Over the great falls we go

Number of children used to form dove of peace in last night's opening ceremony: 450.

Number of cheerleaders: 500.

Number of people working 0fl opening ceremony: 8,600.

Number of people watching: 3.5 billion.

SOMETIMES it's easier to view a flash flood as a conglomeration of billions of raindrops than it is to the see the Olympics in terms of its component individuals. Corporatism, gigantism and collective egotisism have given the Games the whip lashing, uncontrollable momentum of a force of nature. Those who survive and succeed need to be special, more than mere athletes, more than mere operators.

In Atlanta this week a slightly bemuse native observed that the Olympic experience was akin to flying over Niagara Falls in a barrel while the whole world looked on. There's not much dignity involved, but when you are in that barrel there's not much time to worry about dignity.

So it is with the modern Olympics. Ready or not Atlanta tossed itself over Niagara last night, officially opening itself up to the world for scrutiny. Finally, after 3,217 days of planning and scheming, Atlanta takes up duty as the official host of the centennial Olympics.

For 17 days the preparations, aspirations and perspirations of this cast of thousands will be fed into the corporate processor. For some fleeting and shining moments athletes, wrestlers, beach volleyballers, synchronised swimmers, you name it, will be illuminated by the blinding spotlights trained on winning Olympians. Perfect human drama will be formed and in the instant of blood or sweat, laughter or tears pure, unprocessed, human drama will hold us in its thrall.

Then we'll market the moment and feed it back into the corporate processor. Bud Greenspan will add another catalogue of sepia moments to his 100 years of Olympic glory documentaries.

Fifteen thousand media folk will analyse and dissect and hyperbolise the moment.. Sports gear manufacturers will poster our imaginations with images of their athletes wreathed at that moment in the success which could be ours.

Last night 3.5 billion of us were compelled to cringe as Olympic athletes heard" the call of the Olympic rings, as assorted local children formed a dove of peace, ass Jesse Owens processed Disney popcorn into light opera. Yet we are drawn in because the moments of true glory and the moments off Litter defeat are so universally compelling, 50 globally inspiring, so thoroughly indelible.

Viewers, officials, sponsors, corporations, journalists and coaches, we all ride the barrel over the falls because at the Olympics there are some moments of reality that are just like life only a million times more vivid..

Number of open air vending permits issued in downtown Atlanta: 3,360.

Amount paid per open air vending stalls: $5,000-$20,000.

Number of families evicted from public housing for the Games: 2,000.

Atlanta has a shimmeringly modern skyline filled with bold architectural statements crass corporate conceits, the sort of city that boasts a 73rd story revolving restaurant with splendid views of other diners in other 73rd story revolving restaurants.

Down on the ground it's just another American city.

Our taxi driver's name is Haile. Haile enjoys doing the Georgia state lottery. The draw is on right now. We are on a six lane highway travelling very fast. Haile is leaning back watching the lottery on a little television in his cab, shuffling his lottery dockets frantically.

We are watching Haile and the other five lanes. Haile doesn't win the Georgia state lottery. We live. Haile has no interest in the Atlanta Olympics. When the circus leaves town Haile will still need to win the lottery.

Lots of people thought these Games would be better than a lottery. Everywhere in Atlanta the hucksters are to be seen flogging their wares beneath temporary canvas awnings. The tack doesn't reflect on the Games so much as it reflects on Atlanta. Ugly low level greed led the city to sell the rights of practically every street corner to a firm called BG Swing Games Management.

Worse. Parking lots downtown have been turned into old style circuses, a series of old style, bang for your buck carnivals. The beautifully laundered centennial Olympic Park has been turned into a trade show for the Games' sponsors. Coke have erected a Coke bottle about the size of a NASA rocket launcher. Swatch have hung an 80 foot watch over the side of a building. The cultural Olympiad is hard to find.

Mike Harten is from New York. He cuts quite a forlorn looking figure at his hot dog and ice cream stall on Nassau Street in downtown Atlanta.

Mike invested $45,000 in setting himself up in business for the Olympics. With two million customers coming to town it seemed impossible that anything could go wrong. Mike was informed that the site he had been allocated was on a road closed to traffic. People would be wandering past all day.

