August 2, 2024 • 35 mins
Ari Saperstein, host of the gymnastics podcast, Blind Landing, joins Sarah to talk about the individual all-around final, Simone Biles’ greatness and his list of athletes to watch in this weekend’s apparatus finals. Plus, Olympic boxing blows up the internet and all the Paris tea you can handle.
- Vote on our listener names! Here’s the link to make your voice heard!
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- A few Olympic events to watch today (Friday, August 2):
- 7:00am ET: USA 3x3 Basketball vs. France
- 12:30pm ET: USA Water Polo vs. France
- 2:30pm ET: Swimming 800m Final
- 3:50pm ET: BMX Racing Final
- 4:00pm ET: Beach Volleyball - Hughes/Cheng vs. Germany
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're reminded
yet again not to depend on AI.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I asked chatpt for ten names.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
I want to hear them.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Sporty Sisters, game changers here, Hose here, O's here, Hers.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
You your hose were.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Here?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Hoes Please I can't.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
That's actually the new tagline for the sale right here,
Hose power.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Players Coract please us the cold open victory fixes No.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
Nothing else matters Alex.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Nothing else matters here, Hoes.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Oh my god, never change, Alex, never change, Oh my god.
On today's show, we're going to tell you how we
ended up at here Hose. Plus we got Cougar's porta
potties and a whole lot of tea to spill. Plus
we're hopping, flipping and jumping with blind Landing hosts Ari Sapristine.
He'll give you the tips in fact, you need for
all the gymnastics apparatus finals this weekend.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
It's all coming up right after this. It's Friay, and
here's what you need to know today.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
First of all, Saturday is Mech's birthday, Meche.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
How old are you gonna be? Twenty seven?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Ew?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Super gross? Do you have any plans.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Uh right, now, hang out with my parents and possibly
go to the park.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
You sound like a twenty seven year old. No, sixty
seven or twenty seven.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Look, I've been told I give grandparent energy, so that's
fine with me.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
That's fine. I've been told.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Also, one of my closest friends said, I look like
I eat peas, So I feel like it all tracks a.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Good bege big grandparent energy.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Love it, We love it. Happy birthday me, She have
a great weekend. Also, shout out to my parents. Saturday
is also my parents' fiftieth wedding anniversary, and they have
spent like thirty plus years of it almost working together
as well. I truly don't know how they did it.
It feels unfathomable to me. Put shout out to fifty
(02:21):
years Nancy and Rick Spain. Okay, let's get to the sports.
In gymnastics, the all around final took place yesterday, with
Simone Biles winning gold, Brazil's Rebecca Andrage picking up silver,
and Sunny Lee coming in with bronze. We're gonna go
deep on gymnastics in just a bit on this show,
so you know we're gonna get to all.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
The good stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
But let's just get a few facts out into the
world right now. First, with the gold, Biles becomes the
first woman to win two Olympic All around titles since
nineteen sixty eight. She also breaks a one hundred and
twenty year old record, becoming the first US gymnast to
win six Olympic medals. Also, Brazil's Rebecca Andrage whose name
is Portuguese and actually is Habeka, but we say Rebecca anyway.
(03:02):
She wins her second straight Olympic All Around silver. And
get this, she has torn her acl three times and
somehow she came back every time and got better.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
That's incredible.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Finally, shout out Sonny Lee, Tokyo gold medalist in this event.
She's overcome so much these last three years, including two
kidney diseases, to return to the Olympic podium and get
that bronze. So shout out to Sunny and shout out
to her floor music. I freaking love that music. I
think I'm gonna start blasting it to clean the house.
Gold medal and the dishes, bitch. We're gonna have more
on the gymnastics, plus the upcoming individual apparatus competitions coming
(03:37):
up later in the show. In swimming, the US claimed
silver in the four by two hundred meter relay, finishing
two point seven eight seconds behind Australia. Katie Ladeki swam
the third leg of the relay for the US, and
with the silver medal, she becomes the most decorated American
woman at the Olympics ever. That's right, Ladeki now has
thirteen career medals, eight gold for silver and one bronze,
(04:00):
and she still got the eight hundred meters to swim.
