ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, July 28, 1996 TAG: 9607300061
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Our Eyes in Atlanta
DATELINE: ATLANTA
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
NOTE: Above
DESPITE THE horror of Saturday morning's blast, quitting now would signal very little beyond defeat.
The Olympic flags were dropped to half-staff at venues Saturday. the mood of the Atlanta Games was somewhat lower than those flags.
The bomb that exploded in the wee hours Saturday morning at Centennial Olympic Park couldn't stop the Games, but it certainly quieted them for a while.
On downtown streets where the women's marathon will begin at 7 a.m. today, 24 hours earlier about the only movement was by police, security and the media.
The sports sites filled with spectators for the eighth day of competition, and they cheered, some even with fervor.
Most of the energy, however, seemed to be saved for the consideration of how death could visit the world's greatest sporting stage for the first time since the Munich massacre in 1972.
1996 was the Olympics where everyone invited came to play. No boycotts. The only thing that had slowed these Games was traffic gridlock.
The resolve was to keep playing. The act of terror came almost precisely at the halfway point of the Centennial Games. It came in the early morning hours on the day when the Olympics' historic first, and still glamourous, event is run - the 100-meter dash.
Instead of asking who would be the new ``world's fastest human,'' however, the question was just who could or would unite a cause by trying to blow it up.
``Bomb'' always is a four-letter word, but as to whether the Games should be stopped, basketball's Charles Barkley found a longer one to describe how vulgar he thought the act was.
``To leave,'' Barkley said, ``we let those awin. To let whoever did this get away with it ... to cancel the Games would be absurd.''
Barkley had been out all night when he made that statement. Dream Teamers don't have curfews, of course, and after the blast, police would let no one back into the nearby Omni Hotel, where the U.S. men's basketball team is staying.
The location of the blast, as much as anything, was what made the situation increasingly scary. The park is located in downtown, where millions have walked the streets in the first week of the Games.
The park backs up to the Georgia World Congress Center, a five-sport venue and home to the International Broadcast Center, including NBC-TV's complex. The Omni is next door. So is CNN. The Georgia Dome isn't far down the block.
That said, if an ``act of terror'' - the FBI's words - like this were to take place at the Atlanta Games, the splendid 21-acre park was the likely place.
Open for little more than one week, Centennial Olympic Park has little security.
Nor should it.
It's just what its name says it is. A park. There is no admission charge to enter the grounds, no security checkpoints. It is the one Olympic-created or renovated venue where you don't need a ticket.
Security at the sports venues has been fairly strict, and it didn't change even a few hours after the tragedy. You walk through metal detectors. Bags are opened and hand-checked. Credentials are scanned.
The only way to retain the spirit, the elan, the charm of the park is to leave it as is. How did whoever get where he did with the satchel that killed two and injured more than 100?
It probably wasn't difficult. Two days earlier, while crossing from the Main Press Center to the Omni, I cut through the park carrying my briefcase and computer.
No one asked any questions, nor should they have. Centennial Olympic Park is part of the Georgia State Park system, although it's operated by the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG).
You don't have metal detectors at the entrance to public parks.
To put metal detectors at the Centennial Park entrance would be like doing so at Kings Dominion or Busch Gardens, or worse, because the daily crowds at the Olympics are larger.
Officials hope to reopen the park today, but late Saturday they weren't sure of the exact hour that would happen, or whether there would be some sort of heightened security.
``The open spaces there are no different from open spaces anywhere,'' said A.D. Frazier, ACOG's chief operating officer. ``The open spaces provide an attractive place for people to gather and enjoy Olympic ambience.''
By mid-afternoon Saturday, the downtown streets had replaced the park as the melting pot for these Games. More streets were closed in the park's vicinity as the investigation continued.
The Games had been going so well. ACOG had all but licked the transportation and computer problems that gained attention the first few days. The day before tragedy struck, 160,748 fans filled the new Olympic stadium - in two sessions - for the opening events of the track and field competition.
What happened early Saturday while most involved in the Olympics were asleep wasn't the kind of blast that previously had been taking place in Centennial Olympic Park. Sadly, however, that is part of our world.
The open green space amid the skyscrapers and concrete was to be the lasting legacy of these Games. The character of these Olympics hasn't changed; whether the character of the park does remains to be seen.
These Games began with a heightened awareness of what could happen, the crash of TWA Flight 800 off Long Island. What happened here Saturday has become part of the world in which we live.
Life must go on. And so did the Olympics.
LENGTH: Long : 104 linesby CNB