of the situations is that there has really never been a regatta of any size in Savannah. So everything is new, also the original bid documents, everything in the bid documents, ACOG could not deliver. And one due to environmental problems, another due to bankruptcy, so it's been very, very difficult right from the start. ACOG keeps making presentations. They hire you at Greece, and then the ACOG refuses to assign the agreement. So it isn't that we're being difficult at all. It's that ACOG just won't sign their own proposal. It's very difficult situation.

All we're trying to do is get them to start boxing in a regular ring instead of a round ring. We can never corner them on an issue. Now you mentioned you've got a number of sailors in Savannah, more coming to Savannah for the regatta in the next week or so. What do you hope to find out from them? Oh, these are all very knowledgeable. They're the world's best sailors from, I think, over 50 countries. And they're going to be very, very observant. There will be nothing left unturned for us. We won't have to ask them. We'll have so much information that we will be able to say what is required. OK, so in other words, you're telling me that when they finish their regatta, they will be coming back and telling you this was good. This was bad. This is what needs to be changed. And tell you, I'm already getting faxes and emails from the teams that are there. What kind of response have you gotten so far?

They've got a lot of questions. Starting from the heat to the launching facilities, everybody likes Savannah, but they just can't understand why there is no firm position on anybody's part. I'm talking to Paul Henderson, President of the International Yacht Racing Union, talking about the situation in Savannah where the Olympic Yacht races are supposed to be held for the 1996 games. Paul, where does the situation, the way it is now, where does this leave us? Well, I can only tell you what the IWR used bottom line is, that we're going to present 30 medals somewhere on a fair playing field next summer, simple and straight as that. All right, Paul Henderson of the International Yacht Racing Union. We were talking to him on his car phone from Toronto, Canada. Paul, thank you very much for taking time and being with us and we'll just hope things work out for the best for all concerned.

Yeah, they have to. Thanks again. Thank you. With me on the phone now from Atlanta, Bill Marx, Bill is the deputy managing director for communications for ACOG, Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games. I think we need to talk about the situation in Savannah. First, what is the situation there logistically? What are the problems we're running into? Well, I don't have a tremendous amount of details for you, Bruce. I think there is some concern with the size of the marina on the part of the federation and a few other issues, but let me just tell you where I think we are at this point. As you know, we are having a number of sports events in this summer, and the next one is the regatta that we're holding down in Savannah.

This is a great opportunity for us to address the concerns and the issues that we are facing, and we have worked out an agreement with the federation to use this somewhat of a test event to look at how things work, make some evaluations, and then make some modifications for next year. I believe we'll actually have more comp competitors in Savannah in the next couple of weeks than we would actually have there in the games in 1996. So we're going to get a full and thorough test of the event and the venue, both in terms of our systems and our people, and hopefully we'll continue this learning process and pull together a very strong event in 1996. When you say the federation, I assume you're talking about the International, the Outracing Union. Yeah, they were kind enough to come in a couple of weeks ago and join us for a meeting. We were able to talk to them about their concerns, and we agreed, as I understand it in

that meeting, to go full with the test event as a learning tool, and just get the race going there. This will be the first time we'll have a full competitive situation there, and it really takes a competitive situation to kind of see what works and what doesn't work. I sort of eye-ending out the bugs. Yeah, well actually, as one person here said, it's like a pre-gain scrimmage. You get a chance to test your systems, test your people, see what's going to work, what's not going to work, and move forward. Paul Henderson, head of the International Outracing Union, told me that ACOG and the Union had reached an agreement on the facilities and other things in Savannah, but then he said, ACOG backed off the agreement and did not sign it. Can you elaborate on that? Why? I don't have a ability to elaborate on that. I know that we have had ongoing discussions with the federation. And as I said, we had reached an agreement three weeks ago, which was basically to move

forward this test event as a learning process, and then use that as sort of the experience base to which to move forward with modifications if they are needed at the venue. Is there a bad blood between the Union and ACOG? I would think that would be really inappropriate to discuss, I think, really, if you look at any Olympics, you are going to have a number of issues that really come up as you try to move forward. Everybody is trying to pull together, to pull off the greatest games ever. And the every organization we deal with, every institution we deal with, we go in it with the goal in mind of pulling off the best games ever, I would believe that every group that we deal with also goes into it with that in mind. Do you think that there's these differences with the Union can be ironed up because Henderson told me, says, next year, we are going to put on the event somewhere.

