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What: “SportsCenter Flashback: Olympic Park Bombing”

Where: ESPN Classic, today, 4 and 8 p.m.

Four years ago today, a pipe bomb exploded in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park. Two people died--a Georgia woman and a Turkish cameraman who suffered a heart attack rushing to the scene. More than 100 were injured, and the 1996 Summer Olympics were jeopardized. ESPN Classic, in a one-hour special, looks back at that tragedy.

The special, hosted by Suzy Kolber, features interviews with dozens of Olympic officials, reporters, athletes and eyewitnesses. ESPN Classic did a thorough job, but it takes too long to get to the heart of the story. It’s not until the end that viewers learn that the lone suspect is Eric Robert Rudolph, who is on the FBI’s 10 most-wanted list and is still at large, possibly somewhere in North Carolina.

False accusations by the FBI and media against security guard Richard Jewell are dealt with in depth. ABC’s Peter Jennings notes that it served as a lesson for the media to guard against the tendency “to run like a pack.” Unfortunately, ESPN Classic fails to give an update on Jewell, and he was not interviewed for this special.

The moment of the explosion, which occurred shortly after 1 a.m. in Atlanta, was caught by a German television crew during an interview with swimmer Janet Evans, who is among the athletes interviewed. She talks about that moment and the fright she felt.

Some of the best reporting at the time was done by Chris Myers, who was then with ESPN and is now at rival Fox Sports Net. His report is a key part of the special.

When the bomb exploded, Myers was taping a segment for the 2 a.m. edition of “SportsCenter,” giving boxing results. He was about a quarter-mile away, atop the Chamber of Commerce building, and immediately went to work filing live reports, beating the major networks.

The special tends to lose its focus at times--there is too much in the beginning about how Atlanta won the bid to host the ’96 Games--but the end result is a complete, informative report.