Kevin Across America | WATCH The 1996 Summer Olympics Closing Ceremony in Atlanta, Georgia on NBC with Bob Costas 🥇 🔥 🇺🇸 @KevinAcrossAmerica | Uploaded January 2024 | Updated October 2024, 2 hours ago.
The Closing Ceremony of the 1996 Summer Olympics took place on August 4, 1996, at the Centennial Olympic Stadium in Atlanta. The ceremony began with a 22-part countdown, for the total number of Modern Olympic Games held up to that point. With each count, footage from the relevant competition was shown, with Atlanta represented by an image of the opening ceremony.
Succeeding the transition, right after the announcement of Sydney as the host of the next edition of the Games, a live satellite transmission of a public party on Sydney's Harbor Bridge was shown and one of the most elaborate acts to date on the Olympics history was presented to introduce the next host city (Sydney) started. The eight-minute presentation featured music of the composers Carl Vine and David Page, as well as dance members from the indigenous Bangarra Dance Theatre, and members of the Australian Olympic Team, this segment was directed by Stephen Page and Ric Birch along with the recorded songs by Christine Anu, Djakapurra Munyarrun, Mathew Doyle and Leroy Cummings. The Sydney handover act was called "A Day in the Life of Sydney", and featured representations of aboriginal and beach cultures, flora, and fauna as the Australian state of New South Wales is home to endemic species of flora and fauna as the Waratah and sulfur-crested cockatoo used world-know examples. Four inflated balloons arose to form an imaginary Sydney Opera House while members of the Australian Olympic team and university and a group of Australian university students, who were studying in the United States, acted as volunteers holding up blue Olympic Banners around the prop to form a simulation of the Olympic Rings reflected on the waters of the Sydney Harbour.
Following the Olympic Charter, IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch called on the youth of the world to assemble in Sydney, in four years, for the next Summer Olympics. In a speech, he denounced the Centennial Olympic Park bombing of the previous week. Samaranch asked for a moment of silence to remember the victims of the bombing, as well as the 11 Israeli athletes killed in the Munich massacre during the 1972 Summer Olympics.
Before Samaranch declared the games officially closed, R&B singer Stevie Wonder sang a cover of John Lennon's "Imagine" in memory of the victims of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing.
Lowering of the Olympic Flag:
Afterward, Atlanta native mezzo-soprano Jennifer Larmore, along with the Morehouse College Glee Club and the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra sang the Olympic Hymn while the Olympic flag was lowered. Eight volunteers were chosen to remove the flag from the Stadium as a form of thanks to all those who worked to make the event happen. This flag would be raised again in Nagano during the opening ceremony of the 1998 Winter Olympics, 552 days after on February 7, 1998. The opening ceremonies in Sydney were scheduled for 15 September 2000. 1503 days after this handover ceremony.
Power of the Dream:
After the lowering of the Olympic flag and the singing of the Olympic Hymn, some 600 children from Atlanta ranging from ages six through twelve sang a rendition of "The Power of the Dream", which was performed by Celine Dion in the opening ceremony. The segment started with ten-year-old Rachel McMullin singing the first stanza. As the song progresses more children join in creating a full choir. The children line up and hold hands to form the Atlantic Olympic emblem while holding up flashlights. The spectators and athletes then sing and hold hands in unison. At the end of the song, the children shout in unison, "Y'all come back now!" a friendly gesture inviting the athletes and citizens of the world to come together at Sydney four years from that time, though the next Olympics would happen 18 months afterward in Nagano, Japan, Olympic customs and regulations maintain that the Olympic Winter Games and the Games of the Olympiad (Summer) are separate events.
The extinguishing of the flame:
Highlights of the past events were once more replayed on two jumbotrons in the stadium as the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra performed "The Flame". The crowd was silenced, as Georgia native and country singer Trisha Yearwood sang an a cappella version of the same song. Upon the conclusion of the song, the flame extinguished slowly.
The musical finale:
The ceremony concluded with an all-star tribute to American popular music. A New Orleans-style funeral commenced the segment which eventually turns into a celebration with elaborate swing music. An array of performers culminated in the finale which was led by Late Show's Paul Shaffer, and conductor Harold Wheeler. As with most closing ceremonies, the athletes were invited onto the field below the stadium to sing and dance along with the music. Among the performers were:
Gloria Estefan
Sheila E.