Also in the pool, Kate Douglas won the two hundred
meter breaststroke, setting an American record and becoming the first
US athlete to win Olympic gold in the event since
twenty twelve Okay. In soccer, the US women's national team
finished as the top team in Group B and they'll
face Japan in the quarterfinals at nine am Eastern on
Saturday in Paris. You can watch on USA Network, Telemundo,
(04:22):
and Peacock. Japan opened its tournament with a narrow two
to one loss to reigning World Cup champion Spain, and
then they won their next two games, two to one
against Brazil and three to one against Nigeria. Japan's six
goals have all come from different players. Meanwhile, for the US,
Mele Swanson leads the scoring after pool play with three goals.
Trinity Rodman and Sophia Smith have each scored two. The
(04:44):
past bodes well for the US in this matchup with Japan.
Entering the twenty twenty four Olympics. The US has a
thirty one to one and eight record against Japan. The
one loss in those forty matches came in a friendly
back in twenty twelve, but worth noting, Japan also won
the twenty eleven World Cup Final over the un US
and penalties, which technically goes down as a draw because
of the penalties, but it certainly stands out in the
(05:05):
minds of US players and fans as a major tournament
match to remember.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Be sure to watch the US nine am on Saturday
in hoops.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Sunday at eleven am, Eastern Team USA Basketball takes on
Germany in their last game of group play before the quarterfinals.
Germany has multiple WNBA players on its roster, including Dallas
Wings superstar Satusaboly, who put up thirty three points in
our teams win over.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Japan on Thursday.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
You can catch USA Basketball on the USA Network and
in three x three. The US plays France today at
seven am Eastern and then Canada at twelve pm Eastern
on USA.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
They'll close out pool.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Play on Saturday at one oh five pm Eastern against China.
They've had a real rough start to the tournament. They
got to perform in those three games to have any
chance of advancing. Of the eight teams, only the top
six make it to the knockout stage. In volleyball, the
US indoor team continues its Olympic gold medal defense with
a pool a match against France on Sunday at seven
(06:00):
am Eastern on NBC. After beating defending world champs Serbia
in a five set thriller on Wednesday, the US can
secure a spot in the quarterfinals with a win on Sunday.
Track gets going with a lot of qualifying and preliminary
rounds today and Saturday, highlighted by the triple jump final
and the race for the world's fastest woman get back.
Queen Shaker Richardson, the reigning one hundred meters world champion,
(06:23):
is hoping to turn that world title into Olympic gold.
The one hundred meter final is Saturday at three to
twenty pm Eastern Sunday slate is highlighted by the high
jump final at one fifty Eastern. Finally, since I make
the rules around here, quick shout out to a dude,
Michael Grady, Cornell class of twenty nineteen, who helped tam
(06:43):
Usa snap a sixty four year drought by winning the
gold medal in the men's four rowing event at Cornell.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
We see no gender.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
We're all just big red bears.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So there's a ton of talk online about the women's
boxing competition, and we're going to get into gender testing
and the Olympics in detail next week, but for now,
I did want to make a quick note on what's
causing all this conversation. Okay, So, two female boxers in
these Paris Games were disqualified from the twenty twenty three
World Championships after failing gender eligibility tests. At that event,
(07:19):
Algeria's Iman Khalif and Chinese Type a's Lin Uting both
won medals in the women's competition, before boxing's then federation,
the IBA, announced that they'd failed gender eligibility tests and
strip them of their medals. In a statement on Thursday,
the IOC said that at the World Championship event, the
two athletes were quote victims of a sudden and arbitrary
(07:40):
decision by the IBA towards the end of the IBA
World Championships in twenty twenty three. They were suddenly disqualified
without any due process unquote. The statement then goes on
to say, quote, the current aggression against these two athletes
is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken
without any proper procedure, especially considering that these athletes had
(08:01):
been competing in top level competition for many years. Lynn
has been an elite level amateur boxer for a decade
and Khalif for six years. Both also already fought in
the Tokyo Games. The IBA Boxing's federation has long been
plagued by corruption scandals. It was suspended from twenty nineteen
to twenty twenty three, and then fully banished by the
IOC last year. This week, the IOC said that both
(08:23):
boxers met criteria to compete in Paris and had been
cleared to fight under the rules for the competition. So
on Thursday, Algeria's Khalif won her bout against Italy's Angela
Karini when Karini stopped fighting after forty six seconds Karani
was punched in the nose and shortly afterwards said she
didn't want to fight anymore. According to her coach, the
fight sparked discussions, many of them started or spurred on
(08:44):
by people on social media with many followers but few facts.
