Olympic Games Off to Showy Start

Atlanta shifted from preparation to celebration Friday night, kicking off the Centennial Summer Olympics with a Southern-style opening party that welcomed the world to America amid the two staples of these Games: hot weather and heavy security.

The opening ceremony, complete with a visit from Arkansas native Bill Clinton, began in the new Olympic Stadium about 10 minutes after its 8:30 p.m. scheduled start time. Fireworks and drums, dancers and cheerleaders and an assortment of American music greeted the president and the rest of the revelers.

The ceremonies followed six years of planning, $1.7 billion in spending, a week’s worth of blistering mid-July temperatures and heightened security caused by the as-yet-unexplained deaths of 230 people aboard TWA Flight 800 off Long Island.

Nearly 30,000 security personnel were on duty in the Georgia capital as Gladys Knight, Celine Dion and Jessye Norman performed in the 83,100-seat stadium.

Joining the president was his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton; their 16-year-old daughter, Chelsea; White House chief of staff Leon Panetta and a handful of Cabinet officers. Former President Jimmy Carter, a Georgia native, was also at the stadium, along with House Speaker Newt Gingrich and a pair of power couples: Ted Turner and Jane Fonda, and Donald and Marla Trump.

Clinton, smiling widely, joined the crowd in doing the wave.

There was a slight scare about 90 minutes before the opening when the discovery of a suspicious package forced the evacuation of some workers from the International Broadcasting Center. There were no injuries, and no further details were released.

The president and Chelsea earlier helped women’s basketball star Teresa Edwards, playing in her fourth Olympics, celebrate her 32nd birthday during a visit at the athletes’ village. Edwards was scheduled to take the participation oath on behalf of all the Games’ athletes.

Clinton later addressed the entire U.S. team, urging it to “mop up and do great.”

Wrestler Bruce Baumgartner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in freestyle wrestling, was scheduled to carry the flag at the head of the U.S. team.

But the traditional “Parade of Nations,” with more than 10,000 athletes from 197 nations entering the stadium, might have been making its farewell appearance. The procession was set to last about two hours--half the time of the ceremony--and could be scrapped for the Sydney Games in 2000.

Not all the athletes made the parade. Norwegian kayaker Peter Ribe became the fifth athlete banned from the Games for failing a drug test for banned substances. And German Heike Drechsler, defending gold medalist in the long jump, withdrew with a leg injury.

The commercialism that increasingly defines the Olympics was curbed at the opening ceremony, where General Motors was blocked from splashing its logo across 30 trucks used in a production number. GM, which initially trumpeted its marketing coup, was apologetic Friday.

“We never intended to put [organizers] in any sort of compromising and embarrassing position,” said GM spokesman Dean Rotondo.

Neither did International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch, but he was only lukewarm Friday in his assessment of Atlanta’s preparations for the Games.

“We are extremely satisfied with the organization of the Games--for the time being,” he said. “The IOC will express itself at the end of the Games.”

The pomp gives way to competition Saturday, when the U.S. baseball team takes on Nicaragua and the Dream Team plays Argentina. Other U.S. teams in action include soccer, water polo, women’s volleyball and men’s and women’s field hockey.

The soccer team was incensed that NBC was relegating its games to periodic highlights rather than live coverage. Only the gold medal soccer game is scheduled on American television.

“It’s another opportunity to have soccer in the news in this country,” said U.S. soccer coach Bruce Arena. “Unfortunately, we’re not going to get much coverage because of the NBC politics.”

The Americans will vie for medals Saturday in the Games’ first four swimming events.

The anticipation of the locals for the Games’ start was obvious early Friday, when huge crowds turned out for the final leg of the 84-day, 15,000-mile Olympic torch relay.

The streets were so thick with revelers that the torch, designed by Georgia Tech alum Kevin Barry, was 2 1/2 hours late arriving at City Hall. Among the runners on the final leg was Dexter King, son of slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“My father couldn’t be here so, in a real sense, I’m here in his place,” said Dexter King, who carried the torch past the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College.