1996 Atlanta Olympics, 30 years later: 10 memorable moments

The Atlanta Olympics — the Centennial Games, America's Games — opened on July 19, 1996.

As we hit the 30th anniversary of the most recent Summer Games held in the U.S. (until the LA 2028 Games), here's a look back at 10 memorable moments:

Muhammad Ali lights Olympic cauldron

The single most enduring moment of the Atlanta Games came at the climax of the Opening Ceremony — Muhammad Ali, his body slowed by Parkinson's and shaking, emerging from the darkness to light the cauldron.

"In one sense a poignant figure, but look at him," Bob Costas said on the NBC broadcast. "Still a great, great presence. Still exuding nobility and stature, and the response he evokes is part affection, part excitement, but especially respect. What a moment."

Seven months earlier, NBC's Dick Ebersol asked Atlanta Olympic organizing head Billy Payne who would light the cauldron. Payne said Evander Holyfield, a 1984 Olympic boxing bronze medalist and Atlanta native. Ebersol countered with Ali, a 1960 Olympic boxing gold medalist and one of the most recognizable people on planet.

Ebersol told Dan Patrick in 2021, "President (Bill) Clinton told me the day after the cauldron lighting in Atlanta, he said when Ali appeared the world heard the loudest hush in human history" in astonishment.

Magnificent Seven wins first U.S. women’s gymnastics team gold

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The Magnificent Seven — Amanda Borden, Amy Chow, Dominique Dawes, Shannon Miller, Dominique Moceanu, Jaycie Phelps and Kerri Strug — sparked a historic Games for U.S. women's teams.

They topped Russia for the U.S.' first Olympic women's gymnastics team title, prevailing in front of an ear-splitting Georgia Dome crowd.

Strug, the last U.S. gymnast to go in the final rotation, injured her left ankle on her first of two vaults. She completed the second vault and later learned she tore two ligaments.

Amy Van Dyken swims to 4 golds

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Amy Van Dyken's four golds were the most of any athlete at the Atlanta Games and, at the time, a record for an American woman in any sport at a single Games.

She won the 100m butterfly and 50m freestyle by a combined four hundredths of a second, plus was part of two gold-medal relays. The U.S. swept all six men's and women's swimming relays, a feat no nation has achieved since.

Gail Devers, world’s fastest woman by .005

Gail Devers won the 100m at the 1992 Barcelona Games by one hundredth of a second. The final in Atlanta was even closer.

Devers and Jamaican Merlene Ottey crossed the finish line in the same time to the hundredth — 10.94 seconds. After review and taking it to the thousandth, Devers had won by .005.

She became the second woman to repeat as Olympic 100m gold medalist after Wyomia Tyus in 1964 and 1968.

Devers was known for her long, curling fingernails, the result of a childhood bet with her dad to get her to stop biting them. As an adult, she overcame Graves' disease, a hyperactive thyroid condition, after being told in 1990 that it was two weeks away from a cancerous stage.

U.S. wins softball’s Olympic debut

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The Americans won 106 consecutive games from 1986-95, but the gold medal in the first Olympic softball tournament did not come easy.

Australia beat the U.S. in preliminary play, breaking up Lisa Fernandez's perfect game with a 10th-inning home run.

The U.S. still made the gold-medal game against China. That's where Dot Richardson, a 34-year-old on leave from USC Medical School residency who had joined the national team in 1979, smacked a two-run homer that proved the difference.

Carl Lewis wins 4th long jump gold

Lewis, by then 35 years old with specks of gray in his hair, turned back the clock in the last event of his Olympic career.

He won the long jump with his best leap in four years, becoming the third athlete in any sport to earn four golds in the same individual event.

It marked Lewis' ninth career Olympic gold medal, tying the record at the time. Lewis' Olympic career began with four golds at the 1984 LA Games and fittingly ended with more success at a home Olympics in Atlanta.

Michael Johnson sweeps 200m (world record), 400m

The man in the golden shoes was the most hyped athlete going into the Olympics, and he delivered.

First, Michael Johnson won the 400m in then-Olympic record time (43.49 seconds) by the largest margin since the 1896 Athens Games (92 hundredths of a second).

Three days later, Johnson shattered his own world record in the 200m by 34 hundredths — clocking 19.32 seconds, a world record that stood until Usain Bolt broke it in 2008.

Dan O’Brien’s redemptive decathlon gold

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Dan O'Brien's tears after winning the decathlon — the 10-event crucible that determines the world's greatest male athlete — were understandable.

Four years earlier, O'Brien, then the reigning world champion, missed the Olympic team because he failed to clear the bar on all three of his pole vault attempts at trials.

O'Brien then broke the world record one month after the Barcelona Games and won two more world titles en route to Atlanta, where he became the 10th American to win decathlon gold.

U.S. wins first Olympic women’s soccer gold

The U.S. women's national team had a mantra in the 1990s: This is the team. Now is the time.

The impact of the first Olympic women's soccer tournament was felt far beyond the 76,000-plus spectators for the U.S.' 2-1 win over China in the gold-medal match, at the time the largest crowd to watch a women's sports event.

That group of American women — from Mia Hamm to Julie Foudy to Brandi Chastain to Briana Scurry and more — were role models for young soccer players across the country. That core won the seminal 1999 World Cup in the U.S., laying the foundation for success carried on by later national teams.

Dream Team dominates for women’s basketball gold

After taking bronze at both the 1992 Olympics and 1994 World Championship, the U.S. formed a national team that went 52-0 in a nine-month world tour to prep for Atlanta.

It paid off. The Americans, led by Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swoopes and Teresa Edwards, averaged 102 points per game and won by 28 points per game en route to gold.

Atlanta sparked a dynasty. Starting with 1996, the U.S. won each of the last eight Olympic women's basketball golds, a team sport record streak.

Honorable mention: Donovan Bailey winning the 100m in a world record 9.84 seconds, then anchoring Canada to a 4x100m relay upset over the U.S.; Karch Kiraly (in his trademark pink hat) and Kent Steffes claiming gold in beach volleyball's Olympic debut; Jackie Joyner-Kersee taking long jump bronze on her final jump despite a strained right hamstring; Andre Agassi's tennis gold en route to the Golden Slam and the U.S. men's basketball team — Dream Team III — romping by an average of 31 points per game.