USOC Ups Its Game With New Name USOPC

The United States Olympic Committee is no more. And Team USA's longtime acronym USOC is now former. 

On Thursday the Colorado Springs nonprofit formally announced its new, more inclusive name: U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee.

In short, that's USOPC.

Has a nice ring to it ... well, five rings.

The new nomenclature -- the result of a unanimous vote by the board of directors at a quarterly meeting held in Chicago -- was several months in the making, according to leadership interviewed on an afternoon media conference call.

Team USA joins Norway, South Africa and The Netherlands as the world's only national committees overseeing both Paralympic and Olympic sport domestically. It surprised me more nations, including the United Kingdom (where the Paralympics began), are not already on board with such a change.

International Paralympic Committee President Andrew Parsons put the USOPC's announcement into perspective.

"To see the USOPC make this inclusive statement by changing its name demonstrates the true parallel nature of the Olympic and Paralympic movements," said Parsons. "This change lays a strong foundation to transform the Paralympic Movement as we look toward the Los Angeles Games in 2028 and beyond."

In a social media post sharing a news report about the announcement, Rio 2016 Paralympics shooting competitor Tricia Downing said it was "exciting news for Team USA" while Australia's five-time gold medalist Amy Winters, who competed in Atlanta, Sydney and Athens, wrote, "Wow, this is big ... such an enormous shift from when the U.S. hosted both Games in 1996. A huge statement for inclusion."

The USOPC's CEO Sarah Hirshland said, "Paralympic athletes are integral to the makeup of Team USA, and our mission to inspire current and future generations of Americans."

"The new name represents a renewed commitment to that mission and the ideals that we seek to advance both at home and throughout the worldwide Olympic and Paralympic movements," Hirshland added.

On the media call, fellow May 14 birthday celebrant and USA Today Olympic reporter Christine Brennan "went there" asking if, in an era of rampant national divisiveness, the USOPC wished to send a broader message. Read the USOPC's answer in Brennan's column noting her 35 years and thousands of reports on the Olympic Movement.

Thursday's move pleased me -- it seems only a positive one. It will be interesting to see how new branding takes shape in the months leading up to Tokyo 2020. No word yet on new logo or pin designs, but Team USA's press release does shed some light on other updated uses.

The name change is effective immediately as seen through updated marks on social and digital platforms. Physical changes to signage at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Centers, U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Sites, U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee Headquarters in Colorado Springs and all associated properties will be made as soon as possible with a goal of completion by 2020. Additionally, the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame will be renamed the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Hall of Fame. 

I'll bet Brennan will have to correct herself, as will I, of the multi-decade habit of typing the former acronym. But it's also a safe bet many are very happy like me to put the "P" in USOPC.

Images via Team USA

Wintry Mix At Team USA Media Summit

It's fun to be back in Utah for the first time in four years. 

As in 2013, the U.S. Olympic Committee organized its Team USA Media Summit -- now underway through Wednesday in Park City -- to introduce reporters to more than 100 Olympians and Olympic hopefuls looking ahead to the 2018 Winter Games at PyeongChang. 

Flying into SLC International Airport brought back five-ringed anticipation for a some fun days of networking and gathering story ideas. Driving into the mountains brought a rush of memories from my first visit here in 1997 and, of course, 10 days here during the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics. 

It's always fun to pull off Interstate 80 and spot the ski jumps, then pull into downtown Park City, the village that in some ways remains as decked out for the Games as it was 15 years ago.

The biggest surprise so far: SNOW in September! 

A few miles up the slopes from Salt Lake City, a blizzard welcomed my rental Toyota, and most of the evergreens in and around the city have a great coating of fresh powder. 

Only two weeks ago I was taking sun at Sandy Hook's beaches in New Jersey, juxtaposed with a snow and fog gondola ride up one of the Rocky Mountain's greatest ski resorts.

Day one's press conferences and athlete or official interview opportunities included (as of early Monday afternoon) the U.S.O.C.'s top brass and announcements, a briefing by the PyeongChang committee's media operations team, a star-filled stage featuring top U.S. female ski and snowboard champions, and roundtables with athletes from biathlon, bobsled, speedskating and Para nordic disciplines. 