Those with a high profile have a responsibility to get
things right, and many are choosing not to do the
work to get educated or even it would appear read
a single damn story before they went on TV to
talk about it, for instance, ESPN's Pat McAfee, who spent
five minutes talking about transgender competitors, despite the fact that
(09:06):
Mark Adams, the ioc IS chief spokesman, said on Thursday,
quote the two fighters were not transgender athletes and should
not be described as such.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Adams went on to.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Say, quote everyone competing in the women's category is complying
with the competition eligibility rules. We'll get into this more
next week, including the long fraught history of gender testing
and how athletes with DSDs that stands for differences in
sex development have been impacted by both changing regulations and
the challenges that arise when sports are categorized in a
(09:35):
binary way that human beings simply are not I just
want to remind and encourage people to handle these topics
with care. They're tricky and they're tough, and I get that,
and it is okay to have opinions about some of
these things, but it serves absolutely no one to spread
falsehoods or attack without facts.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Moving on, as we continue to debate the best name
for our show listeners, I'd like to thank Leah Kennedy
for emailing us and reminding us not to rely on AI.
Here's Leah quote high Team, good game, first and foremost.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
I love this podcast.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
It's sports, it's female legends, it's comedy, it's everything. I
wanted to try my hand at ideas for squad names,
and as a modern gal, I turned to Generative.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
AI to help with some ideas.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I laughed out loud at the top suggestion it gave me,
and I just had to share winning wenches. This says
so much about the problems with jen AI and our
internet conversations about women in general.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
It sure does, Leah. Okay, so Leah continues, So.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
I went back to my own brain and a few suggestions,
taking some inspiration from Julie Foudy's Dope Village for Laughter,
permitted another favorite podcast and came up with one Good
Game Nation, two Spainer's Gamers, three Spain Squad.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Okay, thank you, Leah.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Winning Wenches is literally insane, but your other suggestions are cute.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
I'm trying to keep the name about the show and
not me, so less.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Spain and more Good Game But Spain Gamers does have
a really nice ring to it. So okay, I put
together a shortlist of finalists and we're all gonna pick together,
probably unless I make this a Chicago election and I
stuffed the ballot box vote several times and make sure
that my favorite wins.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
We'll see.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Okay, drum roll please, Good Game Nation GGN for short
gigin gig Giggling Giggles, the Gigglers, the giggles, Good Game Nation.
Some form of that breakers as in glass ceiling breakers
and game breakers, not to be confused with Olympic breakers,
(11:37):
because I know not all of y'all can move like that.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
That might be tough.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Spanish Armada goonies for the win slices as an orange
slices that you get after a good game.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
My little slices. I love saying my little slices. I
think you know what my favorite.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Is, but I'm open to the vote.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Okay, we're gonna take a quick break.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Grab your leotard and chock up those hands, because when
we come back, we're talking all things gymnastics.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
With Ari Saperstein joining us now.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Is the creator of the award winning podcast Blind Landing,
a journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, NPR,
The Wall Street Journal, Vox, The New Yorker, and The Advocate.
He used to be a chainsaw crew member for the
Southeast Conservation Corps, and he's an artist who makes tote bags, cartoons,
animated shorts, ceramic bulls and more.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
It's Ari Sapristine. What a renaissance man.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
I'm trying not to laugh too loud as to make
the audio levels go crazy spiking for that's That's That's
definitely my favorite intro I've I've ever gotten. You got
every side job, side hustle I've ever had in there.
So thank you, Sarah, and thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
You and my producer Alex can chat about being multifaceted
in your in your expressions of art. She's an artist
as well, so I was obviously creep on your insta.
We're here to talk gymnastics, though, and you've done a
lot of gymnastics reporting for your podcast Blind Landing. I'm
wondering when you were watching either the team final or
the all around, is there a factor story that popped
into your mind, like, Oh, this is making me think
(13:13):
of that conversation I had or that fact I learned,
or I'm so glad I talked to this person because
now I know X as I'm watching this.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, I think that the number one headline thought that
I have had watching gymnastics at the Olympics so far
is that we are just seeing a new era of
gymnasts that are challenging every presumption that we had historically
as lay viewers about gymnastics. We're seeing older gymnasts than
we've you know, comparatively than we've seen in an extremely
(13:41):
long time. The majority of the US team is returning Olympians.
