Wrapping Up the 2024 Summer Olympics

The Summer 2024 Olympics have come to a close. We take a look back over some of the controversies and the triumphs.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Welcome to Steph.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
I never told you a production of iHeartRadio, and we
are back with our wrap up of the Olympics, the
Summer Olympics twenty twenty four in Paris.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Honestly, this one got a little out of hand.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
There's a lot to talk about, so if I miss something,
please let us know, because this was mostly me so
Sabbathly you're going to come along the ride, but I'm
sure you'll have thoughts about it. But yeah, there has
been a lot of conversation that's come out of it.
And unfortunately, because I got so caught up in the controversies,

(00:53):
we're not talking too.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Much about some wins that I wanted to talk about.
So maybe there will be another one. Maybe there will
be another one.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Also, pair Olympics are coming up August twenty eighth.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
We were recording this August twenty seventh, so hey tomorrow. Awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
Happy birthday to friend Tyler, who has long worked at
our company in its various iterations, and we got to
hang out with recently in Washington, DC, which is cool.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
I hadn't seen him in a while.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Also kind of related when I first started, when I
was an intern. We used to work on what was
called the fish Bowl and it was just the video
department did and I was on the video department at
the time, and so it was just like a circular
glass bowl and people could see inside and it was

(01:42):
There was another woman who worked with me, but she
rarely came in, so it was me and like seven guys,
all who were cool when I'm still friends with.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Tyler was one of them.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
But one day one of our bosses came in and
he was announcing that I was quitting and he was
going to WWE, and he looked directly at me and
he said, I know you're a girl and you don't
get it. Well yeah yeah, and I was like, you know,
I whatever, I don't I don't get it, so whatever.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Then he left and Tyler looked at me and he
was like.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
I don't get it either, So you good. So thank you, Tyler.
Happy birthday, Happy birthday. Yes, unfortunately we are. There is
a content warning for this one for trans zobia, fat phobia,
discussion of wait, yeah, yeah, there's some stuff I was
getting really I was getting riled up last night Smitha

(02:38):
when I was researching Oh so yeah, uh for this episode.
We're going to do some brief overviews on the ups
and downs of this Summer Olympics, and we have done
two three I think we did a feminist around the World.
We've done it. We did one of those, and then
we did two Monday minis related to this Olympics. So
we've done a couple of things. Also see our past

(03:00):
Olympics episodes for more on this. But yeah, we did
want to touch on the fact that the host city,
Paris was really touting this being the first gender equal
Summer Olympics. So let's break that down a bit. When
it comes to the US team, US did send more
women than men for the fourth straight Summer Olympics, three

(03:22):
hundred and fourteen women to two hundred and seventy eight
men when Paris a last hosted the Olympics. By the
way of over three thousand athletes, about one hundred and
thirty five were women.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
So we have come a long way.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
There's still still room for improvement because, as we all know,
this metric is not the only thing to take into account.
In the words of Purdue University professor who studies this
kind of thing, Cheryl Cookie Quote, Yes, the IOC has
achieved a gender parity if we're looking at this specific
indicator our criteria of gender equity, and there are still

(03:57):
ways that women athletes are not given the same kinds
of quality of opportunities, same types of resources, investments, and
so on. So she was saying, like both can be true.
Others have pointed out that in general, the delegations can
be pretty uneven. Some may bring a lot of women,
some may bring no women. This was the first Olympics

(04:18):
to institute caps on the number of athletes that could
be sent, after there had been steady growth that led
to a record of eleven thousand athletes in Tokyo. So
the cap was set at ten thousand, five hundred plus backups,
half for women, half for men.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
Right, So here's a quote from the AP there's still
a slight edge toward men. Among the three hundred and
twenty nine medal events at the Paris Olympics, the IOC
has said there are one hundred and fifty seven men's events,
one hundred and fifty two women's events, and twenty mixed
gender events. Of the thirty two sports, twenty eight are
quote fully gender equal, the IOC said, including the new

(04:58):
event of breaking to music. Rhythmic gymnastics is still for
women only, but men are allowed to compete in artistic swimming.
In track and field, which has qualifying standards so that
athletes must reach there are fifty more registered for the
men's events than women's one thousand ninety one to one
thousand forty one. In swimming, the difference was four hundred

(05:18):
and sixty four two three ninety three. In soccer, with
sixteen teams in the men's tournament and just twelve and
the women's the athlete tally was three hundred and fifty
one to two sixty four. The wrestling entry has one
hundred and ninety three men and ninety six women, with
a men's only category in Greeco Roman. You know what,
I don't know if I would know the difference of
what that is to be fair.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
With the WWE question.

Speaker 4 (05:41):
So leadership is an area that has a lot further
to go in terms of gender parity. At these Olympics,
forty two percent of the coaches were women, which is
way up from a decade ago. Women make up thirty
three percent of the IOC's executive board and women lead
forty two percent of their commissions, which we did talk
about earlier.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
We did, and there was a big scandal about this
at the last Summer Olympics in Tokyo, where basically one
of the higher ups was like, women talk too much
at meetings and that's why that.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
Oh yeah, and we were like, why would you say?
Do you just want people to hate you?

Speaker 2 (06:18):
I know?

Speaker 3 (06:19):
And speaking of there were as we discussed instances of
sexism from commentators. There was one that was fired for
making a sexist remark about the Australian women's swim team,
and there was another that said it was pretty bad
as well. He did not get fired, but it was like,

(06:39):
what are you doing?

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Why would you say that?