Enjoyed getting reacquainted briefly with Elana Meyers Taylor, a fellow Georgian and Olympic silver and bronze medalist who got married since her trip to Sochi. She also provided the welcoming remarks at a Sunday evening mountainside party to kick off the Media Summit. 

Also enjoyed a follow up conversation with Mikaela Shiffrin, first interviewed at the last Winter Olympic Media Summit before she went on to win gold in Sochi. We talked briefly about how her P.R. savvy and ability to speak "on message" evolved in recent years. 

I'll post more specifics from these and other athlete interviews in the days and weeks ahead on the road to PyeongChang. For now, it's time for some USA Hockey and USA Luge Q&A.

Photos by Nicholas Wolaver

It's Olympic Day!

Happy worldwide Olympic Day to you!

As noted on past posts about the occasion to this site, June 23 celebrates the birth of the modern Olympic Movement in 1894. So, happy 123rd Birthday, Olympics!

For 2017, a series of events launched weeks ago with many culminating at special gatherings to encourage people to get out and get active.

I intend to celebrate with a brisk morning walk on the Atlanta Beltline near Piedmont Park (a friend and I recently walked it at 4 a.m. and it's a whole new park after dark).

The International Olympic Committee pages for Olympic Day share more history and current events tied to today. Here in the United States, the USOC also delves into Olympic Day participation options.

LA2024 and Paris2024 are also encouraging participation with a full roster of activities.

From a Los Angeles Olympic bid press release:

LA 2024, the LA84 Foundation, the USOC and The Foundation for Global Sports Development are hosting sports clinics for 500 young Angelenos at Will Rogers State Beach, hosting the American flagship Olympic Day Celebration. Young Angelenos will participate in eight Olympic and Paralympic sports including track and field, fencing, table tennis, volleyball, sitting volleyball, rugby, handball and gymnastics, joined by more than 30 Team USA Olympians and Paralympians.

The U.S. Olympic Committee interactive map of hundreds of Olympic Day events (about 2,400 of them) by state is available to show the coast-to-coast reach of this occasion.

Over in Paris, their Olympic Day press release details options:

In 2017, the whole of France will be decked out in the colours of Paris 2024 during this day, with some 100 activities offered over the whole country. In Paris, Olympic Day will become "Olympic Days" with the creation of a large sports field in the heard of the capital over two days, [creating] a full-scale preview of what the Olympic and Paralympic Games might be like in Paris in 2024. 

Public activities in the City of Light include a cross-city kayak, cycling and running event.

If time permits, here in Atlanta I may head downtown to Centennial Olympic Park to fist-bump the statue of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of all things modern Olympic, and wish his likeness a happy Olympic Day 2017 as well.

Photos via IOC

Happy Accidents and NBC Awash at Copacabana

Saturday in the Olympic city presented several happy accidents.

The day started with a stroll to USA House, the USOC's remote office and hospitality suite for the Games, to meet with a public relations colleague.

The house -- in a Rio school that Team USA is renovating -- remains an active construction site with painting, banner installation and other hard hat activities underway.

I did not yet go inside, but it will be exciting to see how the location is transformed from now to volunteer training on Aug. 2.

Bidding adieu to my colleague, I headed across the street to the east end of Ipanema Beach, eventually walking to the rocky peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic. One of the remote Rio Media Center locations -- perhaps the most scenic of them all -- has a balcony and TV studios overlooking the most spectacular beach on earth.

Donning a media credential I was afforded a few minutes to soak in the media center views before climbing what the house manager described as "Rio's ant hill" where thousands of locals and tourists gather to applaud the sunset on clear evenings.

Something tells me these moments and views will remain all-time personal favorites from the 2016 Olympic experience as a wave of calm and peace of mind washed over me -- I will stress about Rio's five-ringed challenges no more!

Heading past Fort Copacabana and through the peninsula neighborhood, several billboards for what may be the Russia House came into view.

I could not help but wonder which athletes on the boards need to be painted over due to the Russia Olympic doping scandal -- the Russia House is typically a very popular venue -- wondering how it may be different in 2016.

