(ATR) Athletes and fans alike said their final goodbyes to Turner Field as the Atlanta Braves played their last game at the 1996 Olympic stadium.
Pregame ceremonies concluded with two fighter jets performing a fly over while Atlanta Opera tenor Timothy Miller sang the national anthem. Former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, were featured on the Kiss Cam and fans cheered their entire way through the Braves game.
Click here for photos of the last Braves game at Turner Field!
As the game progressed and through to the closing ceremony following the Braves 1-0 win over the Detroit Tigers, a rundown of Turner Field’s Olympic history including Evander Holyfield carrying the torch into the Olympic stadium and Muhammed Ali lighting the Olympic flame was shown through "Braves Vision" on multiple screens throughout the stadium.
"No one is ever going to forget what took place here in 1996 but I don’t think anyone is going to forget the years we had as a baseball team once it got converted," MLB Hall of Famer John Smoltz tells Around the Rings.
"That image of Muhammed Ali will never leave those of us who were able to watch it and see it," Smoltz adds.
The closing ceremony on Sunday was reminiscent of the closing of the Olympics with six so-called Braves "super fans" circling the stadium carrying the flags of the southern states that form the core of the Braves support. The flag bearers were followed by more than 1,600 fans, one for every Braves game played at Turner Field.
During the ceremony, Smoltz and fellow Hall of Famers Bobby Cox and Don Sutton all had the opportunity to express their thoughts on the transition into the new stadium and re-live their experiences there at the field.
"Wow, this is going to be one heck of a Olympic stadium….and it was," Sutton recalled himself thinking when the Centennial Olympic Stadium was being built. When the stadium transitioned into the Braves stadium "This is going to be one heck of a Brave's stadium….and it is," Sutton adds in a laugh.
"I don’t know how it’s all going to work out," said Smoltz, "just with the World Baseball Classic and now the Olympics, hopefully we get to do what Americans want to do and represent the USA."
The venue for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1996 Olympics as well as athletics, will soon enter the next phase of its life.
The stadium will be converted into a 30,000 capacity football stadium for Georgia State University. The design will be similar to the venue’s original oval shape when it was the Olympic Stadium though it will hold significantly fewer people.
The opening day for the new SunTrust Park in suburban Cobb County where the Braves will continue to play will be Apr.14.
Written by Courtney Colquitt
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20 Years at #1: Your best source of news about theOlympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribersonly.
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