Speaker 3 (06:43):
It's twenty twenty four would you say that? And yeah,
there there's other things related to that, like there some
of critique the camera angles used for women's sports as
compared to me. We're gonna talk about the uniforms. We've
talked about the uniforms before. We'll touch on them again

(07:05):
in a second. These Olympics did put in place non
mandatory guidelines. We're giving women's sports more coveted time slots
and coverage. As we did discuss women's basketball and the
women's marathon closed out these Olympics, which is usually it's
men's events that close out the Olympics. But still, yeah,

(07:27):
things haven't been smooth sailing completely. There's a lot of
progress that has been made, a lot to be made
in the future. So we did want to go through
some of the bigger controversies.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
There are a lot. Again, if we miss them, let
us know if there's something you think we should talk about.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
One that's ongoing is in gymnastics, so this is yeah,
it's an ongoing mess. And the women's individual floor routine
metal and I, like I said, I want a lot
of Olympics live because the time zone was such that
I was able to do that. Sometimes you know, it's

(08:07):
the middle of the night where they're taking place and
I don't get to see it. But this time I
was able to see a lot of stuff live. I
saw this happen live and this is how it unfolded.
As a viewer. Simone Biles has got a solid silver.
Brazilian gymnasts Rebecca on John gy was a lock for gold,

(08:28):
but the bronze medal scoring changed, bumping us shownas Jordan
Chiles from fifth into bronze medal position over Romania's on
a barbosu. And this is because her coach petitioned seemingly
successfully to up her difficulty score for an uncredited move
that she did so she should have gotten more points,

(08:49):
and the difficulty score went up. Her score went up.
She gets the bronze, and there was a lovely pitcher.
I was taken on the metal podium of both Childs
and Biles, bowing to Androji, the first metal ceremony of
its kind, beaturing all black women. But Romania was very
unhappy about this. Understandably, I would say a flurry of

(09:10):
things happened. Chiles coach inquiry was voided because it was
determined she'd made it four seconds too late, because you
have one minute to make it. This put Chiles back
in fifth place. US officials appealed that the Court of
Arbitration of Sport refused to reconsider their decision, even in

(09:30):
light of new proof that allegedly showed the inquiry being
completed in time. Chiles was ordered to return her medal,
where both of you got a separate medal at a
small ceremony. There were stories of things just getting sent
to wrong emails, the wrong people being nodeified. All kinds
of things was a huge mess. It continues to be
a huge mess because it's not over right.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
There new inquiries happening.

Speaker 4 (09:53):
One went to from the US to like backtrack that,
and then another one from Romania to backtrack that, like controversies,
and then like theories that there's a dude who was
on the committee that was Romanian base.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
They're like, oh, dear, oh dear.

Speaker 4 (10:10):
I don't quite understand why they would not allow there
can be an appeal and an appeal to that appeal.
Why can't there be another appeal because they blocked that
last appeal for some odd reason.

Speaker 3 (10:20):
Yeah, yeah, proof right, yes, and you can look into there.
There is a lot being discussed about yes, uh, connections
to Romania by some of the people on the board.
You can look into that. The yes, there is another
quote conspiracy theory that upon replay the other Romanian gymnasts

(10:44):
Sabrina Manisha Vawena received a deduction for stepping out of bounds,
but she actually didn't, meaning she should have gotten Lebron's.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
But then that's the other conversation.

Speaker 4 (10:53):
Then they're way too late, like there's a week or
two late, like this should not even be a conversation.
Then that's like if she there's so many conversations.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
I don't think she's I could be wrong, because this
is a mess. I don't think she's like actually appealing.
I'm just saying I think people are saying, well, clearly
something we weren't paying attention to the right things and
this or it wasn't being scored properly. Unfortunately, this is

(11:32):
something that's going to come up a lot in this
When I was doing this research, social media backlash WHOA,
the backlash against Chiles, A lot of it was very
racist in nature, was intense, and she posted on social media,
I have no words. This decision feels unjust and comes
as a significant blow not just to me, but to
everyone who has championed my journey. She later took a

(11:52):
break from social media for her mental health, and a
lot of her teammates have been very outspoken and supportive
of her. In USA Gymnastics is continuing to pursue this issue.
In my opinion, this is a IOC governing body problem,
and neither athlete should be punished for their failures. I

(12:14):
feel like she shouldn't have to go through the ringer
because you awarded her a pros.

Speaker 4 (12:20):
It's this conversation we've been kind of having because we've
seen so many like questionable decisions by referees and officials
and like all these things that this is kind of like.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
Is this legit?

Speaker 4 (12:35):
Are you doing something that is sketchy? Are you not
reconsidering things? Are these rules outdated? Much like some of
the laws we have in real life. Like, there's so
many to that conversation, especially when you have people who
that's heart reaching and on international TV, like the reaction
of childs Like for the US, people are like yay,

(12:58):
and she gets to like celebrates, but then the reaction
of the Romanian who was crushed because for a good
like ten minutes she really thought she won. Like, there's
so many things to this that's like in conversation about
who is seen as the authority.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
And about whether or not they understand.

Speaker 4 (13:18):
And I say that for all the events because we
saw things happening tennis, same thing's happening, and like so
many other things, whether it's referees making bad calls, we
saw things happening in basketball men and women's you were like,
what is going on?

Speaker 5 (13:31):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (13:32):
And I want to add two things to that. In
my previous Monday Mining where I was just kind of
gushing about things I saw that I liked. I talked
about how the soccer one of the women who was
commentating the soccer women's soccer match really went in about
like we're not putting the health of athletes first. And

(13:52):
I saw another article that followed up on that about
this whole thing that was like, this backle is cruel,
Like ultimately, it's kind of cruel to your athletes that
are doing this, and it's on you. You're the ones
that made the mistakes, all right, but they're the ones
that are dealing with it, right.

Speaker 4 (14:11):
Yeah, and being like literally being harassed for the day
things that they don't have anything to do with. It's
not a personal vendetta against other athletes.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
I mean maybe I don't. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (14:20):
I don't know about them athletics, but you know, sometimes
basketball and when they have like direct contact seems heted.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
But but I mean they're not.

Speaker 4 (14:30):
They have not even mentioned, honestly mentioned each other except
for like we have no you have complete respect for
the other athletes. It's a whole level. And then this
going back and forth and back and forth and back
and forth. Yeah, that's got to be mentally taxing.

