AND WE’RE BACK (but Dick Ebersol is not)

Why. Hello there.

This old billboard from Atlanta 1996 is NOT INDICATIVE of the state of this blog.

It's been a bit of a ghost town around these parts recently, but all that's about to change. There are fewer than 500 days until the London 2012 Olympics! And we have so much to talk about!

Let's get started. 

On May 19, Dick Ebersol stepped downed from NBC Sports. This is big news in the American Olympics world-- Mr. Ebersol produced several years of Olympics coverage for NBC and acquired exclusive US media rights of the Olympics. You can thank him for the wall-to-wall non-stop American exceptionalist coverage over the past decade.

It's big news for Mount Olympics mostly because of this:

Aw yeah.

Farewell, "This post has been brought to you by Dick Ebersol's sweater" tag. We will miss you dearly.

A look back, a look forward

Look both ways before you cross the time line!

Wow, it's been a while. Almost an entire year, in fact, since last we updated the blog, and a year to the day since the Opening Ceremonies (08/08/08!).

Happy Anniversary, little guys.

And there's been a year of international sports and excitement that we here at Mount Olympics have allowed to pass un-blogged. So much has happened, in fact, that it merits a bucket o' links! These are the stories we would have been following, had we, you know, been blogging.

Don't worry, China, not having the Olympics won't be terrible for your economy!
Don't worry, world, a terrible economy won't hurt the Olympics!
Sorry, Russia, the economy might hurt the Sochi 2014 Olympics.
Sorry, London Olympics, the economy might hurt you, too.
WAIT, by "hurt" we meant "the Olympics will save the British economy," right?

Poison + Milk = Scandal, but Olympics + Scandal = Chinese cover up...

OPRAH wants the 2016 Olympics in Chicago. OPRAH. WE MUST DO AS SHE SAYS.
OBAMA wants the 2016 Olympics in Chicago. OBAMA. (Remember: Bigger than Oprah.)
A BILLION DOLLARS wants the 2016 Olympics in Chicago.

Olympics has opened China to foreign media? WaPo says it is so.
Beijing brings back Olympic pollution control! Olympics make things greener, and not just in Canada!
Also, Olympics maybe helped China's human rights record!

Rugby is trying to get to the Olympics. BADASS.
Baseball too.
Also golf.

As a final sendoff to the summer games, FINA bans technical racing suits!

Phew, I feel refreshed, don't you?

In conclusion, look for this blog to be updated more often! Up next we have a shout-out to all you google searchers out there.

Introduction

The Olympics captivates the world.

It's true. Okay, so maybe the citizens of Palau are less likely than the average Swede to pay any attention to the decathalon... but it brings the world together in a way that very few other things do.

Competition without guns. Adversaries without violence (...except for wrestling. And judo. But those are different!). Hell, a united Korea without a complete restructuring of the world order. Sportsmanship trumping politics, or rather, interacting with and learning from politics in a completely unique way.

If I were honest when people ask me my favorite sport, I would say the Olympics, without hesitation. It's sport at its best: varied, fast, and with completely uninterrupted prime time coverage.

Welcome to Five Rings: Mount Olympics. After all, as we all know, the more epic it sounds, the more epic it is.