Moving on to Copacabana Beach, a large, blue box on the beach proved to be a television viewing stand with a bridge across Ave. Atlantica to connect it to a Rio 2016 Media Center.

It was no accident the Games' most prominent broadcaster, NBC, occupied most if not all of the temporary compound.

As I came around the side of the blue box, it was surprising to spot a bulldozer, yellow or red caution tape and a few additional security folks keeping an eye on a small crowd gathered to look at the building.

Jutting out of the ground/beach level of the structure there was an elaborate and colorful TV studio -- I thought perhaps this was one of the TODAY Show sets.

Flashing my Rio Media Center badge, I was permitted closer inspection alongside reporters from O Globo, APF and a few photographers. Stern faces on the NBC production team told the tale -- the entire set had moments earlier been drenched by a huge winter wave crashing onto Copacabana Beach.

Oops!

About this time the AFP reporter introduced himself asking my news outlet, and I explained the Olympic blogger status.

"Well, here is your story today!" he said.

A story, indeed.

I spoke with a couple of the NBC personnel who confirmed one oversized wave came up over their custom-installed mini-sea wall facing the ocean side of their temporary set. The swell was intense enough to lift and leave behind about an inch of sand on the decorative tile flooring that some team members were starting to sweep or clean with shovels and mops. The wave's watermark extended almost all the way to the main road.

Other producers -- perhaps more senior NBC personnel -- exchanged hushed conversations while gazing upon the scene. About this time the O Globo reporter named Gabriella chatted up the cause of the surprise mayhem.

"It is the ressaca -- the winter tides like the one that crashed the new bike path a few weeks ago," she said.

As reported earlier this year, a new beachfront cycling structure was destroyed by a large wave, killing two riders. Apparently these winter tides bring a handful of larger waves which are impossible to predict.

Thank goodness folks were only soaked by Saturday's wave!

Most of the NBC folks started clamming up when they realized AFP, O Globo and bloggers were on the scene, but we did also confirm the furnished outdoor set is intended as the man NBC News, NBC Sports and Late Night programming with Carson Daly.

Seems like the perfect time to fly in Ryan Seacrest.

Get it? Seacrest.

With no more set-drenching waves upon us during my hour around the set, I moved on to visit the Olympic Mega-Store across the street from the Copacabana Marriott (my 2005 Rio holiday accommodations).

While staying at the hotel years ago, my then-girlfriend, her sister and I made friends with one of the masseuses employed by Marriott, but I learned he had long-since moved on from tourist muscle treatments.

In the Mega-Store, a few key items and details were revealed:

There are few items available for XXL (locally, size GG) male Olympic fan.

The organizing committee was noticeably conservative with regards to Olympic pin designs (far fewer than in Athens, Beijing or London).

Inflatable fan gear apparently is popular -- people were snapping up oversized "mascot hands" for clapping and blow-up Rio Olympic torches (could these become this Olympiad's "red mittens" must-have souvenir?).

Much of the beach gear and shirts is very colorful and festive. Just wish they had more of it in my size.

I bumped into some of the students from Ball State University (first met at Rio Media Center on Friday) as they enjoyed the scene.

The next happy accident was spotting Samsung's pavilion adjacent to the Olympic store. It is sort of nondescript, mostly glass and marked with only subtle logos for the Worldwide Olympic partner brand. 

With the help of a translator, I interviewed the Samsung manager on site, and she shared a few details on which collectors may pin their hopes:

• There are 30 Samsung pins, all in the shape of the latest Galaxy mobile device

• Most of the designs (20 of them) feature a sports pictogram from archery to weightlifting

• The other eight designs feature icons of Rio from Havianas and beach umbrellas to Sugarloaf Mountain and the Christ The Redeemer statue

• A black felt presentation board is free for mounting the pins

• As visitors redeem their passport stamps (two stamps = one pin) they draw the pins out of a mystery box to provide a random element to the promotion

• If you pull out of the box a design you already have, you are encouraged to exchange it with fellow collectors ("no returns" to the box for a another draw).

