Ringing in the Olympics: Michael Johnson

History, it must be said, has been far from kind to the Atlanta Games. I’ve met a fair few Americans who, understandably, consider it the best ever. Given that I barely saw any of it, I’m not particularly qualified to judge. But, for me, the chief finger of blame has to be squarely pointed not at the games organisers themselves, but the suits at the IOC. Why, for the 1996 edition, was a bidding process even permitted, let alone Athens denied the centennial homecoming its Olympic history so richly deserved?

As for me, I spent pretty much the whole two weeks on holiday with the family on the banks of Lake Geneva. Not that it was an Olympic-free zone, mind you (far from it – the IOC’s HQ, and scene of much corruption in Lausanne, was just down the road). The spanner in the works came in our renting out a spacious apartment in a Bible School. There goes the telly then!

As it turned out, my Dad and I took to rather more traditional measures to keep up with proceedings in those dark, pre-smartphone days, buying two-day-old British papers from a local train station. And well do I remember the day when the front pages told of a sporting achievement beyond comparison. That’s right: Alan Shearer’s record-breaking £15million move to Newcastle had just gone through.

It would take something truly special to share column inches with the Geordie hysteria (I exaggerate not) and Michael Johnson, at his home Games, provided it. The numbers themselves (43.49 in the 400m, 19.32 in the 200m) painted a picture of unparalleled greatness that the accompanying prose could hardly hope to embellish.

Johnson would only grow in my estimations in subsequent years, joining the BBC athletics commentary team and somehow lending expertise and gravitas to a studio with Sue Barker in it.

As for Atlanta, I had the opportunity to visit the historic city in 2004 and, while the stadium had long since been handed over to the local baseball team, the Olympic legacy is alive and well in Centennial Park, built for the Olympics and a great place, right smack-bang in the middle of town, to laze away a sunny afternoon (Coca-Cola, thankfully, optional).