Speaker 3 (14:44):
Yeah, and I feel like as a viewer sometimes we
can forget that that's like your whole life and it
happens four years and you might not be there in
the next four years.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
This is like a huge, huge deal.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 (14:58):
Yes, the other thing I did want to mention just
because I feel like I should. This is definitely not
the first time somebody's medal has been taken away. But
what makes it unique is every other time it's usually
had to do with doping or some other scandal, like
some something. So it did have like, for instance, the

(15:22):
US skating team from the Winter Olympics two years later
just got their medals because it took that long to
judicate it. It's true, so it could take a while, unfortunately,
because I can only imagine how miserable this is.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
Right.

Speaker 3 (15:40):
Yeah, so there's that, And now let us talk about breaking.
It is called breaking, breakdancing. Lot of people call it,
but it is.

Speaker 4 (15:52):
It's interesting because it is a US based activity sport.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
I've never heard any one they breaking.

Speaker 3 (16:00):
I haven't either, and I usually say breakdancing because no
one knows what I'm talking about when I say breaking.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
But that's what it was called.

Speaker 3 (16:10):
And there's probably a reason to that, which speaking of
this is just gonna be a snippet of what happened
at this.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
I'm not gonna lie giggled when I saw this topic.

Speaker 3 (16:19):
Just now, I feel like we had to talk about it,
But there is a lot more stuff that we can
and probably should come back and talk about with this.
This is just going to be a brief overview of
what happened, because again, I was watching this slide and
I was like, WHOA. So I also, yeah, I'm not
going to go to in depth about it because I

(16:40):
feel like it has been done to death in the news.
But yeah, we do need to talk about women's breaking
in the Olympics. So this was the first and potentially
last Olympic Games to feature breaking, though that decision had
already been made and had nothing to do with what
happened here. It had been made in twenty twenty three.
Snoop Dogg opened the event, which was cool. Yes, I
watched it live and I was so mixed. There were really, like,

(17:03):
so many impressive things, and then there were things that
I was like, yeah, that's white people, cause playing as
black people. It just had a vibe that I couldn't
quite pin down.

Speaker 4 (17:13):
The amount of teams that didn't have people of color
on their teams was shocking, and I'm not going to
say so like a lot of we know that a
lot of countries, there's not a lot of diversity in
that country, which is another thing we should question, like
why aren't you, Why aren't you What is happening there
that is not welcoming or is it other issues? There's

(17:34):
so many things, So that's a controversial statement in itself.
But the fact that we did have countries that do
have a pretty diverse community didn't still didn't and I
was like, I don't And even with the US, I
was still kind of confused.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
There were a few, like.

Speaker 4 (17:53):
There were all people of color if if I remember correctly,
but only a few came from like black or life
Tino background. So I'm like, question mark, But that's again
a whole different episode.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
Yeah, just because of the history, yeah, which we did.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
We did briefly touch on.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
That, and yeah we did hip hop yeah women.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
In which was one I felt very awkward talking about,
but it was important to talk about.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
So check out.

Speaker 3 (18:23):
Yes we did, we did, and I will say, like
the unfortunate thing about this, which I'm going to talk
about a little more. There was like people who were
doing amazing work. They really were, and we're just not
talking about them. We're talking about not.

Speaker 4 (18:38):
That, which may be part of the problem, Like that's
the controversy too.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
Yes, absolutely, absolutely, but there were people I was watching
it was like, damn, that's amazing. But yeah, there there
was a lot to There's a lot to unpack here
because it was the first time, so there was a
lot riding on this event. It was very highly advertised.
It was the only new spore added to this year's Olympics.
There were a lot of questions about how to score it,

(19:05):
and they remain. Two, we can't just ignore the fact of, yes,
the history of breaking being rooted in black culture, and
so both of those questions sort of intertwine with the
with breaking the soul of it. And so Three should
it even be an Olympic sport? Not because it is
an athletic, but like, yeah, how do you judge it?
The hip hop scene is pretty anti establishment. The Olympics

(19:27):
is like the establishment in sports. However, on the other
side of that, it could bring knowledge and attention to
something lesser known, inspire others to get involved.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
It also should be recognized and given attention. So I've
seen like arguments on all around all of those things.

Speaker 4 (19:43):
Yeah, I mean the question is is the Olympics the
appropriate place? Like what type of attention are you giving it?
Are you giving it as full of respect?

Speaker 1 (19:53):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (19:53):
The scoring? Who is scoring it? Like all of those
questions like who have you brought in to score this?
Also the music it was interesting.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
The music was interesting. The music was interesting. So yes.

Speaker 3 (20:07):
The most obvious example of what kind of went wrong
here is Australian Rachel gunn Our Reagan, who's a thirty
six year old white academic who has a PhD in breaking.
There has been so much discussion about how in the
role she qualified, although I will say most of the
conspiracy theories about how she cheated or rigged her way
in are largely untrue about who she might have blocked

(20:27):
entry from. It is true that the breaking community where
she came from is very small and the entry fees
and travel costs are prohibitive, which I think is another
part of the conversation sort of what you were talking about, Samantha,
which always does have issues of class and race around it,
And I do think Reygan needs to ponder about all this.
But I once again to think maybe we should be

(20:49):
putting more blame on the organizations that allow for this, right.

Speaker 4 (20:53):
I mean, there's again because it was a huge thing,
and there was a lot of back and forth and
people were like praising her for the confidence she had
and the entertainment that she gave. Again also really like
going after her because they felt like she was mocking
what this was and though she said she knew she
couldn't win, like she put that as a statement, she

(21:15):
was giving her all. Like people were trying to figure
out if this was performative and this is a part
of her academic work that she was trying to do,
which I even mentioned that in an episode, like is
it Maybe? I don't know because there had been she
has deep research about cultural content like this. But I
think there's also that bigger question, like people started her
specific team started going in on and we are an

(21:38):
intersectional feminist show. As a reminder, apparently that's a really
hard term to remember, and I feel like we need
to go back to that because we had a whole incident.
That's a vice, but that's another story, But that they
were attacking her because she was a woman and that
they were like if this was a man doing this,
we were like, okay, we're all about when sexist conversations happen.

