(ATR) The home of basketball and gymnastics at the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics will be imploded early Monday morning.
The Georgia Dome will end its 25-year career as an Atlanta sports hub with a demolition that will be live streamed across all of local ABC affiliate WSB-TV’s platforms.
Outside of the Olympics, the Georgia Dome also hosted memorable sporting moments as a venue for the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons for more than 20 years. During this time, the Dome hosted two Super Bowls, three NCAA Final Four basketball tournaments, the annual SEC Championship football game, as well as a variety of concerts and community events.
Atlanta 1996 chairman Billy Payne tells Around the Rings he is proud of the legacy left by the venue.
"Overall, I’m very, very pleased and would compare our post-Games utilization of Olympic venues with anybody who’s ever held the Games," Payne emphasized.
While the Georgia Dome provided some of the more memorable moments from the Atlanta Games, Payne says he is not sad to see its implosion.
"No not at all, I look at it as a facility that served our city and state with integrity and purpose," Payne says. "We utilized it under the auspices of the Atlanta Falcons and the Georgia Dome staged multiple events through the years. I think it ran a good race and coming down there’s no sadness whatsoever."
Demolition begins on the 220-acre Georgia World Congress Center campus at 7:30 am Eastern and is closed to the public.
Calgary Faces Decision on 2026
The Calgary City Council is expected to determine today whether the city should move forward with a bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics.
The city administration presented a report to the Calgary city council on Nov. 13 stating its case for an additional US$1.57 million needed to properly prepare for a possible bid under the new IOC timelines introduced in September.
The updated timeline calls for the Host City Contract to be revealed in July 2018 and the Bid Book from potential host cities to be completed by early 2019, which is about six months earlier than before.
A formal request for the money, which would be in addition to the US$940,000 still remaining from the budget of the shuttered Calgary Bid Exploration Committee (CBEC), will be made to the city council on Monday.
The administration report recommends that if the council were to refuse to approve the additional funding, the effort to pursue a second Winter Games for Calgary should be ended immediately.
The CBEC concluded in July that a 2026 bid was feasible but may not be prudent, citing financial concerns.
Office Closed for Holiday
The Around the Rings headquarters in Atlanta will be closed on Thursday, Nov. 23 in observation of Thanksgiving.
To all of our readers in the United States, we hope you enjoy the holiday.
Written by Kevin Nutley and Gerard Farek
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