The majority of them are in their twenties. They're the
best team in the world. I think that says a
lot about how the sport and the culture of the
sport are now benefiting older athletes. We're seeing more athletes
of color, We're seeing more expressions out there on the
floor of different artistry and different identities. We're seeing a
(14:03):
level of difficulty, of course, led by Simone Biles, that
just is leaps and bounds from where the sport was
fifteen years ago. I always it's impossible to talk about
gymnastics without making a million unintentionalspins and turns ahead. Yeah, exactly,
so you know, yeah, it's that's my big headline from
(14:24):
what I've been seeing out there at the parischemes.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
I've seen it too, and what I've loved is the joy.
It used to feel so clenched. Everything felt so tight
and clenched, and I've liked how even in the moments
where Simona's had a little mistake, she has this smirk
that she sends either to coaches or family or teammates
on the sideline, almost to say, I'm disappointed, but I'm
going to smirk my way through it, and then I'm
(14:46):
going to smile because I'm leading this new culture of
joy and freedom while performing, which is so much better
to watch.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
It makes me happier for them.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Let's talk about the joy for a second here, because
I just on blind landing had on Olympian Denusia Francis,
who is on the board of British gymnastics that's also
been going through cultural changes, competed at UCLA Gymnastics, a
collegiate team known for their joy She's really been this
person that's been a part of a new generation of
leaders who are gymnasts that we're competing in a more
(15:18):
joyless time ten to fifteen years ago, who've really wanted
to change that. And so it's not just a coincidence
or it's not just specific to the US team. It's
an international thing and it's a concerted effort led by
the generation that competed under a much more joyless time.
That's thought, I think the sport doesn't have to be
this way. And so we're also seeing USA Gymnastics now
(15:41):
led by former gymnasts who also competed ten fifteen years ago,
these people under the Marta Corole era, of course, under
the Larry Nasser era, who are coming out of it
and saying, yeah, we're going to make the sport safer
in terms of physical abuse and sexual abuse, but also
this emotional mental health aspect that we need to change
involves this shouldn't have to be so stressful. So walking
(16:04):
on eggshells, especially when there's so much pressure already, and
so we're seeing Simone out there high fiving and dancing
with their teammate Geordan Childs, who's like the poster child
for that attitude.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
We're seeing it swinking mid event. Yeah, absolutely, how she's loose.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah, so you know, I think you're right to note
that that it's It doesn't sound right related obviously to
what we're seeing in the field of play, but it
really is, because if you're more comfortable, you're gonna perform better.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
We've been talking about that across multiple events. We just
had runner Nikki Hilts on the show and they talked
about how just being fully and transparently themselves helped them
run faster, compete better, fight harder at the end of
tough races. Like it's just a truth throughout life, across everything.
And it's been really really, really, really really fun to
watch with this US gymnastics team. Okay, the big ones
(16:55):
sort of are over. We got the team competition out
of the way, we got the all around out of
the way. Do you have any last minute thoughts on
all around you got to get in or should we
move on to individual apparatus?
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Of course that's top of mind for me because I
just cannot believe how exciting and how close this competition
was because we saw a gymnast be a true challenge
to Simone Biles, who's been undefeated in her senior competition
for the past eleven years. This gymnast, hebeca andraje who
if Simone Biles wasn't around, we would be treating her
(17:27):
like Simone Biles. She is, in my opinion, the second
greatest gymnast who has ever lived. And we saw them
go head to head at their physical peaks here and Simone,
you know, ended up taking the title and winning her
second Olympic all around, but man, the closeness of that
race was so thrilling. And then the third place spot
(17:48):
was three gymnasts who were all neck and neck right there.
So you know, I mean, I think this is going
to go down as one of the most exciting all
around finals that we've seen in a very, very long time.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
I agree, I don't like being nervous for Simone, but
when she wins at the end, I'm like, oh, good, competition,
that was fun.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
That was fun.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
I was so nervous for everyone, the whole competition for everyone.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Okay, so we've got the individual apparatus competitions this weekend
and on Mondays. So help us be smarter while we're
watching them. You got to give us one non American
athlete to look for in each apparatus. It can be
someone contending for gold or just someone with a great story,
just something that will make us smarter. For the vault,
bar's beam and floor.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
First up vault, it's the shortest event. It's you know,
you just do one scale pushing off the vault table.
And of course Simone's there. She's got her eponymous skill,
the your chinko double pike that is about a point
more than almost any other vaults, so that's why she's
able to fall potentially and still wins. So whether or
not she puts that to her feet will be interesting.
