How Atlanta sold itself as an Olympics-worthy city | Fortune0

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• September 14, 2026

Thirty years ago, a Fortune cover story chronicled the improbable campaign that brought the Centennial Olympic Games to Atlanta. The force behind the global campaign for “this Sun Belt hustler” to host the 1996 Olympics was an extraordinary pairing, wrote John Huey, himself an Atlantan. Billy Payne, a white real estate lawyer and former University of Georgia football player,