No matter how well the world's athletes perform in Atlanta, at least one new record is sure to be set: the 26th Olympiad will be the most widely seen event in television history. An estimated 3.5 billion viewers will tune in when the torch is lit on Friday. That's why TV and radio companies around the world have spent millions to buy the rights to air the contest. But this year for the first time the likes of the BBC and NHK will face a new source of competition for the eyes and ears of Olympic fans: the Internet.

Dozens of sites dedicated to the Games are already up and running. They range from ambitious, state-of-the-art efforts by companies like official Olympic sponsor IBM (http://www.olympic.ibm.com/) to worthy gestures by nonprofit groups like the Kenyan Olympic Team (http://www.africaonline.co.ke/AfricaOnline/olympics.html). The one thing you won't find on the Internet is live audio or video reporting of the events. The International Olympic Committee decided not to sell the rights to broadcast the Games over the Web because of a potential conflict with the radio and television companies that bought broadcast rights. There may be no substitute for watching the events as they happen, but Internet designers have managed to bring the Olympics to life in a number of imaginative ways.

Can TV or radio, for example, offer an opportunity to customize the news you get from the Olympics, or match you up with fans of similar interests? At AT&T's Olympics site (http://www.olympic.att.com/), surfers can register their interests on the phone company's "switchboard" (get it?). Every time they return, the latest news on their favorite sports--say track and field, canoeing and badminton--will be waiting for them. What's more, there's a list of folks who happen to have similar interests, and you can get in touch with them by E-mail.

But why limit contact to other fans when you can reach out and E-mail an Olympic athlete? IBM makes it easy to send electronic fan mail to the Olympians (http://www.fanmail.olympic.ibm.com/). At the Olympic Village in Atlanta, IBM has set up a "surf shack," a large white tent with 30 PCs inside where Olympians will be encouraged to drop in and read their mail, as well as design their own Web pages. On the nbc site, there are diaries of Olympic hopefuls (http://www.olympic. nbc.com/hopefuls/). The Discovery Channel (http://www.discovery.com/) offers audio interview and video clips of selected athletes.

As the Games become increasingly commercial, the Internet is providing new ways for companies to get a bit of Olympic shine. The sports-shoemaker Nike, for instance, has created a site (http://www.nike.com/main) to provide information for journalists--"whether they are in Atlanta or Sri Lanka"--with news about the athletes from 48 countries competing in 21 sports who wear shoes with the big swoosh, Nike's trademark.

An impressive advantage the Internet has over conventional newspapers and magazines, as well as TV and radio, is almost unlimited capacity. A printed publication can offer only so many pictures and news stories, but space on the Internet is pretty close to unlimited--and there are no paper or postage costs. The U.S. weekly Sports Illustrated (http://pathfinder.com/@@ Olom2gYA8PLG6mKL/ si/athens/olyhome.html) will take advantage of all that headroom by publishing a daily edition of the magazine on the Internet throughout the Games. The print crowd will have lots of competition from ESPNET Sportszone (http://espnet. sportszone .com/editors/atlanta96/), which is one of the most popular sports sites on the Web. CNN (http://cnn.com/sports/ olympics/) is also a tough competitor, with an especially extensive offering of photography on demand.

How much demand will there be for Olympic material on the Internet? IBM expects 10 million visitors at its site on the first day of the Games. If the number seems high, remember that the Internet is global, so curious Web cruisers will be peeking in from all over the world. And if the big sites get too crowded, there are plenty of off-beat places to visit, like the Ancient Olympic Games Virtual Museum (http://www.cs.dartmouth. edu/olympic/), a fascinating tour of the ancient Olympics. The best way to find more spots, of course, is to use the popular directory and search engine services, such as Excite, Infoseek, Lycos and Yahoo. And when Atlanta just isn't enough, you can always look forward to the next destination, the 2000 Sydney Games (http://www.sydney. olympic.org/). By then, the whole world may be watching the Olympics on the Web as well as on the tube.

Edward W. Desmond, formerly TIME's Tokyo bureau chief, is an editor at Infoseek