Road Trip! Cruisin' to the Olympics

By Van Landrum

'This issue's road trip takes you to the Olympics home page. Drop in from time to time during the next year or so of preparation, then hang out for the results while the games are going on.'

Even though the Olympics are 464 days away as I write this, we can still monitor progress towards the opening day. Let's take a road trip to Atlanta, the home of the 1996 Olympic Games.

After hearing about the new Olympic home page, I jumped onto my WebExplorer and headed for

http://www.atlanta.olympic.org

The Olympic home page features a colorful image map announcing the event as the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games, the torch symbol for the Atlanta Olympics, the IBM logo (IBM is the Official Internet Information Systems Provider for The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games), and a countdown of days until the 1996 Olympic Games (Figure 1).



''Figure 1. Olympic Home Page''

When I select Welcome, a picture of Billy Payne (President and CEO of The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games) displays along with a video and sound files. The sound file contains almost a minute of welcome from Mr. Payne. It's nice to see Internet's video and sound capabilities put to good use.

Further down the page is a link to an article on how the web server for the Olympic Games was started. The article tells how millions of people from all over the world will be able to take a ride on the information superhighway and stop at the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games. The web server staff plans to provide "a wealth of continuously updated facts, figures, photos, illustrations, video, and audio content--all aimed at providing the latest news possible on the what, when, and where of all the sports as well as how to buy tickets and be a part of the excitement." When you think about it, what better information to put on the World-Wide Web than information about world-wide interest in the Olympic Games?

Delivering this information are powerful, high performance, parallel computers from IBM. "The 1996 Olympic Games Server is a great example of how organizations and companies can benefit from the power of the Internet," said John Patrick, IBM vice president of Internet applications, in his keynote speech at Internet World today. "Information on the 1996 Olympic Games is in high demand around the world. By putting it on the Internet, the data will be available to more people than ever before..."

1996 Olympic Games Server
The 1996 Olympic Games Server presents an array of information under nine major headings: Welcome - both video and audio greetings from Billy Payne, the 1996 Olympic Games at a Glance, answers to frequently asked questions, and current news items.

Sports & Venues - explanations of the 1996 Olympic Games' sports plus descriptions and photos of the facilities hosting the events, including seating capacity and dates of events held in each facility.

Official Programme - schedule of Olympic events by sport, day, or location.

Travel Information - information on the city of Atlanta, its accommodations, and its transportation system.

Tickets - information on the more than 11 million Olympic Games tickets available, including prices, ticket brochure, ticket sales times, and customer services.

Official Products - information on products such as commemorative bricks, coins, countdown T-shirts, official merchandise catalogs, and IZZY (the official children's character of the 1996 Olympic Games) products that help support the U.S. Olympic Team and the 1996 Olympic Games.

Sponsors - list of 1996 Olympic Games sponsors and a web page for each. Hyperlinks are provided to the corporate web pages when available. (Coca-Cola Co. says it served 400,000 Coca-Cola products a day at the 1994 Winter Games.)

Cultural Olympiad - information on the 1996 Olympic Arts Festival and other Cultural Olympiad programs.

What's New - the latest press releases from Atlanta Committee of the Olympic Games (ACOG) - with new releases added to the 1996 Olympic Games Server the moment they are issued - and a look at key dates ahead in the countdown to the summer of 1996.

This year, take an occasional trip to the 1996 Olympics home page and monitor the pre-game activities. Next year it will be a great place to get up-to-the-minute results of the actual games.