Then it was announced that the roads would be open to taxis and white cabs.

These have been shooting past like bullets all day, everyday. Nobody is moseying up Nassau Street.

Then the health inspector was days late in showing up to check out Mike's hot dogs and ice creams, so Mike twiddled his thumbs before even getting the chance to open. "All this money," says Mike, "and nothing is being taken care of."

Some things have been taken care of. The last man with the whitewash brush was packing his gear just as the Games arrived in town. The State of Georgia opted about 40 years ago to express its contempt for the burgeoning black civil rights movement by adding the old confederate, slave owning, flag to the livery of the State flag. Senator Ralph Abernathy, a moderate democrat, described the flag this week as a "confederate swastika".

Two years ago civil rights groups threatened the staging of the Superbowl in Atlanta when it was revealed that the State flag would be flown at the event. Ever since Atlanta has been soft peddling the flag issue. The State has refused to alter its flag, instead the big corporations have spared themselves angst and boycotts by ceasing to fly the flag above their premises.

This week, in heavily monitored but poorly publicised events, a coalition of local groups have been holding protests by flag burning at a number of federal offices.

They say they aren't protesting against the Olympics just the flag yet when you scratch the surface of their discontent a patchwork of resentments becomes apparent.

Working class families and businesses (mainly black) have been cleared out of the downtown area relentlessly over the past two years. The homeless have literally been given one way tickets to other cities.

"This Olympics has been run by the Business Knows Best people in Atlanta," says a T-shirted student protester, watching a flag burning outside Federal offices downtown, "and all the benefits are staying with the people who own Atlanta. All the problems are passed down to the people who have nothing."

The hucksters have been suckered and the properyless have been screwed. Let the Games begin.

Number of Games accreditations issued: 250,000

People in front of The Irish Times in accreditation queue: 249,999.

Number of hours in queue: 31/2.

Number of calories 19st: 16,000.

Sometimes the Olympics feel liked a child's catechism version of judgment day. The good the bad and the ugly from every corner, nook and fold of the earth standing in line waiting.

Loitering in queue for a ticket to get into a bigger queue for the pre accreditation waiting room area it seems surprising that nobody licensed the rights to tout low numbered tickets to people further back in the queue.

Hopefully, we think, the Irish will be better organised than this. Here comes an Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) official now. He catches sight of Katy McCandless's Irish track suit. Stops.

And you are?

-Katy.

-AH! Katy. Very good. Pause.

-And, Katy, you are competing in? - Track.

-Ah yes. Track. Katy. Track. Of course. Pause.

-What event Katy? -5,000 metres.

-Ah! 5000 metres. Yes. Pause.

-And what's your second name Katy?

-McCandless.

-Ah! Yes of course. Track. Katy McCandless. The 5,000 metres runner.

How are you Katy? Oh! Fine.

Leaving aside the Michelle Smith debacle, there have been mistakes made by the like able and friendly Irish party. News is hard to come by for journalists. The Smith business was covered up clumsily. Sonia O'Sullivan, too, has been irritated by a poorly expressed opinion that she "declined the honour" of carrying the Irish flag.

Speaking by phone to O'Sullivan at her base in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, she ambushed this scribbler with a hard question.

"What's all this about me in the papers today? Refusing to carry the flag? That's a bit strong and over the top.

At such moments the only honourable course for a journalist is to suffer under the harsh justice of collective responsibility.

"Janey Mac. I'm sure that wasn't in The Irish Times," says the man from The Irish Times.

"Well it's not true anyway," says Sonia.

The OCI had let it be known to Sonia that if per chance she altered her cast in concrete plans and came to Atlanta for the opening ceremony and wanted to stand in the baking heat and suffocating humidity for five hours holding a flag and flagpole, well then, she would be given that chance. Sonia said "thanks for asking" and that was it. Then more flag fuss.

What could be more in keeping with the spirit of our self deluding nation anyway that a young man, who has grown up in a trailer unserviced by electricity or hot water, whose people are habitually abused and coursed by both public servants and private citizens, should carry our flag.

Francis Barrett has done us the honour of letting us feel good about ourselves. We don't deserve the benefits of his good grace.