• Eight of the designs are only available at the Barra location for Samsung, with another eight exclusive to Copacabana, but the manager and translator smiled and said they would not reveal which eight are specific to the two pavilions.

I managed to earn or trade for 11 of the designs, and all were for sports, leading me to believe the eight local icon designs are either Barra-specific or they will be blended into the giveaways during the Games (akin to the U.K. icons suddenly appearing later in the London 2012 Samsung pin program).

Let the Samsung pin games commence!

My final three serendipitous moments of Saturday: Arriving at Co-Sport to collect my tickets two days before their ticketing center opens (oh, well); crossing paths with a U.S.O.C. friend while ordering pizza near the hotel (fun albeit brief visit); and stumbling in to a late-night dinner at the Veloso bar-cafe, now the Garota de Ipanema Cafe, the actual location where the world's second-most recorded pop song was written as inspired by a passerby teenage Girl from Ipanema. 

It was only after two caipirinhas that I noticed the writing on the wall (large, framed images of the hand-written music). 

Great fun to learn the back-story for the song while enjoying a wonderful meal.

Photos by Nicholas Wolaver

Joyous Return To Rio

It's been nine years since my initial visit to Rio de Janeiro.

Reflecting on my first day back in Brazil's coastal metropolis, I sure hope summer 2016 will be only the second of many joyous returns to Rio.

The morning began on Delta Air Lines flight DL21 somewhere over the Amazon rain forest. Early rays of the dawn showcased the earth's curve and jungle-wrapped reservoirs 35,000 feet below our aircraft.

By our 8:30 a.m. landing, I was a little tired and anxious but overwhelmed with relief -- so happy to finally be in the Olympic City.

The five-ringed journey to Rio in some ways began in 2009. I was one of the stunned Chicago 2016 Olympic bid volunteers in Daley Plaza when the Windy City lost the first-round of voting, and had a lot invested in a Chicago win.

At the time, I did not think conversion to "Rio fan" status was possible.

But by 2010 and especially at Brazil House during the 2012 London Olympics -- where a showcase of Rio's plan was on view -- I could not help getting excited.

The deep pile of event tickets on my hotel desk proves I may have gotten too excited (yes, definitely over-spent on tickets).

As our plane pulled up to the gate, there was a subtle difference from the arrival at Beijing or London -- perhaps for austerity reasons, given Brazil's troubled national economy of recent months -- there were no "welcome to Rio" Olympic signs affixed to the terminal. And on what seemed to be a half-mile walk from the plane to the customs and baggage claim hall, only one floor-to-ceiling advertisement for Olympic sponsor Samsung came into view. No big deal, just one of those things.

Limited edition pins; only 300 made.

I was biting my nails as my carry-on bag full of pins (40 pounds of them) got special attention in the "nothing to declare" screening area. But with a smile and brief explanation of Olympic pin collecting history, not to mention luck the guard had seen enough with my top-most box of trading materials, I was free to go, breathing easy my 300 blogger pins made it through (whew!).

Exiting customs into the main airport lobby, there was a sea of Brazilian media staked out to photograph and interview arriving athletes.

It was only later in the day I learned Usain Bolt and the Jamaica Olympic Team touched down about an hour after my flight.

Since my rolling suitcase is a Team Canada-branded bag from Beijing 2008, one curious reporter from Fox Sports started a Periscope interview, asking me about my Olympic plans and my take on Rio's preparations -- quite a welcome back to Brazil!

Swiss House under construction in Rio

The taxi ride through the city went right by the Mare favela neighborhood, graffiti, and school recently featured on Vox. Closer to our destination, the Hotel Vermont in Ipanema -- where we were "Feeling The Bern" and enjoying the Democratic National Convention via CNN International by evening -- our route took us by the incomplete Swiss House under construction.

I spent the afternoon strolling around the Ipanema neighborhood, eventually spotting a group of USA House volunteers donning badges -- everyone in the group was Brazilian, so my guess is that they had wrapped up a training session.

At dinner in a neighborhood steakhouse, another group of Team USA workers sat near me and they confirmed the venue for U.S. hospitality "is still a work in progress but will be ready soon."

