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Thirty years after the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games, a new documentary reexamines Izzy — the computer-generated mascot that the Associated Press called "the most maligned product to come out of Atlanta since New Coke."
A documentary examines how Atlanta leveraged its civil rights heritage to win the 1996 Olympics — inviting IOC members to experience the city's history firsthand and proving that the values of the movement and the Games were inseparable.
Olympic sprinter Noah Lyles headlined the inaugural adidas Atlanta City Games at Centennial Olympic Park in May 2023 — a free, world-class track and field meet that returned elite competition to the site of the 1996 Olympics.
Twenty years after the 1996 Games, artist John Ryan — the man who designed the most controversial mascot in Olympic history — broke his silence. His message: "What happened to Izzy is not his fault."
