Forget Izzy, the unidentifiable blue creature who's the official mascot for the 1996 Summer Games. The real symbol of the Olympics is the plastic water bottle.
Whether they paid $2.50 for a pint of Crystal Springs - the "Official Bottled Water of the 1996 Olympic Games" - or less for one of the many other brands for sale on downtown streets - everyone seems to be lugging and chugging water.And that's exactly what health officials want them to do. With temperatures soaring toward the triple digits, and humidity just about that high, people are in danger of collapsing from heat stroke.
Seventy-one cases of heat-related illnesses were treated at Olympic venues on Wednesday alone, the most recent statistics available from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and organizers.
Through them, 483 cases have been reported, 11 percent of all medical problems. Most victims just need a chance to cool off. But a few end up in an emergency room, including three Wednesday who were treated and released.
Atlanta's Olympic organizers keep reminding the public what precautions need to be taken in Georgia's extreme heat. They also want the public to remember that the weather's not their fault.
"The weather is the weather," said Laurie Olsen, a spokeswoman for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games. "We certainly have done everything we possibly can."
That means water. Even though venues are charging $2.50 a bottle for "official" bottled water, it's available free from fountains, roving dispensers, and medical tents.
Mark Head, a epidemiology prevention expert at the Georgia Department of Human Resources, is handing out 400 gallons of water a day at one of the state's dozen heat prevention stations downtown.
Besides a huge tank waiting to be tapped, the stations feature free caps with a protective neck flap, sunscreen, identification cards to attach to kids and plenty of good advice, like taking it easy.
"They are drinking their water," Head said. Most Olympic spectators are taking care of themselves, although too many think that they don't need to worry on overcast days like Friday.
"A lot of people get confused. It rains and they think it's cooling off," Head said. But cooling off this time of year in Atlanta still means temperatures in the high-80s. And overcast days are even more humid.
Drizzles and downpours do hurt entrepreneurs trying to capitalize on the misery index. (That's the popular term for the National Weather Service's calculation of the combined effect of heat and humidity.)
"The hotter it is, the better it is for us," Miles Gardner of Dallas said, seeking customers to his Arctic Zone booth on a quiet end of Peachtree Street. The booth spewed out a cool mist, thanks to a system of nozzles and fans.
For just $29.95 - reduced from $43.95 - passers-by could own their own, fanny-pack-size portable air-conditioner.
Most visitors to Centennial Olympic Park, the 21-acre gathering place for the public during the Games, didn't seem to need any fancy devices to stay comfortable.
"We're trying to keep the water in us, and we're fanning and trying to take breaks," said Monica Ward as her 3-year-old daughter, Aryn, whipped a fan back and forth.
The Wards live just outside Atlanta and are used to muggy weather. So are the Faulkners, but that didn't stop Melissa Faulkner from taking Cate, 6, and Matthew 4, into the ground-level fountains in the park.
Running in and out of the water jets along with thousands of other park visitors is obviously part of the strategy for keeping cool, Melissa Faulkner said.
Not everyone was having a good time at the park Friday afternoon. Within a 15-minute period, at least three park visitors stopped in the north medical tent for help coping with the heat.
They were treated with cold drinks and icy towels stored in a portable cooler. A cab was called to return a 79-year-old woman to her hotel along with her sister and her son.
Ronald Barnes, a pharmacist at a local hospital who's helping with medical services during the Games, said visitors seem to be getting the message about how to take care of themselves.
Most of what Barnes and the other dozen-plus medical personnel at the park say they doing is dispensing Band-Aids for blisters, aspirin, a place to change a baby, or a minor injury like a cut.