1 Pound Olympic Games Atlanta

Cyprus issued this piece as part of a broader wave of Olympic commemoratives from smaller nations looking to generate collector revenue ahead of the 1996 Atlanta Games — the centennial Olympics and the first held in the United States since Los Angeles in 1984. Atlanta's selection over Athens in 1990 was deeply controversial; Greece had lobbied aggressively on the centenary argument, and the IOC vote went to Atlanta by just one round of balloting.