Happy Olympic Day!

Tune in tomorrow for more of our Summer Sports Spectacular. We must put that aside today, however, to contemplate instead the incredible Triumph of the Human Spirit (and no, I don't mean the statue of the same name in New York City). 

It's Olympic Day!

A day to celebrate athleticism and wonder and joy and the games.

(Occasionally sponsored by McDonald's.)

Happy birthday to the original IOC, from which all this amazingness was born. Let's celebrate in style, with a little John Williams pumping:

Feel the fanfariness

True, the Olympics may just be another international sporting event. But it can be and often is so much more than that. At the risk of sounding like an NBC human interest cutaway, the Olympics features the most amazing athletes in the world doing what they do best. It's a love story between an individual and their nation and songs of bodies in the poetry of motion. It can foster peaceful competition between nations in times of international tension. It's about pride and perseverance, and honestly, the the games are the closest we humans will ever get to real super powers.

And yes, cheesy as it sounds, it can be about the triumph of the human spirit.

Tell 'em, Usain.

Reasons I love the Olympics:

#123010398834: Great cover music.



#2039238480209393: Team Norway's curling pants. Update! Now available for purchase!

#32311232109292: Graham Watanabe:

When asked in a press conference (for probably the five-hundredth time this week) what it feels like to participate in the Olympic games, Watanabe, an American Snowboarder, said, “Try to imagine Pegasus mating with a unicorn and the creature that they birth. I somehow tame it and ride it into the sky in the clouds and sunshine and rainbows. That’s what it feels like.”

 

Graham Watanabe

An approximation of the beast he tamed and rode into the sky