Now, obviously, we want the event to be in Savannah, but do you think that the hurdles are too big to climb over? I don't know what you mean there. We are the organization that really is putting on the event. We are the organization that is going to put on the event, so I'm not sure I understand your question. I would say I think we're going to continue to try to have an open dialogue with everyone involved in all of our venues, not just Savannah, but everywhere to continue to try to put on a great event. Okay. So for what I'm getting from you is the Union does not have the authority, if they decide not to have the event, the Union does not have the authority to move it elsewhere. But I think the venues and the decision to have an event really rest with ACOG and ultimately with the IOC. I mean, that's really the organization that we report into. Okay. Well, I gather that there will be an event in Savannah. We'll be certainly having one this week, and hopefully we'll have a great one and we'll

continue to move forward. All right, Bill Marks, managing director for communications for ACOG. Thank you much for being with us on Georgia Gazette. With the Olympics still a year away, many Georgia communities are getting into the Olympic spirit by providing training facilities for foreign athletes. Students will be participating in next summer's games. So far, a team from 37 countries have signed contracts to train in and across Georgia at in six other states. A number of teams have already been working out in Lagrange, one of the training centers sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee. James Argroves has more. In the last three years, more than 50 athletes from 25 different countries have trained at the center in Lagrange. In the year since Atlanta was named the site of the 1996 Summer Games, cities across Georgia have worked to cash in on the Olympic experience.

In 1992, Lagrange City officials agreed to put together an organization called I Train in Lagrange, Georgia, Incorporated. Because the city is an officially recognized training center, it posts teams from underdeveloped countries, which don't have world-class training facilities at home. The list of countries that have already sent athletes to Lagrange includes Swaziland, Zambia, Suriname, and the Sudan. Brazil and South Africa are expected to send 300 athletes to Lagrange for training. Jim Minahim is Executive Director of the Lagrange Sports Authority, which oversees the I Train in Lagrange program. He says the citizens of Lagrange have welcomed the athletes training there with open arms. And he says the athletes themselves are enjoying the Southern hospitality. The athletes just think they've come to Disney World in a lot of them because some of the athletes I have here come from very underdeveloped countries. They've now been exposed to America where we take them to a 4th of July parade and they

have barbecues and we've adopted kind of host family relationships with our international athletes so that they have a family and they can go out to a Sunday dinner with. And they just feel like, you know, their training is wonderful when they live in an environment where people care about them. Jim Minahim says a bond has developed between the athletes and the people of Lagrange and believes the training center has personalized the Olympic spirit for Lagrange residents. The community, I think, has benefited as much from the athletes as the athletes have benefited from the community and sometimes it's important for us to get a perspective on people to people and put a face on these things as opposed to this Olympic gold and advertising and things that we kind of get caught up with in the Olympics. And so when you get to know people one to one, you tend to find out that they're just like your children and that you want to be supportive of them. So I'm sure that the local area here is they watch the Olympics are going to be cheering for those U.S. athletes but there's always an awful lot of events where you just don't know who's in it and all of a sudden you're going to know someone who's in it and he's

going to be from a foreign country and so if maybe they're competing with a U.S. athlete they're hoping that that number two spot goes to one of those kids. The athletes in Lagrange train on a world class track that the city built for them. It is also upgrading a track at the local high school. Lagrange has spent nearly a million dollars on these facilities and plans to spend another three to four million to construct facilities for boxing, rowing and canoeing. The money used for those projects comes from private donations and state grants approved by the Georgia legislature. Those grants are distributed by the Georgia Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism, which set up a separate department to help communities throughout the state market themselves to Olympic committees in other countries. Kimberly Goff is Director of that organization, which is called the Georgia Olympic Training Alliance. The Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism already does something similar with business. A company tells us they want to locate here in Georgia, they need this kind of sewer capacity, they need this size of building, then we find the community that best matches their needs.