(18:51):
She has fallen a couple of times in the past
year on that scale. There's hebec Andreje again. A big
theme of this Olympics is the matchup of Simone and
Hebeca on multiple circumstances. And Habeca has been working on
a new vault, the triple twisting your Chenko, and that
would be named after her if she successfully competed it.
(19:13):
We'll see if she goes for it. A couple gymnasts
have submitted it over the past decade and no one's
been able to put it to their feet in competition.
You know, two more things with vault to pay attention
to is that Jade Carey for the US is going
to be in the vault final and we expect her
to be a metal favorite. But at the last Olympics
she balked on her final vault and just kind of
(19:36):
did a tuck in the air. It seemed to get
her steps wrong or something didn't metal. So this is
part of this redemption tour. That's the phrase the US
has been saying. And one other thing about the vault
final lookout for is a South Korean and a North
Korean gymnast qualified with the same score into it, and
it's rare that we see North Korean people outside of
(19:56):
North Korea, and the Olympics and sports competitions are really
one of the circumstances. But it's just kind of fascinating
to look at it through that geopolitical ends of foreseeing
of course this political undertones out on the field of play.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, okay, those are awesome.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Give us the bars, the leader on bars far and away.
I know I'm saying a lot of hyperbolic titles. Greatest
of all time here and there, the unquestionable greatest, uneven
bars gymist who has ever lived is gonna win this
title if she doesn't make a major mistake, even if
she makes a major mistake, as long as she doesn't fall.
(20:32):
And that is Khalia Nimore. And this is an athlete
with a fascinating story that people should go look up
the details of. But the thirty second recap is she
is a French gymnast born in France who was competing
for France and had a really contentious relationship with the
French Federation. They wanted her to leave her gym train
at the national gym. She didn't want to do it.
(20:55):
She felt comfortable, again we're talking about what makes athletes
feel good training with her coaches and they were being
by all accounts, kind of spiteful and not putting her
in to play. And so she switched nations to her
dad's country of Algeria, and she's been competing for Algeria
for the past year. And what she is doing for
(21:18):
not just the nation of Algeria, but African gymnastics for
the entire continent by making these finals by just showing
up and being the first gymnast to represent Africa, the
first gymnast to represent to win a medal for any
African nation has just been so incredible. So watch her routine.
And the one other routine I want to say to
people is there's another gymnast in the bars final named
(21:41):
Becky Downey, who competes for the UK. This is her
third Olympics. She's thirty two years old, she's twice the
age of some of the other finalists, and she's also
a real medal contender. How to score in the team
final that would put her on the podium. So those
are two gymnasts. I think we all need to keep
her eyes.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Only quick aside before we move on. Please, I'm obsessed
with watching Olga Corbett's band routines on the bars, and
I realized that they look absolutely terrible for your body,
but they're also incredibly thrilling to watch.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
If Olga Corbett we're.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Competing now based on what we saw in those routines,
do you think she would be the best ever? Because
I'm struggling to put wrap my head around anyone being
better than those band routines.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Olga Corbett was a gymist that was competing in the
nineteen seventies who really innovated on the uneven bars, and
right around that time in the seventies, gymnastics is at
a turning point where it starts to look more like
it looks today. But to be honest, what we saw
fifty years ago, someone that's like really good at CrossFit
could probably do. And now what we're seeing on bars,
(22:46):
it is only several people that you know.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
So if Olga lived now and we taught her if
oga again things based on what we saw all the
way back then, she would be crushing I did she.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Did Olga Corbett have the talent, have the preternatural talent too,
if she lived in this era, make it far? You know,
I think that that is very interesting hypothetical, And I
imagine that honestly, any great Olympic champion like Olga Korbett,
like not either two nice like Mary.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Lou Rett hashtag team Olga. Okay, let's get to the
balance beam.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
What you got in the balance beam final. There's a
little known gymnast who's just kind of rising onto the
scene that people should keep her eye on. Her name
is Simone Files. I don't know if it's sort of
ringing a bell for you, I think it's be lace belece. Yeah,
I'm not quite sure. I haven't heard it, you know,
many times in my life. So Simone is a you know,
qualified into the beam finals. The interesting thing about watching
(23:44):
Simone at the Olympic Beam Finals is that at the
last two games, Rio twenty sixteen Tokyo twenty twenty one,
she won bronze in the beam final both times, and
the first time it was seen as this disappointment because
it was the one gold me that she didn't win
at those games, and people kind of like wouldn't mention
it and she felt like ashamed of it. The second
(24:06):
time she won the bronze, it was the one eighty
opposite because that was the one event that she was
able to come back to the Olympics after getting the
twisties to do and compete, and so it had this
total different meaning to her. I think if she got
the bronze a third time, that would kind of feel
like amazing in full circle, but I think that we
could very well see her get the gold. So it's
(24:28):
fascinating because it's almost like, no matter what color medal
she may get it would have such meaning and significance.
