Have the Olympics ever been held in your hometown, and if so...

[ColbertWatcher]

...remind everyone what your city did to show off.

I'll start, I live in LA now and during the Olympics. We were able to empty the freeways.

Not completely, but damn near close.

[ddeclue]

1. Atlanta 1996 - I worked for 8 months on setting up

the video network used at all the venues!

I still have my Olympic venues pass...

One of the cooler things I ever did in life..

Doug D.
Orlando, FL

[ColbertWatcher]

2. Wow. 8 months. Very cool.

Do you have any pictures?

I have photos from LA, but none are scanned.

:-(

[ddeclue]

5. Surprisingly no...

At the time it was a lot more of a hassle to carry cameras around than it is today with digital cams and I was busy working. I only got to go to one actual event when I wasn't working... the Cubans vs. the Italians in baseball...

Guess who won..

[proud patriot]

3. The torch came through my hometown 4 years ago

we all were lining the route taking pictures waving flags etc.

[HawkerHurricane]

4. Los Angeles, 1984

I was home for my first leave from the Navy. I barely noticed the Olympics.

[cloudbase]

6. No, but there has been some effort to

get the games here in Houston. A marathon here in August would truly be the survival of the fittest.

[ColbertWatcher]

8. Uh, yeah. isn't the humidity measured using scientific notation? n/t

[malaise]

10. We co-hosted the cricket world cup last year

and there were thousands of volunteers. I was part of the venue committee from the beginning. It was amazing to see plans implemented as one stadium was refurbished and another one built on the North Coast.
And yes there was a massive clean up.

[ColbertWatcher]

12. Cricket, what a game!

So, who won? Did Jamaica compete? How did they place?

[malaise]

14. The West Indies team competed

Our territories only compete against one another but the regional team is the West Indies - since 1928.
We made it to the second round. It sucks because we won the first two World Cups and came second in the 3rd. Our team was unbeaten for 15 years but we suck big time these days. Australia won - they've been the best team since we were dethroned but South Africa is about to change that.

[ColbertWatcher]

16. I don't follow cricket, but it sounds like it's...

...second to soccer in international popularity!

[malaise]

21. Not really but cricket mad India gives us a billion fans n/t

[Booster]

7. I worked on the l984 Olympics in L.A. and won an Emmy for all

that work. Don't get too excited; 750 people won an Emmy for their work. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything - it was a fun time.

[ColbertWatcher]

9. An Emmy, huh? You know Stephen Colbert has a buttload of Peabody's don't you? n/t

[Booster]

11. LOL Yes, and he deserves every one of them.

[ColbertWatcher]

13. You damn RIGHT he does! n/t

[Cleita]

15. I remember that and

my DH and I were also able to witness an Olympic event, one of the marathons than ran on a street close to where we lived. So all of our neighbors and us as well walked up to the street involved. We lined up on both sides of the street on the sidewalks, cheered them on and thought that it was cool because it was the only Olympic event that we could afford to attend.

[Bear down under]

17. Yes, in 2000.

The president of the IOC described them as "the best Olympics ever".

[ColbertWatcher]

18. Were you ever able to attend any of the events? Did you volunteer for anything? n/t

[Bear down under]

19. I was extremely busy with work at the time

so all I had time for (apart from watching things on TV) was to show a couple of sports-mad friends from the US around the city one weekend and have two volunteers from the country staying with me for a month. Nice fellows, though I didn't see much of them except at breakfast and dinnertime -- but they kept me au fait with the gossip, and I did go with them to see the closing fireworks on the Harbour. Along with literally a million other people.

I've been out to Olympic Park on a few occasions since the games, and it always pleases me to see the cauldron of the Olympic flame, which has been kept and converted to a rather grand fountain at the head of the mall.

[Retrograde]

20. 1984, some of the soccer games

were held at Stanford University, about 2 miles from here. Of course I went! They were pretty low key, IIRC. They had a closing ceremony after the last quarter-final, which was putting out a small torch, and some fireworks.

We also had the '94 World Cup: that was livelier, since we had Brazil staying in the area. Those guys can party!