Athletes worldwide are preparing for this year’s Olympics in Paris, France. Oglethorpe University has a rich history with the games, with numerous students, staff, faculty and alumni playing key roles, particularly in 1996, when the Centennial Olympic Games were held in OU’s home city — Atlanta, Georgia.
Here are seven facts you may not know about Oglethorpe and the Olympics:
An OU watch party along Peachtree Rd (1996)
1. Oglethorpe University was selected as the turnaround point for the Olympic marathon in 1996. In an effort to beat the Georgia summer heat, the marathon began at 7 a.m. Just outside the campus gates on Peachtree Road, the runners turned and began their trek back to downtown. Oglethorpe hosted an early morning gathering to watch the banner event of the Olympics. “The broadcast trucks were all over,” remembers Barbara Henry ’85. “In fact, for several years the red line followed by the participating athletes was still visible on the road. For the viewing party, we invited all the neighbors, alumni, etc., to watch the marathon. as It was lots of fun. I would guess we had 250 or more people here early in the morning to watch.”
2. Assistant Professor of French Iona Wynter-Parks competed in the first Olympic triathlon at the 2000 Summer Olympics, representing Jamaica. She then shifted her focus to cycling, and rode for Genesis-Scuba, helping to build it until it became the No. 1 team in the United States. She continued competitive cycling while teaching and coaching full-time. Wynter-Parks rode with the U.S. professional female cycling team for four years and became their director after retiring from active competition.
3. Oglethorpe alumna Judy Wood Talley ’80 served on the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, which helped to plan Atlanta’s role in hosting the summer games.
4. The “Pathway of Gold” was a program started the year before the Olympics to plant gold-colored plants all along the marathon route so they would all be blooming by the time the Olympics started. OU’s first lady Barbie Stanton was instrumental in that plan.
The Dalai Lama visits the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art
5. The Oglethorpe University Museum of Art hosted the exhibition The Mystical Arts of Tibet Featuring Personal Sacred Objects of the Dalai Lama, created for the 1996 Summer Olympics as a joint project with The Drepung Loseling institute (DLI) and OUMA.
6. Oglethorpe’s campus was home base for 800 German athletes and visitors in the 1996 Olympics, who rented rooms in the residence halls in July and August.
7. Former board member and alumnus, the late G. Douglass Alexander ’68 was founding partner of the fundraising consulting firm Alexander, Haas, Martin & Partners, which led the fundraising efforts that brought the 1996 Olympics to Atlanta.