Faith Hill
B.B. King
Wynton Marsalis
Little Richard
Pointer Sisters
Tito Puente
Buckwheat Zydeco
Stevie Wonder
Al Green
The Closing Ceremony of the 1996 Summer Olympics took place on August 4, 1996, at the Centennial Olympic Stadium in Atlanta. The ceremony began with a 22-part countdown, for the total number of Modern Olympic Games held up to that point. With each count, footage from the relevant competition was shown, with Atlanta represented by an image of the opening ceremony.
Succeeding the transition, right after the announcement of Sydney as the host of the next edition of the Games, a live satellite transmission of a public party on Sydney's Harbor Bridge was shown and one of the most elaborate acts to date on the Olympics history was presented to introduce the next host city (Sydney) started. The eight-minute presentation featured music of the composers Carl Vine and David Page, as well as dance members from the indigenous Bangarra Dance Theatre, and members of the Australian Olympic Team, this segment was directed by Stephen Page and Ric Birch along with the recorded songs by Christine Anu, Djakapurra Munyarrun, Mathew Doyle and Leroy Cummings. The Sydney handover act was called "A Day in the Life of Sydney", and featured representations of aboriginal and beach cultures, flora, and fauna as the Australian state of New South Wales is home to endemic species of flora and fauna as the Waratah and sulfur-crested cockatoo used world-know examples. Four inflated balloons arose to form an imaginary Sydney Opera House while members of the Australian Olympic team and university and a group of Australian university students, who were studying in the United States, acted as volunteers holding up blue Olympic Banners around the prop to form a simulation of the Olympic Rings reflected on the waters of the Sydney Harbour.
Following the Olympic Charter, IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch called on the youth of the world to assemble in Sydney, in four years, for the next Summer Olympics. In a speech, he denounced the Centennial Olympic Park bombing of the previous week. Samaranch asked for a moment of silence to remember the victims of the bombing, as well as the 11 Israeli athletes killed in the Munich massacre during the 1972 Summer Olympics.
Before Samaranch declared the games officially closed, R&B singer Stevie Wonder sang a cover of John Lennon's "Imagine" in memory of the victims of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing.
Lowering of the Olympic Flag:
Afterward, Atlanta native mezzo-soprano Jennifer Larmore, along with the Morehouse College Glee Club and the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra sang the Olympic Hymn while the Olympic flag was lowered. Eight volunteers were chosen to remove the flag from the Stadium as a form of thanks to all those who worked to make the event happen. This flag would be raised again in Nagano during the opening ceremony of the 1998 Winter Olympics, 552 days after on February 7, 1998. The opening ceremonies in Sydney were scheduled for 15 September 2000. 1503 days after this handover ceremony.
Power of the Dream:
After the lowering of the Olympic flag and the singing of the Olympic Hymn, some 600 children from Atlanta ranging from ages six through twelve sang a rendition of "The Power of the Dream", which was performed by Celine Dion in the opening ceremony. The segment started with ten-year-old Rachel McMullin singing the first stanza. As the song progresses more children join in creating a full choir. The children line up and hold hands to form the Atlantic Olympic emblem while holding up flashlights. The spectators and athletes then sing and hold hands in unison. At the end of the song, the children shout in unison, "Y'all come back now!" a friendly gesture inviting the athletes and citizens of the world to come together at Sydney four years from that time, though the next Olympics would happen 18 months afterward in Nagano, Japan, Olympic customs and regulations maintain that the Olympic Winter Games and the Games of the Olympiad (Summer) are separate events.
The extinguishing of the flame:
Highlights of the past events were once more replayed on two jumbotrons in the stadium as the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra performed "The Flame". The crowd was silenced, as Georgia native and country singer Trisha Yearwood sang an a cappella version of the same song. Upon the conclusion of the song, the flame extinguished slowly.
The musical finale:
The ceremony concluded with an all-star tribute to American popular music. A New Orleans-style funeral commenced the segment which eventually turns into a celebration with elaborate swing music. An array of performers culminated in the finale which was led by Late Show's Paul Shaffer, and conductor Harold Wheeler. As with most closing ceremonies, the athletes were invited onto the field below the stadium to sing and dance along with the music. Among the performers were:
Gloria Estefan
Sheila E.
Faith Hill
B.B. King
Wynton Marsalis
Little Richard
Pointer Sisters
Tito Puente
Buckwheat Zydeco
Stevie Wonder
Al Green