We do the same thing with sports now. The country tells us what their needs are. We have a listing of all the communities and what they can offer and we will set them up and help them with all the details from contracts, to housing, to feeding, to purchasing the equipment. We have state grants available to help these communities purchase equipment and to upgrade public facilities. Goff says the state grants are needed because becoming a training site is not a money maker for most communities. She says they sometimes spend more money than they make because many countries that send teams to Georgia have few goods to export and even less money to buy products produced here. Goff says there are benefits. Some communities have a great deal of economic impact from hosting a team, for instance, to Albertan, Georgia because they got involved with rowing and we're interested in attracting a team and they got a state grant to help with some of their equipment. They also raised some money on their own and now they have a really well-known rowing site and a lot of the northern colleges that cannot train for rowing during the winter

months are going to be coming down to Albertan. I think there's a group of 80 female rowers from Tennessee, they're going to come down next March and 80 rowers in town taking a broom night and purchasing food and t-shirts etc. Anything that they might need is a significant impact in Albertan. Goff says the available training sites in Georgia are filling up but negotiations are continuing with other countries who want to send their athletes here. She says she expects to reach agreements with 20 other countries in the next few weeks. Goff says once the sites fill up in Georgia, she will then try to work out arrangements with cities in neighboring states. I'm James R. Groves. There's plenty of Olympic excitement in Columbus as well where the women's Olympic softball

competition will be held. Mike Savage paid a visit to Golden Park, the city's 44-year-old baseball field that's getting a facelift for the summer games. At Golden Park, construction workers are hard at work renovating the baseball field which is home to the Columbus Red Sticks, a minor league farm team of the Cleveland Indians. Park owner Charlie Moro has spent more than half a million dollars on the renovation project, which includes a construction of a new clubhouse, added concession facilities and a deck area complete with a whirlpool for fans. But one of the more costly upgrades to the park is the addition of luxury sky boxes. Brent Hollingsworth, a Red Sticks official, says you don't often see this kind of setup

in minor league ball parks. Inside each sky box there are theaters, theater type seats, I guess about 10 seats. From here you can see the whole field, you can see every play that's being made. It's also equipped with a refrigerator, sink, and a telephone, and it does have weight or services, so when you're sitting up here watching the game, it's just like a major league park with the sky boxes. In addition to the private investment involved with the Olympic renovation, the city of Columbus has raised more than $44 million through local taxes to rebuild the area around Golden Park. South Commons, as it's known, will be home to eight new practice fields and a new football stadium and civic center. Debra Daredi is deputy director of Columbus 96, an organization that serves as a source of information about Olympic softball in Columbus. She says the people of Columbus have been behind the idea of having an Olympic event in their city since 1993.

Two years ago the city of Columbus and voted in a yes once in sales tax, and that once in sales tax was to renovate Golden Park to build a new civic center to renovate the Memorial Stadium and to build a night field softball complex, and that complex was really the draw that helped us secure the venue for the nice ex-Olympics. Excitement over Golden Park's Olympic makeover is spreading to the baseball players as well. Brian Warner plays left field for the Columbus Red Sticks. This is nice, it's one of the nicest ones in the league, I would say that, like you said, it's not finished yet, so you really can't tell, you know, but the way they said it's going to be and what I've seen so far, it's legit, it's really, it's top notch. It's good park to hit in, good park to hit in, lights are good, it's, for minor leagues as minor leagues go, it's one of the nicer ones, lights are up high and you don't lose