(22:04):
Your Australian counterpart did it, he did it correctly, he
did it well, like they did start showing him being like, yeah,
he actually knew what he was doing. He had a
lot of experience and he's like, I think nineteen, so
are very young. So all these level of conversation was
like no, I think they immediately came in about her
outfit and for some reason it did look differently on

(22:28):
her than it did on him, and it may have
been like how she wore it or whatever whatnot, and
that's not the important part, but it just was one
more part too. Yeah, this seems like a caricature of
what this event was supposed to be, like literally putting
on a whole show, as if you were trying to
make yourself stand out in this specific way.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
So there's a lot of that, and maybe.

Speaker 4 (22:53):
There's some comments that I miss And for y'all who
have may paid more attention to this or seen more
content about this, I don't think any of the conversations
was out that they just didn't like her because she's
a woman, because we had plenty of women who did
amazing the Chinese breaker who did an amazing job. She won,
and she won far and swere it was really well done.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
Still like that, this is.

Speaker 4 (23:18):
Not that and that's what they really wanted to jump on,
which I think was a huge mistake. It is, and
it's somewhat insulting to all the other athletes there who
didn't have to have that conversation. And I'm not sure
if it's because she didn't do like the athleticism level
that everybody else did. I know part of the scoring
was originality, and I'm sure that's that one point she got,

(23:41):
even though she got zero. So there's a lot to this.
And if you're from Australia, because I know we have
a few listeners, I need to know your take, y'all
need to tell me.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
Well, so I was reading a lot about this, because
there's been a lot written about this, and I read
a lot from the Australian breaking community. I will say
I'm not part of that community, so I can't really
speak to it, but I will say that in the
articles I read, people were talking about how it's evolved

(24:14):
in different places, and I people were talking about how
it can look differently in different places, and yeah, again,
like how do you score it when.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
It's like it's so difficult to score?

Speaker 3 (24:28):
But yes, Reagan once again got a ton of abuse online.
The AOC even released a twelve point fact check to
combat all the mis and disinformation about her. But so
have many young breakers, many girls and women in Australia
and nearby. So yeah, listeners, if you know about that,

(24:48):
let us know. And as I said, it's unfortunate because
all of this has overshadowed the winners and those who
were looking to this movement to put breaking on the
global stage and have a bigger conversation about it.

Speaker 4 (24:59):
So right, I mean we're having a conversation about it.
I will say this event could have just like died
away and no one really cared. She did do something,
she do the attention, not the best, not the best.
I do know that she stayed in Paris for a
long while with her husband, and the videos that I've
seen with both her and her husband, they are similar

(25:20):
in style. Let's talk about the boxer and the lawsuit.
I feel like that's the story in the story.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
Right the way I put it so.

Speaker 4 (25:38):
In our recent Olympics episode, we discussed all the controversy
around Algerian boxer a mon Khalif. If you need to
take a take a listen, take a pause, We'll go
see a talk TikTok.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
There's so much information.

Speaker 4 (25:48):
Hopefully the right side is kind of complicated, but essentially,
the IOC no longer accepts the authority of the IBA,
the International Boxing Association, since it's headquartered in Russia. The
IBA disqualified both Khalif and Taiwanese boxer Lenn Ut in
a decision that IOC labeled as sudden and arbitrary and
without any due process. This means the IOC is in

(26:11):
control of the athletes they can compete in Olympic boxing,
not the IBA. So the IOC backed Khalif, who went
on to win the gold medal, Algeria's first women in
boxing and returned to a hero's welcome in her hometown. Yes,
she deserved the congratulations, everybody clap. Notably, neither had had

(26:32):
issues competing before. In Kalif's case, this disqualification happened after
she defeated a Russian boxer. We did talk about and
the president of the IOC said, we have two boxers
who are born as women, who have been raised as women,
who have a passport as a woman, and who have
competed for many years as women. And by the way,
it wasn't and they had done so and lost many

(26:53):
and they didn't pay attention to them until they won.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
Yes, yes, yes, which I will come back to, Okay,
that being said, the online uproar about Calief's gender after
these unspecified failed tests from the IBA was immense. From
Time magazine quote, despite being born and raised as a woman,
she found herself in the crosshairs of Western debates about gender,

(27:19):
sex and sports after failing unspecified and untransparent eligibility test
for women's competition from the now banned International Boxing Association
in twenty twenty three. It even drew in high profile
names that we wish we didn't have to discuss, like
Elon Musk, jk Rowling, Logan Paul, though he later deleted

(27:39):
his post and said he might be guilty of spreading misinformation,
and Donald Trump, who all referred to her as a
man in abusive social media post. So, yes, this just happened,
As I said, today is August twenty seventh. But I
think it was last night, so jk Rowling took a
break after she got sued, which we're going to talk

(28:01):
about a second by I'm on Khalif, But she's back.
She first tweeted under a photo of Khalif's about with
Italian boxer At Karini, the smirk of a male who
knows he's protected by a misogynist sporting establishment and joined
the distress of a woman he's just punched in the
head end quote, watch this whole thread, then explain why

(28:22):
you're okay with a man beating a woman in public
for your entertainment. This isn't sport from the bullying cheat
and read all the way up to the organizers who
allowed this to happen.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
This is men reveling in their power over women. That
was what she first tweeted. So then Musk and Trump
joined in, and Trump promised to keep men out of
women's sports if he was elected. And then yeah, she
took this break, and now she's back, and she tweeted
about the lawsuit. It's important to highlight that launching a

(28:54):
PR campaign in applying layers of thick makeup requires far
more time and effort and simply making DNA test results public, which,
as many people pointed out, it's very.

Speaker 5 (29:03):
Bizarre to ask for someone's test results.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
Oh my god, Yes, she's like that.