The day's only frustration: My domestic mobile provider, Sprint, did not give me complete instructions to activate my phone in Rio (I have a 30-step list of actions to take, but the most critical -- the first step -- was left off their list). But I am optimistic tomorrow will yield a solution at the Rio Media Center or a nearby mobile phone shop. Fingers crossed.

My only regret of the day was being ill-prepared to trade pins with the handful of Rio 2016 volunteers who are highly visible in their bright yellow shirts.

But the best part of the day was meeting people who, in spite of my language barrier, were extremely friendly and accommodating.

I also ran into former U.S.O.C. communications director Bob Condron, a fellow member of the International Society of Olympic Historians (ISOH, a client), who was at the airport to meet his wife.

Condron helped me learn about the U.S. Olympic Committee internship program WAY back in 1989, and it was so cool to share brief stories of our journeys since Oklahoma City to Rio.

Can hardly wait to learn which other old friends, and new ones, will cross paths in the Olympic city.

Funniest conversation was at at an Ipanema pharmacy (think Walgreen's of Brazil); as I hunted for Dr. Scholl's shoe inserts a friendly store employee asked to help, and our only means of communication was via hand-drawn illustrations of shoes.

We shared a good laugh about it, and my feet felt like dancing on the walk back from dinner.

It's going to be an amazing Olympics.

Images via the Rio 2016 homepage via Rio2016.org, Brazil post office archive, with other photos by Nicholas Wolaver

Olympic Swimming Champ Shirley Babashoff Making Waves With New Autobiography

As posted in 2015, Montreal provided my first taste of the Olympics during my third year.

The 1976 Games' famous U.S. decathlete is my earliest connection to an iconic champion.

The second gold medalist in my personal Olympic lexicon? 

That would be swimming superstar Shirley Babashoff. 

Somewhere in the Wolaver archive there are mid-1970s photos of my sister and I in patriotic swimwear our mom stitched together with fabric inspired by Babashoff's and Team USA's Spirit of '76 uniforms. 

We pretended to be Olympic swimmers "like the ones on TV" in our plastic kiddie pool under the blazing Oklahoma summer sun.

It was fun to share this memory on a recent call with Babashoff, who just finished her first Olympic biography with Chris Epting. 

Titled "Making Waves: My Journey to Winning Olympic Gold and Defeating the East German Doping Program" (Santa Monica Press, $24,95), the eight-time Olympic medalist of 1972 and 1976 scribed about 250 pages of career stories and life observations.

Babashoff proved to be as frank by phone as in the book, sharing her own memories with little held back. While much of "Making Waves" delves into the two-time Olympian's first-hand frustration with organized doping -- now even more relevant in light of the Russian Olympic doping scandal of 2016 -- she also reveals the longtime family secret that her father molested her many times as a young girl. 

"The perception of media at the time was that we had this All-American family," said Babashoff during our call. "I wanted to put everything out there."

It doesn't get more matter-of-fact than the fifth page of Chapter One, which is titled "Growing Up."

I don't know why my mom didn't hear me cry. When I was five years old, I said to her, 'Daddy comes into my room at night and touches me.' My father was right -- she called me a liar and told me to never say that again. Then she got the bible out and made me read the fifth commandment: Obey your mother and father.

More on this revelatory chapter later. 

Sharing our one-hour call from her home in Fountain Valley, Calif., Babashoff said a book was on her mind all of the 40 years since Montreal, but a chance meeting with Epting 10 years ago was the tipping point to get it started. 

Even after a positive introduction, they only really got going on the project in 2014.

"Writing a book had been rattling around in my head for awhile," she said, adding that "getting it on paper" was the biggest hurdle. 

For many years, raising her son was also a factor as was her post-swimming career with the U.S. Postal Service. 

"I was approached by authors and directors wanting to tell my story in a book on on film, but the timing never felt right."

Production of the recently released documentary film "Last Gold" also nudged the book project to completion. 

For Babashoff, the No. 1 reason to write "Making Waves" was to continue to shine a light on East Germany's athlete doping program, for which she was a vocal critic in 1976, garnering an unfortunate reputation and nickname among sports reporters of the era. 