much in the sky, so it's good. The clubhouse is going to be sweet, so I'm sweet, we'll see, you know. John Dietrich is the vice president and general manager of the Red Sticks. He says he's happy that Olympic softball is coming to Columbus, even though it's created a problem of sorts. The Olympics coming to Columbus, they're sort of a double-edged sword for the Red Sticks, because on the one hand, I'm sure many of the extra added touches that we've gotten on Golden Park are due to the Olympics or some, some exterior facade work and so forth that the city probably might not have done, had it just been for the minor league baseball team. We're getting a better facility, but on the other side, the other edge of the sword is we're really basically out of home for 96, this is going to be used for the Olympics softball, we've got to find another home. Despite the inconvenience to the Red Sticks, the city can't wait for Olympic softball to

come to Columbus. If all goes according to plan, the South Common Complex should be finished by June 1996. And Olympic officials say there are plenty of tickets still available. I'm Mike Savage. Olympic organizers hope to sell more than 11 million tickets to the 1996 Summer Games, prizes range from $6 to $250 for athletic events and from $200 to $600 for opening and closing ceremonies in Atlanta. Olympic tickets won on sale May 1 by direct mail. The deadline for the Olympic ticket lottery was June 30 and it'll be a while before those who spent hours filling out ticket ordering forms and finding enough money to pay for their choices, find out if their winners will lose. So far, officials have been rather tight-lipped in releasing information about which events still have tickets available. Olympic organizers call the Lottery Method Phase 1 of their ticket selling process. In the second phase, tickets will be available by phone. Olympic officials say all tickets bought during this time will be sent to buyers before

the start of the 1996 Games. Next year, any tickets that remain will be sold on a first-come, first-turve basis. Olympic's run from July 19 through August 4. As Georgia Gazette for this week, our program produced by Susanna Capeluto, edited by Sid Hoskinson, helped this week from James R. Groves, Mike Savage, Melinda Ware, and Rob Hilton. Coming up next week, Georgia Gazette travels to Susanna for the nation's bank Regatta and official Olympic test event. Meet NBR commentator André Kudreskyoui's written a new book, A Novel This Time, based on the legend of a Hungarian Countess who killed young virgins and bathed in their blood. Plus Steven J. Countle, who created such a television hit series as Hunter and the Camiche, talks about his first novel of the plan.

Join us next week for Georgia Gazette. I'm Bruce Jordan, have a nice day and a nice week. Broadcast of Georgia Gazette is made possible in part by a grant from West Point Stevens. If you have questions or comments about this program, please write to Georgia Gazette, Peach State Public Radio, 1540, Stuart Avenue, Southwest, Atlanta, Georgia, 30310, or call us at 1-800-654-3038. You can also reach us online. Our internet address is printed in your program guide preview. Georgia Gazette is a public affairs presentation of Peach State Public Radio. Georgia Gazette is a public affairs presentation of a grant from West Point Stevens.

Georgia Gazette is a public affairs presentation of a grant from West Point Stevens. Georgia Gazette is a public affairs presentation of a grant from West Point Stevens. Georgia Gazette is a public affairs presentation of a grant from West Point Stevens. A traditional measure of a musician's artistry, a learning tool, and a thrill for the audience, the battle royale from the stage at Alice Tully Hall.

Al's tune with the Trombonus Al Gray, Slide Hampton, Ronald West Gray, and Wycliffe Gorton, and Alto Saxophonus, Wes Anderson, Jesse Davis, Charles McPherson, and Phil Woods. Jazz from Lincoln Center is produced by Jazz at Lincoln Center and Murray Street Enterprise, our program was written by Francis Duke and edited by Lauren Crunzel, senior producer as Steve Rath. The music was recorded by Mark Wilder with Direction from Steve Epstein on Facilities by FNL Music, digital post-production by Rick Bradley at Stephen Erickson Studio. Our production team includes Rob Grader, Jerry LaRosa, and Claudius Sar, special thanks to April Smith, Michael Francis, Leo Gambecorder, and the crew at Alice Tully Hall. The director of Jazz at Lincoln Center is Rob Gibson. The advisor is Stanley Crouch, and the artistic director is Winton Marcellus. I'm Ed Bradley.

This is NPR, National Public Radio.