Speaker 4 (29:13):
She takes all her money. Oh I want at this point,
I want a mon to like own all of Harry
Potter content so we can go back and enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
Yeah, yep, that would be nice.

Speaker 4 (29:23):
But here's the other part to this, And I'm just
gonna quickly say this. We know she comes from a
country that does not welcome trans the trans community openly.
There's so much irony and concern to this implication worldwide,
Like this is a whole understanding of conversations of like, yes,
we want her to take the stand, but is this

(29:43):
also doing a precedent about biological women, which is already concerning.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yeah, and we'll talk about that in a second.

Speaker 3 (29:50):
But it's also it also became very It became a
big deal for Algeria in a lot of ways, who
felt that they were there, she was being attacked, right,
So it did become a very patriotic issue, which also can.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Be can be messy. But yes, this lawsuit we've been
alluding to.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
After the Olympics concluded, Clive filed a lawsuit against Twitter
slash x alleging cyber harassment in France a sustained quote misogynist,
racist and sexist campaign, and she named Musk and rolling
in it. And I will tell you the laws in
the European Union around this are stricter than what they

(30:35):
are in the US. So I'm interested to see how
this place out. It would be nice if she won,
that would be lovely.

Speaker 4 (30:45):
So many things to that, Like, there's so many wins
to this that were like a wins of win, Like
take them down to at least consider what they're saying.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yeah, because I mean it was huge. It was a
huge backlash.

Speaker 3 (30:57):
Like those tweets I read I they had like two
hundred million views.

Speaker 4 (31:02):
And that's not including like the publications that took it
and men with it, right, and like that was.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
One of the first things I saw when I was
researching last night on YouTube. It was a bunch of
videos of like sha a man or a woman, which
again is messed up conversation be having in the first place,
for a lot of reasons, right, for a lot of reasons.
But as you said, Samantha, it is interesting that no
one seemed to care until she started winning. And I

(31:28):
found a related quote from Poebus. Skate shooting was an
open sport in Barcelona in nineteen ninety two when Jang Shan,
a Chinese woman, won the gold medal. Subsequently, skate shooting
became segregated by gender. There's nothing in the record that
says and then once a woman won, we decided to
have gendered categories.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
But the timing is notable. Donley said, I.

Speaker 4 (31:53):
Just baffle, Like people will talk about like, yes, we
do want inquality, we do want all these things, and
be like, oh, but equalized in like you are lesser
than us. Still, like we might not say that loud, right,
our ego, if you're harming our ego, we definitely get.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
Right now now, well, we've got to do something about this.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
Right, they'll take over the world, right.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
Yeah, And I will say it has been heartening to
see people who have competed against her being like no,
she's just that good or like which you did talk
about in uh the previous episode. Uh it was feminis
around the world, I believe. Yeah, so that's been heartening.
I like that, but this is like ridiculous, it's ridiculous,

(32:40):
which does bring us to Yeah, the question of gender
at large at the Olympics because it is still the
gender binary that leaves out. Are even prohibits non binary
intersects or transgender competitors. Often there are a couple of exceptions,
and as many have pointed out, historically transgender women are
the ones that face more scrutiny and testing. So you

(33:02):
can go check out our past Olympics episodes for more.
But the SE does not have a great record at
this at all. Where they would used to do like
what were they called nude parades that there's like a
lot of disturbing stuff in the history around this. In
twenty twenty one, they essentially threw the issue to sports organizations,
which is sort of the same as we're like leaving

(33:25):
abortionship to the states here in the US, if you will,
so you can see the problem. It's not consistent. Several
organizations have banned trans people. Some have banned them with
very specific rules like when did you transition? Things like that.
Also a brief note about the uproar around the quote
drag Last Supper tableau at the opening ceremony, though the

(33:49):
artist does maintain it was not mocking Da Vinci's painting
of the Last Supper, but one of the participants has
filed a complaint against online harassment abuse because this was
of course featured on Fox News as being like the
worst thing ever and Donald Trump said it was herndous
or some variation of that. So they got a lot
of hate online as well.

Speaker 4 (34:09):
Why can't people just say I don't like this, and
if it's not actually damaging, right, just move on, I
wish like to themselves and don't need to say it
out loud, right, just move on?

Speaker 2 (34:20):
Yeah, don't like Dori fan fiction. The rules.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
Okay, this is another one. This is a quick thing.
It just caught my attention about what was being called
extreme fan culture in China. So China started cracking down
on fans of athletes, leading to at least to one
arrest and a handful of people being detained for defamation.

Speaker 4 (34:45):
So here's a quote from the New York Times. Celebrities
globally have to deal with fans who are sometimes invasive,
but in China this phenomenon can be especially intense. Fan
groups spend it lavishly on products endorsed by their idols,
deploy bots to ensure their favorites stay atop social media
tending lists, and even mount harassment campaigns against other stars

(35:09):
and their supporters. Some fans stalk their idols and sell
their photos of personal information.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:15):
So, athletes have been hounded at airports, rassd online, and
seen their hometowns flooded with visitors. Rival supporters get into
vicious online battles, and some have reported them being visibly aggressive.
At least one athlete said he would have rather performed
worse and been left alone. Others have said that they

(35:36):
were afraid to return home. Others have had family members
contact them and told them not to return home. One
of the most severe instances of this was during the
women's table tennismatch between two Chinese players, which I did
watch live and I was like, oh, in which people
were firmly in one of the two camps. There was
a lot of booing. Women's diving played out. Similarly, the

(35:58):
government removed tens of thousands of social media posts in
China for quote inciting conflict to women were detained. And
obviously there's a lot more going on here that we
can unpack, but the theme of social media keeps popping
up again and again.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
Everything I was like, oh, yeah, we.

Speaker 4 (36:13):
Talked about this with a K pop history, like people
who stand and especially in Asian.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
Culture, And I could be wrong.

