A local television station last week asked my opinion on the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. More specifically they wanted to know how much the bad press had hurt the city.

There was the luge athlete who died on a training run prior to the opening ceremonies, a balky component that failed to function when the Olympic Cauldron was to be lit causing an awkward delay, a Zamboni machine that wouldn’t start and a chain link fence around the cauldron that prevented people from photographing the newest landmark in the city.

How much damage had been done to Vancouver because of these gaffes, I was asked? “Zilch,” I said.

Most of the griping came from the Olympic news media that wouldn’t be happy if you gave them a milk bath and a massage. If one were to award gold medals for whining, the news media would win hands down.

In Atlanta in 1996, whilst getting savaged by the media for everything from an inconvenient (to them) press center to the city’s ill-begotten sidewalk souvenir shops, we had to remind ourselves that the Games were for the athletes and for those who watched them perform in person or on television. Put on good games and forget the media blather.

We had 10,000 athletes in town that set 32 world records and 111 Olympic records. It was at the time the most watched event in television history. More than 8.6 million tickets were sold. Everybody I have talked to since then who attended the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games had a great time.

The park bombing was an unexpected tragedy and the Cobb Family Values flap was time-consuming but the ath-letes, spectators and ACOG staff and volunteers survived that, too.

And the aftermath? I don’t know one business that has failed to move their business to the Atlanta area because some of our buses ran late. I don’t know one student at Georgia Tech or Georgia State or Kennesaw State that re-fused to go to school here because the media didn’t like the location of the Media Center.

Vancouver is doing just fine, thank you. Or, rather, its athletes are and fans are enjoying the spectacle even as the media continue to grumble. Take heart, hard-working organizers and volunteers in Vancouver: You will survive.

And the Olympic Press will be on the way to London for the 2012 to tell us all that are wrong with those Games.