"I should have been more gracious," said Babashoff, who explained in the book and by phone that for the 1972 and 1976 Olympics, athletes did not receive media training they way they do now. In fact, her hunch (with which I concur) is that Olympian media training is common U.S.O.C. practice now because of Babashoff.

On the written page, Babashoff' vividly describes her first-person Munich and Montreal Olympic experiences, from her interactions with famous teammates to pin trading to a day or night with friends in the Olympic Village. 

In a section detailing her initial medal-winning event at Olympia Schwimmhalle (her 100-meter freestyle silver), I smiled at her description of youthful innocence and curiosity. 

"I was taken into that little room, [where] they directed me to a small refrigerator and told me to find something to drink. Inside there were a few cans of soda and a couple of bottles of beer."

For her first doping urine sample, 14-year-old Babashoff knocked back some Bavarian suds (priceless!).

This set-up puts into context the author's observations that at Munich there was a relaxed stance on doping for its absence of obvious side-effects among the competitors.

Readers later learn of the arrestive transformation East Germany's female swimmers endured on the road to Montreal.

On her first locker room visit to test the waters of the Olympic pool in Canada, Babashoff and other disrobed teammates were distraught to hear "men talking in another language just on the other side of our lockers!"

Of course, the masculine-sounding conversation was among their female competitors for the Deutsche Demokratische Republik.

After shaking off the locker room encounter, Babashoff and teammates went on to earn a frustrating batch of silver medals, eventually regrouping and achieving redemption with a relay gold in the Games' final women's swimming event (this video includes the play-by-play by Donna de Varona, who wrote the book's foreword). 

Babashoff explained the main goal of the book was to bring attention to the doping issues which resonate as much today as they did 40 years ago. She would like to see even more change to make sports clean. In her open letter to IOC President Thomas Bach, a fellow Montreal Olympian, Babashoff also presents a case for updating the medal records for 1976 Olympic swimming. 

"I'm not asking that the East Germans be stripped of their medals," Babashoff wrote. "Those girls were tools of their country ... they never knew what was happening to them ... and they themselves were cheated by their own government." 

"So, simply slide everyone up" on the medals record, she suggests. "Give those swimmers the medals they deserve, and let the East Germans keep theirs."

The book was released on July 12 -- no word from Bach so far, said Babashoff. My plan is to ask him about it in Rio if given the opportunity.

For this reader, the early chapter revelations about Babashoff's parental abuse jumped off the page. I was taken aback that an Olympic champion previously known for perseverance over a blinding media spotlight did so -- at two Olympiads -- during and after enduring sexual abuse from her father and emotional abuse from her mother, who is portrayed in the book as a woman who was her husband's main enabler. 

Babashoff's descriptions of her father's arrests and how media (and society) seemed to turn an intentionally blind eye to the dark side of the Babashoff household are gripping. Both parents and her siblings -- including a brother who won silver in Montreal -- are noticeably absent from the author's acknowledgements. The Olympic champion said she has not spoken with her older brother in 25 years, and it's been 14 years since connecting with her younger brother; she also mentioned her younger sister, and swimming pool contemporary of Janet Evans, is a Facebook contact.

Babashoff said many women who read the book commented on the descriptions of abuse and relate directly to these passages. I asked Babashoff if becoming an advocate for victims' rights was in the works, and she responded that was not her intent but she remained open to that possibility.

"I hope the book helps people," said Babashoff.

In the days since our phone conversation, I've often reflected on her perseverance on a new level only brought to light through the book. "Making Waves" is a good read for any swim fan, Olympic historian or person looking for inspiration, and it quickly joined the ranks of my favorite Olympic-related biographies.

Photos via Yahoo and Santa Monica Press.

Dreamers & Believers Celebrate 25 Years Since Atlanta's Olympic Wishes Came True

Twenty-five years ago -- Sept. 18, 1990 -- Atlanta won its Olympic bid to host the 1996 Games.

Tonight the bid's originator, William Porter "Billy" Payne, hosted a classy anniversary event to say thank you and celebrate the "Dreamers & Believers" who shared his five-ringed vision as early as 1987.