Speaker 4 (36:21):
I guess the US has this individual stalkers, but we
don't see it to the level that we see in
some things and K pop stands where they literally find
where they're going to be at the airport, have incidents
where they like come through and block their ways. People
try to send odd things. Again, like the US have
had a few things, but we don't typically. I could

(36:43):
say I'm wrong because I know, like instinct fans at
the shows and going to meetups, I like rarely see
like that level of devotion, but also so much level
of devotion that they're fighting who they think are rivals, Yeah,
and somewhat made up rivals, Like they're like can you
not enjoy it?

Speaker 1 (36:58):
Both or not?

Speaker 4 (36:59):
Like we'd make it was about the Backstreet Boys versus
in Sync, but anyway rivalry back from like in Sync
and Backstreet Boys, but there's not like I hate you,
like I want Backstreet Boys to float away and go
to an island or anything like.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
That's not a thought process for most of us.

Speaker 4 (37:16):
And I'm not sure if but and I say K
pop stands because it may not be based in Asia either,
like like there's a base there, but then outside that.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
There's just as much mini diehards.

Speaker 4 (37:25):
To that point, like I've seen this recently with like
BTS Sugar or Yungi just got into trouble and like
they are intense, Like arrivals of that band are like
telling him, telling people that he has to be outed
from BTS, which is already an established group that has
made billions of wand in the in Korea, so that's
not gonna happen. So it's just kind of interesting the

(37:48):
depth that people will go to, like buying trucks to
say I hate this person, get them out to sit
in front of like agencies. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:58):
Yeah, And this was obviously well we'll have to come
back and talk about this more, but a lot of
the articles we're talking about how it was interesting that
it was like in the tennis table tennis example, it's
kind of a national sport in China, so it's very popular,
it's huge, and so it's and then they also pointed

(38:19):
out diving had a similar to women who are friends,
Chinese women who are friends getting like.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
Just torn apart fanfic lore about them by that.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
I believe it. I believe it.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
I think that like I remember seeing a TikTok about it.

Speaker 3 (38:33):
They believe that, but but that it's two women from
the same country and usually well I won't say this
is only two examples, but what they were saying was
in both cases, there's like an older one who kind
of represents an older generation and one to kind of
represents a younger generation, and so it's almost a generational

(38:56):
like divide, right, But it's it's really it was very intense,
and it was also talking about just how athletes in
China specifically have reached that level of stardom that used
to be more reserved for celebrities or singers or something
like that, but now it's right.

Speaker 4 (39:18):
Yeah, China, we know in South Korea and North Korea
definitely have athletes that they have groomed their entire lives,
so this is their livelihood. But if they fail, they
fell alone. If they win, they win for the with
the country. Like it's just a different level. And though

(39:39):
we do like we do love our athletes, they oftentimes
have to have another job, Like they cannot live off
of the earnings of the competitions all the time because
it's also taxing for their body and they have to
retire early, like we know all this as where other
places do a whole different level of like elevated status. Right,

(40:01):
you're big, but you have to get Simone Biles big
to make money.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
If you're a.

Speaker 4 (40:05):
Bronze winner, if you're like every now and again, like
and if you're not a winner at all, absolutely not right,
they don't even focus on you, which is unfortunately at
the whole different level. But I find that interesting because culturally,
the importance of like representing your country.

Speaker 1 (40:23):
Yeah, it's different.

Speaker 3 (40:25):
It is, and that used to I mean we've discussed before.
I get stressed a lot when I watch the Olympics,
but that used to be one of my big things.
So I was like, I feel like I'm feeling fear
from you, like absolute fear when you fail, which freaks
me out. One of the reasons this conversation did come
up is that I can't remember his name, the Chinese

(40:46):
swimmer that one.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Yeah, he had a huge.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
Social media following and he deleted all of it because
he was like, it's so toxic, and so that's part
of what jump started this conversation.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
All right, now we're going to briefly touch on uniforms.

Speaker 3 (41:02):
We've already talked at length about the uproar around Nike's
teen USA uniform reveal for Track and Fields, and how
on the mannequin the women's uniform looked extremely revealing compared
to the men's uniform. You can see the episode we
did for more on that. But that was not the
only drama around clothing. The IOC rule that athletes were
allowed to wear head jobs or headscarves. However, French athletes

(41:26):
themselves were prohibited from wearing them, with the ruling body
claiming that it would be an inappropriate display of a
religious symbol at one of the world's largest events.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
This is a.

Speaker 3 (41:37):
Big law in France. Doesn't get consistently used, no, but
that there is a whole law that they have around them. Okay,
so because of that, there is an activist organization in
France trying to combat this, called Basque Portu Basketball For All,
an estimated ten percent of the French population is mum,

(42:01):
and as some have rightly pointed out, it seems that
Christian crosses on necklaces are just fine.

Speaker 4 (42:06):
Right.

Speaker 3 (42:06):
But in the words of Amnesty International researcher and a
Blues quote by proudly claiming that the Games will be
gender equal. The French authorities are exposing their own hypocrisy
of celebrating such alleged advancements while at the same time
discriminating against Muslim women and girls through hijab bands in sports,
and as a reminder, while more researchers needed, several studies

(42:30):
that have been conducted suggests that uniform things like this
to ter women from participating in sports, whether it is
the sexualized uniform or something like this, because they did
interview young Muslim girls who were like, well, I guess
I can't play it then, So that's a big deal
in something we should be talking about more. Also, just

(43:02):
briefly politics, it's always interesting to watch the Olympics because
you know, not everyone gets long. So you got all
these countries here and there's just some real delicate dancing
of what's going on. And yeah, the politics of the
Olympics are generally messy because yeah, it doesn't erase what's

(43:24):
happening in the world. So, for instance, there were a
lot of scandals and issues around Russia. But I did
want to highlight one women based one around Afghanistan. Under
Afghanistans Taliban regime, women are prohibited from participating in sports. However,
three women were allowed to attend the Olympics to compete,
though the government did not officially recognize them, instead only

(43:46):
recognizing the three men and the delegation. The fact that
the IOC allowed Afghanistan to compete gave legitimacy to the
unrecognized Taliban regime, at least according to a lot of
stuff I read, and a lot of the pieces I
read about it, and undermined any goals of gender parody.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
According to some.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
A woman from Afghanistan who was competing in the breaking
contest was disqualified for displaying a flag that read free
Afghan Women, because again, you can't have you're not supposed
to have political.