And her teammate Sunny Lee back at Olympic Trials, when
I was talking to her in the press zone, she
was saying that this is really the medal that she
would love to win gold on, in particular, that she
feels like has been a little underrated in her career,
(24:50):
maybe hasn't hit in the most high pressure moments, and
she feels like she could possibly do it.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Okay, floor exercise, we.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Got another Simone.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Hebeca matchup.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I mean, the audience is just tired for me saying
that again and again and again, but it's just the truth.
This is a case where it's definitely Simones to lose.
As we saw in the Olympic all around final today,
Simone scored one point higher than hebeca on floor. A
fall is one point deduction, so it means that the
(25:22):
cushion that Simone has going into a floor final is
pretty significant. But the routine that I think folks should
keep their eye on is another US competitor, Jordan Chiles.
This is someone who I mentioned UCLA Gymnastics before about
my co host Dinusia for the last pine landing episode
that she went there UCLA gymnastics has been a main
(25:44):
collegiate program that has been very big about supporting people
who also compete elite at the Olympics and is really
known for the dance on floor and the funness of
the routines and the intricacy of the choreography. And so
Jordan Chiles on Floor is going to go up last
be the last gymnastics routine of the entire Olympics, and
it will really be one to watch because it's arguably
(26:07):
the most fun floor routine. I've got Beyonce in there.
It's really a routine that she's had to push back
against some officials that have told her to not use
traditionally black music or some of the choreography that she does,
fearing that it won't score well internationally. And she's kind
of said, yeah, I don't know, man, I just want
(26:30):
to be me out there and kind of gone against
the grain to put together this routine that could definitely
get her on the metal stand. She finished in third,
qualified in third, and we could see her take that
metal home.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
We love that.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
We love it so much and we love that Beyonce
sent them all shout outs and then they got to
do that opening ceremony video, the talking back and forth
with her, which I can only imagine the mind blown
situation when they got the call for that.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Ari, thanks so much for the insight.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
I'm so much more excited, and I already was very
excited to watch all these apps, Barradas Finals. Everybody check
out blind landing the podcast. Also some figure skating on there.
If you're a figure skating fans, you get gymnastics, figure skating,
all the good stuff.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Maybe is even some chainsaw talk.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Thank you, Ari, Thanks so much for having me really
appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Time to pay the bills, time to make the donuts.
When we come back, we find out who looked around
and found out Welcome back. Okay, So you heard me
and Ari talking about the culture change in gymnastics, particularly
a shift after the Marta and Bella Corola years. Well,
a gymnast from those days Tokyo Olympia, Mikaela Skinner criticized
(27:40):
the current gymnastics squad, and while we're totally empathetic to
how our years in the toxicity and pressure of the
Corolis might influence her opinion, we're just never here for
unnecessarily taking shots at fellow athletes.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Because when you do that, you might end up here.
That's right, It's time.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
For figger around and find out Friday around and ooh.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Buddy, this one's a doozy.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
So in case you don't remember the comments from Skinner
on her YouTube channel back in July, here she is
questioning the work ethic of Team USA's current gymnasts. I mean,
obviously a lot of girls don't work as hard.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
The girls just don't have the work ethic to get
towere you need to be in gymnastics, you do have
to be.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I feel like a little aggressive and a little intent.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Well, she couldn't have been more wrong.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
After the US one gold in the women's team final,
Simone Biles took to Instagram posting a picture of herself
and her teammates with the caption quote lack of talent,
lazy Olympic champions and current and former teammates chimed in
on the comments. Sunny Lee wrote, put a finger down
if Simone Biles just ended you ed Mikayla Maroney, not
(28:45):
to be confused with Mikayla Skinner wrote, it doesn't get
more iconic than this.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
She surround and found out for real.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Feels like I need to apologize just to redeem my
first name.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Yeah, people do not message Mikayla Maroney, she is not
the one.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Also, according to a post on Jordan Childs Instagram, Mikhayla
Skinner has since blocked Simone Biles. After the team win,
it was revealed that this year's gymnastics squad has a
nickname of both the Golden Girls, a nod to their
age and no doubt thanks to Mikayla Skinner, another nickname
team around and find out.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Ef around and fine find out.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Let me just say, y'all loved seeing these absolute legends
shut up Mikayla Skinner, including at a little leader on Twitter,
who wrote, I can't express enough how much I love
that Simone Biles stayed focused, took care of business, but
did not forget to come back and take care of
a hater as soon as she got her work squared away.