In a tent filled with about 400 friends at Centennial Olympic Park, Payne proudly explained his remarks for the evening were "25 years in the making" before rolling a video unveiling two new monuments coming soon to the urban park he created.

The additions include custom marble benches honoring key Atlanta business leaders (Jim Kennedy, Bill Dahlberg, Bob Holder, Bennett Brown, Herman Russell and Ivan Allen III) first to embrace the Olympic bid. A new marble column featuring the names of the "Atlanta Nine" volunteers who led the bid committee will also join the statue of Payne installed in 1997. 

Though more details remain to be announced, Payne briefly mentioned a capital campaign in the works to provide other park improvements in time for next year's 20th Anniversary of Atlanta's Games, which will take place on the eve of the Rio 2016 Olympics. 

Introduced by Payne as the keynote speaker of the evening, bid partner Ambassador Andrew Young put into perspective several Atlanta milestones of the 25 years since the city's Olympic victory.

Young referenced the city's rapid growth (more than 25 percent, according to a state representative who spoke earlier in the evening), successful collaborations (to build the world's busiest airport, create MARTA, and to pursue then host the Games) and details of his initial conversations with Payne when Young was Atlanta's mayor. Young said Montreal's $750 million debt from the 1976 Games made his staff members reluctant for Young to meet with the 34-year-old Payne. 

"[But] I heard Billy got this [Olympic bid] idea after church," said Young. "I'm a preacher and I know now the Lord works on you, and when an aging jock in midlife crisis gets religion ... that's the way the Spirit works." He took the meeting and the rest, as they say, is history. 

Other party presenters included WSB's Monica Kaufman, who was in Tokyo covering the 1990 vote, and Charlie Battle, the Atlanta attorney credited with visiting more nations during the bid and for helping forge the most friendships with voting IOC members. Other VIP attendees included former Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games CFO A.D. Frasier, Cohn & Wolfe co-founder Bob Cohn, a longtime Olympic collector whose firm provided early public relations counsel for the Atlanta bid team's domestic campaign, and University of Georgia football coaching legend Vince Dooley, for whom Payne played years before his Olympic feats and current role as chairman of Augusta National Golf Club.

During his remarks detailing the bid committee milestones of 1988 to 1990, Battle called out several volunteers including Atlanta Marriott Marquis concierge Albert "Smitty" Smith who charmed many IOC leaders and staff.

"[Smitty] is one of the first people IOC friends ask about when I travel and see them," said Battle.

Battle also mentioned the bid team's early events that wooed the U.S. Olympic Committee away from competing bids from San Francisco, Minneapolis and Nashville. He detailed the scrappy manner through which Atlanta created an "Atlanta House" in Seoul during the 1988 Olympics and around the 1989 IOC Session held in Puerto Rico. 

Forging friendships across the Olympic Family echoed as key to the win, according to remarks from Battle, Payne and Young. Since the rules of Olympic bidding now forbid voting IOC member visits to candidate cities, its likely Atlanta's networking techniques were a first- and last-time option for Olympic bid committees of the 2010s and beyond.

Young said Atlanta proved to have a lot more Olympic connections than anticipated, including then-USOC Treasurer Dr. Leroy Walker as a local high school graduate, and Edwin Moses as a top Olympian of 1976 and 1984. 

Young attributed divine intervention, through his U.S. Ambassador assignments from President Jimmy Carter, as federal duties that helped him renew existing connections to up to 55 voting IOC members on behalf of Atlanta. In Young's mind, things started adding up that "The city was ready for it" and "we did it."

During a media Q&A prior to the event, I asked Young if he could recall waking up in Tokyo on Sept. 19 after reality over the victory may have set in for the team.

"The first thought I had was, 'Damn! We won this thing and we're broke,'" said Young. "They [the IOC] gave us a letter saying that we won, but it was also a bill for $1.5 million for the victory party. I said, 'Thanks, you gave us the Olympics and a bill to start with?" 

Like tonight's gathering, that was one party worth every penny.

Photos by Nicholas Wolaver