Speaker 4 (44:16):
Symbols, right right, Yeah, which is brave on hurry anyway
in general.

Speaker 5 (44:24):
Yeah, yeah, and then just I know we've talked about
this before, but just to note, as we've discussed, sporting
events like this tend to cost exorbitant amounts of money,
typically don't pay off, and harm those that are most marginalized.

Speaker 3 (44:42):
There was a lot of discussion around the unhoused and
migrants being hidden away, forced out, and these are people
who could use government support while that money is going
to news stadium that may or may not be used again.
Maybe they could have used something else that was already
pretty good. On top of that, there were stories of
unpaid and under paid migrant labor being used to construct

(45:02):
these stadiums or things like that. So yep, so that
brings us to some wins. Like I said, I kind
of ran out of steam. I was getting all riled up,
and this is like, I'm sure there's so much more
we could talk about, but I didn't want to talk
about some ended on a little bit of an upbeat.

(45:23):
So yes, I despite all of this, and I know
there's a lot more. There were plenty of uplifting wins
for women. We already went over some of them, but
here's a few, and let us know if there's one
you really want us to talk about.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
Because there were so many records broken and so many.

Speaker 3 (45:37):
First yes, especially of people listeners around the world, please
write them and let us know. Yeah, one thing I
want to shout out is that there were several older
women competing this time around. Yeah, a lot of times
in the Olympics, it can be very they're twenty five,
they're ancient. Which, by the way, I did see a
list that puts some warm biles on the older end,

(45:59):
and I get it, like historically, yes, but she's.

Speaker 1 (46:03):
Told gymnastic right.

Speaker 4 (46:05):
For gymnastics in itself, they usually don't like remember the
back in the day, they were all like eighteen seventeen,
They're like, what or sixteen? I mean we have skaters
that are at fourteen.

Speaker 3 (46:15):
I know, Oh, I saw a pretty cute interview with
the skater. This is like, oh my god, you're so young.
But yeah, there were there were a lot more across
the spectrum. There were plenty of young competitors that were
so inspiring, and there were plenty of older competitors that
were so inspiring. It's not equal by any means, but

(46:37):
it was cool to like see the mix, and it
was cool to hear like younger players talking about someone
they might be competing with or competing against.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
And how they inspired them. That was really neat. So
just a few a few things.

Speaker 3 (46:52):
In track and field, the US's Sydney McLaughlin Laverne beat
her own record in the four hundred meter hurdles. In swimming,
USA's Katie the Decki performance put her at her fourth
Olympic Games gave her her eighth medal she's died for
most gold medals earned and women's swimming and most gold

(47:14):
medals one by woman. Olympian simoone Biles won the gold
medal for the vault named after her. I did see
a quote from her recently where she was like, I
will never do it again because I did it good
enough and.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
Died lives perfect. I have no notes. I'm good.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
Yeah, I know that she is the most decorated US
gymnast in Olympic history. And then I wanted to talk
about this because recently, when I did my overview of
things I really enjoyed or got sucked into. When I
was watching the Olympics, some of you may have noticed
a glaring omission. I did not mention women's rugby. I
missed it, which is a shame because it sounds like

(47:53):
it was a real rollercoaster of a game.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
I was watching some of the clips last night. Ooh,
I would have been so tense. A good check of
my friends in college played rugby at one time or
the other, so I do have fun memories of it,
although they usually got injured pretty good.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (48:08):
Yeah, when I look at rugby, I'm like, at wow, damaging,
I will say, I also did not watch it, but
the clips that I've seen professional, Oh.

Speaker 3 (48:19):
So good, perfection great, and I love reading the quotes
about it.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
It's so great.

Speaker 3 (48:25):
Anyway, the US women's rugby team pulled off a surprise upset,
beating Australia for a bronze US women's first ever medal
in sevens, as it's called.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
This win spurred a whole bunch of interest and donations
for women's rugby, including some celebrities doing.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
Some millions of dollars. I know about up their game.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
They watching their game. Oh it was so good.

Speaker 3 (48:48):
But throughout all of this, there was discussion about player
Alona Mars body type and her BMI that has been
going on online. So here's a quote from people, and
this is a TikTok comment exchange quote. I bet that
person is a thirty percent BMI, wrote one commenter, who
has since deleted their account on one of Mars's TikTok videos,

(49:11):
which prompted the Olympian to film a response. Hi, thank
you for this comment. I think you were trying to
roast me, but this is actually a fact. I do
have a BMI of thirty well twenty nine point three
to be exact. Mar began in her video, which has
been viewed more than four point three million times and
liked more than six hundred and twenty nine thousand times.

Speaker 4 (49:29):
Right, and she went on and saying, I remember vividly
in high school one time I had to turn a
physical into the office and right at the bottom of
the page it said overweight. And I was so embarrassed
to turn that in and have that written there, She said,
my whole life, I've been this way. BMI doesn't tell
you what I can do. It doesn't tell you what
I can do on the field, how fit I am.

(49:50):
It's just a couple of numbers put together. Mar said,
it doesn't tell you how much muscle I have or
anything like that. So, yeah, I do have a BMA
of thirty, I considered overweight. And by the way, even
before she has been a huge catalyst on my body image,
being feminine while not being what was considered feminine at
the time, and loving herself and loving her body and

(50:13):
just like being she's hilarious on TikTok. Yeah, if you
have a chance to watch any of hers, which that's
how I found her. Not because of rugby, because I
know nothing, but because of TikTok, and that was like.