May we all also at Joe moo Lungma on Twitter
(29:47):
wrote in male sports, they would call what Skinner said
bulletin board material. I'm fine going with that for female sports,
but if women want to come up with their own
term for it, please go right ahead. It'll almost certainly
be better than bulletin board material. That's your key listeners.
Send us your better version of bulletin board material at
good Game at wondermedianetwork dot com, send it to me
(30:07):
on social at Sarah Spain on Twitter. Try to beat
this at Agent's nine hundred suggested vision board material or
pinterest eaten good, which is absolutely incredible. I don't know
if we can stop pinteresting good. It's so good, Okay fun.
Little side note to shout out to Lindsay.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Gibbs, who we love and has an incredible women's sports
newsletter called power Plays. She reminded us that MICHAELA.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Skinner also made news last summer because she had an
elaborate gender reveal party with her husband Jonas Harmer, and
they had a giant balloon covered light up sign that read.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Baby Harmer.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
You know, like baby Harmer, but it just said baby Harmer.
Just absolute gold, which you know is what this lazy
ass team won. So I guess sip on that girl.
Woof all that tea spill and it's given me a
taste for more. So let's spill a little more tea
ahem cafe in Paris. We've gathered some of the wildest juiciest,
(31:15):
most dramatic stories we've.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Heard come out of the Games.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
So pull up a chair, grab a croissant, and let's goss. First,
a terrifying encounter for Canadian rugby captain Olivia Apps Okay, So,
six weeks prior to the start of the Games, she
was attacked by a cougar while hiking the animal. Guys,
not Courtney Cox and Busy Phillips or me for that matter,
(31:38):
Misha Okay, Olivia, her hiking companion, and their dogs all
managed to escape, using bear spray to fend off the cougar.
She was treated for a cougar byite and airlifted out
of the park. And get this, she was back on
the pitch mere days later, and now less than two
months after the big cat bite. She and Team Canada
(31:59):
secured as silver medal this week.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Pretty good, Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Next up twenty six year old Egyptian fencer Nada Hafez,
who revealed after her competition ended that she was seven
months pregnant while competing in the individual women's saber competition
at the Olympics. In a post on Instagram on Tuesday,
Nada wrote, what appears to you as two players on
the podium. They were actually three. It was me, my competitor,
(32:23):
and my yet to come to our world little baby.
It's giving Serena at the Australian Open, It's giving Rihanna
in the super Bowl. It's giving women could freaking do anything.
She lost in the round of sixteen, but still she
was seven months pregnant competing in the Olympics.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
And here's a fun fact for y'all.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
According to the Olympic Nerds over at Olympdia, at least
twenty five athletes have competed at the Olympics while pregnant,
but Hafez breaks the record for most pregnant athlete.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Is that an official record? I feel like it should be.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Also, with all those like swords around, it's badass. Last,
but not least a lack of movement that would have
made me move some bowels back. At US track Trials
in June, before her semi final race in the four
hundred meters, runner Kendall Ellis found herself trapped it a
porta potty, pleading for someone to let her out. She
(33:16):
was finally able to alert someone and made it to
a race, which she won in a personal best time.
Then she topped that mark in the final, winning the
event and earning her spot in the Paris Olympics and
the cherry on top of the near do do Sunday.
Kendall has since partnered with Sharman toilet paper to keep
her backside covered at the games. Gosh, we love a
(33:36):
clever sponsorship. Enjoy the go Kendall, or enjoy the games. Okay,
we love that you're listening, but we want you to
get in the game every day too, So here's our
good game play of the day. Vote on those listener names.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
This is it.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
I promise I'm not going to add anymore. Those are
the finalists. Unless someone suggest something like no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
I'm done. We're done. Those are the finalists.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
You have to vote on them at Sarah Space on Twitter,
good game at wondermedianetwork dot com. You can even leave
us a voicemail pleading for one in particular. Eight seven
two two o four fifty seventy. It'll probably be a
democratic process, but much like our country, I can't promise that. Also,
don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. It's easy watch
(34:18):
Free Shit, rating eleventy out of five stars.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Review We love free shit. Thank you to Breaking.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Tea for sending everybody on the show tons of awesome
women's sports gear. Misha and I are both wearing our
shirts today. Thank you, Breaking Tea. Also, this is not
an ad and we haven't been paid for this, but
if you send us free shit, we might talk about it,
especially if we love you like Breaking Tea.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
See how easy that was. Now it's your turn, rate
and review.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Thanks for listening as always, Happy birthday, Happy anniversary, Mom
and Dad.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
Good game, Ari, Good game Heroes. Fuck you Misha twenty seven?
