Remembering the Centennial Olympic Park Bombing

(ATR) Twenty years ago today, terrorism hit the Olympics.

On July 27, 1996, a bomb exploded at Centennial Olympic Park during the Atlanta Games. Two died as a result of the attack and 111 others were injured. Eric Rudolph, a serial bomber whose other targets included two clinics where abortions were performed and a lesbian nightclub, eventually plead guilty to all four bombings in 2005. He wasn’t caught until 2003.

Mark McKay was a sports reporter for CNN at the time and was making his way across Centennial Olympic Park with his producer Mike Flasch at about 1:20 in the morning. They were walking toward CNN’s live remote position to deliver a report of the day’s sporting events when the bomb went off.

"We were going through the park and the band was playing and I get behind the AT&T Global Village, the big venue, and felt the explosion. First words out of my mouth ‘That was a heck of a way to end the show’. And Mike said ‘No, I think something bad just happened. You go to the live shot, I’m going to see if I can get farther in.’

"As I’m looking up and I’m running I can see this big puff of black smoke rising above the venue and then you see Olympic Park Security at the gate, motioning people to get out.

"I got up to the live shot location. It was about 1:25. Ambulances, fire, police, helicopters all start converging. I just basically reported what I knew. That there was an explosion, you could feel it in your chest.

And then a sea of red, because we were elevated we could see the first responders. It was all red. Then it turned blue as they (the police) were sealing off downtown."

McKay reported constantly for two hours before he was forced to stop by the police.

"They kicked us off our platform, locked the camera down, fearing there were other devices in the park."

McKay remembers that the bombing didn’t douse the Olympic spirit in Atlanta.

"The park was the public gathering place for everyone, even if they didn’t have tickets. A happy place. It turned sad that night but everybody came back and made it the place it was before the bombing."

He thinks the IOC "did the right thing" by deciding that the Games should go on despite the bombing. The decision mirrored that of 1972 in Munich, when 11 Israeli team members were murdered by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September.

The Olympic Park bombing occurred about halfway through the Centennial Olympics and overshadowed the athletic achievements of the Games. For example, Canadian Donovan Bailey set a world record in the 100m and Naim Suleymanoglu of Turkey became the first weightlifter to win three gold medals.

Assistant head coach of the U.S. Men's Basketball team Lenny Wilkens said that although the bombing was tragic, the city and the Olympics were able to move on. Watch Wilkens recall the bombing while attending the 20th anniversary celebration of the Atlanta Olympics below.

More than 10,000 Olympians from 197 countries, then a record, attended the Atlanta Games.

Professional cyclists made their Olympic debut at the 1996 Games, as did beach volleyball, lightweight rowing, mountain bike, softball, women’s football and the team rhythmic gymnastics event.

Written by Gerard Farek

Homepage photo: Getty Images

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