Speaker 1 (50:24):
Over a couple of years ago. I was like, who
is this funny person and should I like her?

Speaker 4 (50:27):
She is y.

Speaker 3 (50:29):
Yeah, yeah, she's been around for a long time doing
this and she also we discussed when I was doing
my like what I loved about this Olympics. I said,
this is a lot of memes. There's a meme of
her just like powering through the field.

Speaker 4 (50:46):
Like not y, like literally grabbing someone by the face
and slamming them to the ground, one of my favorites.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
It made no sense. I'll just sat there, Like what I.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
Did appreciate When I was reading this I cooker at
risk and I read some of the comments under the
people article and people were like, did the commenter over
in a bronze medal?

Speaker 2 (51:09):
I think not.

Speaker 3 (51:09):
Like people were on her side, and it made me
very happy to see that because that often is not
the case in our online spaces.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
But I appreciated that.

Speaker 3 (51:20):
In a different post, she said, as the Olympics officially
start today, I want you all to take a look
at all the different body types on display. All body
types matter, All body types are worthy, from the smallest
gymnast to the tallest volleyball player, from a rugby player
to the shot putter to a sprinter. All body types
are beautiful and do amazing things. So truly see yourself
in these athletes and know that you can do it too.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
I don't know. I definitely can't run.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
You'll find a sport for you.

Speaker 4 (51:51):
I was actually pretty good at discus throwing, to the
point that I did it accidentally. And we had, you know,
the summer children's games. In the school games, they assign
you like it's an Olympics. They assigned me that and
I flopped because I was so good when the initial
when I didn't know what was happening, I was like
this discus and they're like, oh, you do so maybe

(52:11):
we're gonna put you on the team. I was like, okay,
what and then I flopped real hard. I think it
didn't go anywhere. I think with the opposite direction. It
was one of those I was like, I gotta go
home now.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
I understand. Sometimes something goes wrong, the pressure gets to
you something and you just doesn't work out.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
Third grade, it was sad. That's all right, Scarred obviously.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
Maybe it's time for you to have a come back.
I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
I've been scared ever since.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
That's yeah, okay, all right, all right, well I did
there has been unfortunately, there's been so much criticism and
judgment of women's bodies. There always is at these kinds
of things, So I think it's got better. I was
pleasantly surprised, as I said that, the comments under this
article were very supportive. And that's part of why I'm
putting this.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
In the win column. Yes, because I feel like history
is on her.

Speaker 3 (53:07):
Side and I'm glad that she is here saying it
and that the rugby team is getting all of this
recognition rightfully.

Speaker 4 (53:15):
Yeah, I'm excited to say, I'm hoping kind of like
how women's soccer and I know men's soccer for a while,
but really women's soccer to at one point really brought
up people's interests in soccer. Men's soccer too, I know,
especially when they actually made it to the World Cup
rug what wow. But women's soccer, because they kept winning,
actually winning for a while while, that really brought up

(53:36):
a lot of interest, which is not a typical sport.
The most popular sport of sport always in the US.
It is more popular now, but if you think about
like ten fifteen twenty years ago it wasn't, which is
unfortunate because it's a great sport. But football is going
to be around, Basketball is always going to be softball,
and baseball is definitely going to be around. But I'm
hoping rugby, I don't know if they can. Can you

(53:58):
do that in high school? That seems like a hus
liability that sport.

Speaker 1 (54:02):
Yeah, I just putting it.

Speaker 4 (54:03):
On that because I don't know one mile rugby player.
I don't know the one. Yeah, the women I know, Now,
that's what I'm saying. I'm like, I don't know about
the men, but I know about more. Don't you worry?

Speaker 2 (54:21):
Yeah? And I did read.

Speaker 3 (54:24):
Actually I think this was a comment one of the
commentators made. It was it was about the basketball. You know,
women's US women's basketball, they've won eight times in row. Yeah,
and they were saying they were kind of in shock
that it was so close.

Speaker 2 (54:41):
I guess because this has just been a dynasty. But
one of the women brought.

Speaker 3 (54:45):
Up, well, because people are seeing more and more women
do this and do it well, the competition is getting
stronger from other places that you might not typically associate
with winning in basketball or whatever it is. Because women's
sport is becoming more popular and things like more broadcasts

(55:06):
and all of that that there are more competitors now,
which is a great thing which we love to see. Yes,
we do love to see it. So that's that's great. Oh, yes,
there's so much we could talk about. Would love to
hear from you listeners if we miss anything. As mentioned,
the Paralympics are coming up. They are also working on

(55:29):
gender parody, though at the time of recording, officials believe
that only forty two percent of the athletes will be women,
which is about the same percentage as in Tokyo Olympics,
but that could change based on final numbers. But we'll
check back in.

Speaker 4 (55:44):
And if you're not following their TikTok whoever their social
media person is, they're great.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
They have gained a lot of attention for it and.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
I love it, yes, yes, and I really appreciated that too.
About how many athletes during would say, like, you know,
when they're like, what does this win? Meet you at
the end, they would be like, watch a Paralympics.

Speaker 1 (56:06):
Right, yes, and was one of those mm hmmmm hmm.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
Yeah, So we'll check back in on that.

Speaker 3 (56:12):
Let us know if there's any anything you're excited about,
we should definitely check out. But yeah, in the meantime,
send all of those thoughts our way, suggestions our way.
You can email U at stuff the mom Stuff at
iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us on Twitter at
mom Stuff Podcasts, or on Instagram and TikTok at Stuff
I've Never Told You.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
We're also on YouTube.

Speaker 3 (56:31):
We have a tea public store, and we have a
book that has a whole chapter about women's sports.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
Check that out. You can get wherever you get your books.

Speaker 3 (56:38):
Thinks is always hear a super producer cos Senior Executive
producer My and your contributor Jolly, thank you and they
see you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You, The
Prodection of My Heart. For more podcasts in my Heart Radio,
you can check out the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts
or regul listen to your favorite shows.