WORLD SPORTS SCENE : Olympic Tickets Go on Sale, Many to the Public

Tickets for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta are scheduled to go on sale next week, but organizers still refuse to say how many of them will be available to the public.

What officials of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games have said, however, is that the majority of 11 million tickets--by far the most ever in Olympic history--will be sold to the public. The rest will be reserved for sponsors, international federations and the Olympic family. The Games will be held next summer from July 19-Aug. 5.

“There will be literally millions of tickets, more than Los Angeles and Barcelona had combined, providing ample opportunity for the public,” said Dave Maggard, managing director of sports for ACOG. “We have more events and larger venues. For example, Olympic Stadium, where opening and closing ceremonies and (track) will be held, holds 83,100; gymnastics, which will be held in the Dome, holds 30,000 and soccer at the University of Georgia at Athens seats 85,000. Swimming holds 15,000.”

Maggard said there will be some limitations for the public in high-demand events, such as the basketball final, though there will still be tickets available.

“At the Olympics in Los Angeles, they had 223 events,” Maggard said. “We have 271, none of which are demonstration or exhibition. In 1896 when the Olympics began in Athens, there were 42 events.”

Beach volleyball is one of the sports that has been added, scheduled to be played on a man-made beach 15 miles from Atlanta.

“We also added, for example, mountain biking, the women’s triple jump and mixed doubles in badminton; we expanded women’s basketball teams from eight to 12 and added women’s soccer and softball,” Maggard said.

“There will be 700 more women participating in Atlanta than in Barcelona.”

Ticket-order brochures will be available May 1 at Home Depot and Hughes, Lucky and Vons supermarkets, ACOG said. Tickets are on a first-come, first-served basis.

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With the Tour of Spain moved to September, the Tour Du Pont, beginning Wednesday in Wilmington, Del., has attracted its best field in seven years. The 12-day, 1,130-mile race through four Atlantic Coast states is considered to be America’s biggest cycling event.

Returning are last year’s top three: Vyacheslav Yekimov of Russia, the defending champion; Lance Armstrong of Austin, Tex., and Motorola teammate Andrea Peron of Italy. But giving the event some prestige is the addition of Mapei-GB, the world’s top-ranked team. Mapei-GB has 10 riders among the sport’s top 100 competitors. Among the riders are Italians Franco Ballerini, winner of the Paris-Roubaix April 9; Gianluca Bortolami, winner of the 1994 World Cup, and sprinter Adriano Baffi.

World Scene Notes

Bert Bonanno, director of track and field’s Bruce Jenner Classic in San Jose, had set a deadline of last Friday to decide whether he could finance this year’s meet, scheduled for May 27. But the deadline was extended when a potential sponsor came forward. “We’re still on the respirator,” he said. “I want to go forward, at least through next year because that will be the 20th anniversary of the meet and of Bruce’s decathlon gold medal in Montreal. That was always my goal.” . . . Stunned by the possible collapse of the Jenner, a Grand Prix fixture, track and field in the United States took another hit last week when a major supporter of the sport worldwide, Mobil, declined to sponsor next winter’s U.S. indoor circuit. The company contributed $1.25 million to the five-meet series this winter. Among its complaints is that no L.A. meet is on the circuit. . . . Recognizing it made a mistake by scheduling the 100-meter qualifying at the same time as the long-jump finals in this summer’s national championships at Sacramento--which made it virtually impossible for Carl Lewis to enter both events--USA Track & Field is revising the schedule. It also is arranging the schedule so that Michael Johnson can run the 200 and 400. No sprinter has won both in the U.S. championships since Maxie Long in 1899.

Dominique Moceanu and Dominique Dawes, who have been sidelined by injuries, are scheduled to compete in the Visa Challenge this week in Fairfax, Va. . . . Phoebe Mills, who retired from gymnastics after she won a bronze medal on the balance beam during the 1988 Olympics, has retired from her second career, diving. . . . Marion Jones of Thousand Oaks, twice the U.S. high school track and field athlete of the year and now a basketball point guard and sprinter/long jumper as a sophomore at North Carolina, will redshirt next year to concentrate on earning a berth in track on the Olympic team.

Times staff writers Elliott Almond and Randy Harvey contributed to this story.