Number of athletes at Games: 11,500.

Number of gold medals available: 271.

1995 Wage of Shaquille O'Neal: $20.8 million.

All life is here. Splintery distance runners and caloried hammer throwers. Bulgarian weight lifters and Californian beach volleyballers. Bug eyed, stubble chinned steroid abusers and fair skinned innocents. Wolves and lambs. Some winners and a lot of people who won't win but, by dint of being here, can't be called losers.

Susan Smith has spent the past two years living in Atlanta, working as a financial consultant. She has seen the place develop the muscles of an international city.

She looks frail and distinctly unmuscled for a sprinter, but her track times this year, since switching from the 100 metres hurdles to the 400 metres hurdles, have hinted at a talent not yet fully mined.

She's here to explore the limits of her potential, to push back the boundaries of her own achievement. She won't tell you that she is going to vanquish Batten, Gunnell, Hemmings and the other greats. Her Olympics are defined by her parameters. Good Games or disappointing Games.

For her first Games she's enjoying life in the cool air conditioned precinct that is the Irish house in the green zone of the Olympic village. It's like a huge scout camp here. Little trams run through the 270 lawned acres, ferrying athletes hither and tither.

The village boasts a dining hall which seats 3,400, a dance club, a video game centre, a coffee house, swimming pools, health club, department store, dry cleaners, bowling alley and five McDonalds, as well as a bank and a post office. Then there are all the bodies being honed for a multiplicity of different sports.

It seems difficult for a serious athlete to maintain concentration and focus here. The big names, from Carl Lewis to Sonia O'Sullivan to the Dream Team, stay elsewhere cosseted in hotel rooms. Other Irish athletes have gone to distant American bases and will come to the village nearer the date. for competition.

Do the villagers feel like extras in some body else's movie? The bit players in the zealously superintended theatre that is the great Olympic movement.

"This is our Olympics," says Smith. "I'm here and I'm with serious athletes. There's a great atmosphere and things like the opening ceremony are brilliant to be a part of, but it isn't hard to focus on what you came here for. I've watched the Olympics since I was little. I've always wanted to be here. Now that I am, I'm going to be a part of everything."

On the notice board in the Irish house physio Ger Hartmann has pinned a schedule in which athletes can insert their names if they need massages or physio. He's had to gently warn a couple of them off.

"There are so many temptations for athletes here. If there is a physio or massage available everyday, it's tempting to avail of it. Most people's bodies aren't used to that. They have to stick to their routine. Then there's so much free food available in the dining hall. That can be another problem."

As if by pre-arrangement Francis Barrett passes by. Coach Michael Hawkins wants himself and the other boxers to get weighed before they have dinner. Barrett, a good eater at the best of times is hovering right on the border of his weight limit.

"Ah the weight is just perfect," he smiles when asked. "He's smiling," laughs Hawkins, "because he knows it's not. It's a tiny bit over.

"It's a temptation alright, all the food," says Barrett, "but boxing gives you good discipline. I'm stronger and faster since I came here. I'm definitely hitting harder."

Other good Olympic experiences too. Seeing the track athletes sprinting down on the track every morning has been a little awe inspiring. Run past any of them yet Frank? "No way. But it's lovely to see them. Brilliant."

He's right is young Barrett. Despite it all it's lovely to see them, good to be a passive part of such a great, diverse and peaceful gathering.

The front page of an English paper doing the rounds in the press centre the other day carried pictorial evidence of ethnic cleansing in Ireland. Phone hops with news of the latest bomb scare. The venalities of sport seem dwarfed.

There are as many Atlanta stories as there are people here. There is much to be cynical about, plenty of hollow ritual acts like last night's opening ceremony, plenty of pressurised young people smuggling drugs into their bodies that they might win our approval and corporate lolly, plenty that is plastic and phoney, plenty of spectral losers banished conveniently from our thoughts.

This morning though we can clear all that away. There are moments of shared and uplifting pleasure ahead, inspiring figures and great acts. The Olympics mirror the best of ourselves and the worst of ourselves. Time today for the glory to begin when the individuals reclaim their honour amidst the corporate debris.

Over the great falls we go.