Update: with the Richard Jewell biopic set to be released next weekend, we brought this podcast from the summer back to the top of the feed.
Happy 23rd anniversary of the start of the 1996 Summer Atlanta Olympics. To mark this occasion, we covered the most recent summer Olympiad staged in the United States on the latest episode of the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on the SB Nation/Vox Media/Hammer and Rails Podcast Network.
The Atlanta Olympics are infamous for the bombing, how the media ruined the life of Richard Jewell, the hero from that deplorable bombing, crass commercialization and events being staged at arguably the most racist location on Earth, Stone Mountain.
The Atlanta Olympics also highlights one of the city’s biggest shames- extremist disposability of stadiums. Have a listen below:
(and notice the extreme anger this podcast has inspired in the comments section)
Yes, three Olympic events where staged at Stone Mountain, the world’s largest bas-relief sculpture and the mother of all Confederate monuments. Three leading Confederate figures, i.e. traitorous losers who led an insurrection for the cause of white supremacy (Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson) are depicted in the rock relief.
The entire carved surface measures 1.57 acres. The carving of the three men (which resides on the site where the second and modern Ku Klux Klan was founded) towers 400 feet above the ground, measures 76 by 158 feet, and is recessed 42 feet into the mountain. The deepest point of the carving is at Lee’s right elbow, which is 12 feet to the mountain’s surface.
Owned and paid for by the state of Georgia, Stone Mountain is the most-visited tourist attraction in the state. The park opened on the centennial of the assassination Abraham Lincoln.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
You can follow Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com on Twitter here and his cat on Instagram at this link.