Almost exactly 30 years after Atlanta was thrust onto the world's stage during the 1996 Olympic Games, the city is once again playing international host with the FIFA World Cup.
Channel 2's Karyn Greer sat down with Billy Payne, one of the people who helped bring the Olympics to Atlanta, to discuss how his work led the city to where it is today.
He says people already knew Atlanta existed because of the Civil Rights Movement, but had no idea about the Southern charm and its ability to play host.
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"If you objectively ****** s the odds of us winning when we first began, it was zero, just wasn't any way that an American city was going to come out of the blue and win the Centennial Olympic Games," Payne recalled.