God damn it? What's up is this?
Speaker 1 (34:59):
This game? Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart
women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment.
You can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network,
our producers are Alex Azzi and Misha Jones. Our executive
(35:20):
producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
And Emily Rudder.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Our editors are Jenny Kaplan, Emily Rudder, Brittany Martinez and
Grace Lynch. Production assistants from Lucy Jones and I'm Your
Host Sarah Spain
Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're reminded
yet again not to depend on AI.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I asked chatpt for ten names.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
I want to hear them.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Sporty Sisters, game changers here, Hose here, O's here, Hers.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
You your hose were.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Here?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Hoes Please I can't.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
That's actually the new tagline for the sale right here,
Hose power.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Players Coract please us the cold open victory fixes No.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
Nothing else matters Alex.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Nothing else matters here, Hoes.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Oh my god, never change, Alex, never change, Oh my god.
On today's show, we're going to tell you how we
ended up at here Hose. Plus we got Cougar's porta
potties and a whole lot of tea to spill. Plus
we're hopping, flipping and jumping with blind Landing hosts Ari Sapristine.
He'll give you the tips in fact, you need for
all the gymnastics apparatus finals this weekend.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
It's all coming up right after this. It's Friay, and
here's what you need to know today.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
First of all, Saturday is Mech's birthday, Meche.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
How old are you gonna be? Twenty seven?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Ew?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Super gross? Do you have any plans.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Uh right, now, hang out with my parents and possibly
go to the park.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
You sound like a twenty seven year old. No, sixty
seven or twenty seven.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Look, I've been told I give grandparent energy, so that's
fine with me.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
That's fine. I've been told.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Also, one of my closest friends said, I look like
I eat peas, So I feel like it all tracks a.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Good bege big grandparent energy.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Love it, We love it. Happy birthday me, She have
a great weekend. Also, shout out to my parents. Saturday
is also my parents' fiftieth wedding anniversary, and they have
spent like thirty plus years of it almost working together
as well. I truly don't know how they did it.
It feels unfathomable to me. Put shout out to fifty
(02:21):
years Nancy and Rick Spain. Okay, let's get to the sports.
In gymnastics, the all around final took place yesterday, with
Simone Biles winning gold, Brazil's Rebecca Andrage picking up silver,
and Sunny Lee coming in with bronze. We're gonna go
deep on gymnastics in just a bit on this show,
so you know we're gonna get to all.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
The good stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
But let's just get a few facts out into the
world right now. First, with the gold, Biles becomes the
first woman to win two Olympic All around titles since
nineteen sixty eight. She also breaks a one hundred and
twenty year old record, becoming the first US gymnast to
win six Olympic medals. Also, Brazil's Rebecca Andrage whose name
is Portuguese and actually is Habeka, but we say Rebecca anyway.
(03:02):
She wins her second straight Olympic All Around silver. And
get this, she has torn her acl three times and
somehow she came back every time and got better.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
That's incredible.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Finally, shout out Sonny Lee, Tokyo gold medalist in this event.
She's overcome so much these last three years, including two
kidney diseases, to return to the Olympic podium and get
that bronze. So shout out to Sunny and shout out
to her floor music. I freaking love that music. I
think I'm gonna start blasting it to clean the house.
Gold medal and the dishes, bitch. We're gonna have more
on the gymnastics, plus the upcoming individual apparatus competitions coming
(03:37):
up later in the show. In swimming, the US claimed
silver in the four by two hundred meter relay, finishing
two point seven eight seconds behind Australia. Katie Ladeki swam
the third leg of the relay for the US, and
with the silver medal, she becomes the most decorated American
woman at the Olympics ever. That's right, Ladeki now has
thirteen career medals, eight gold for silver and one bronze,
(04:00):
and she still got the eight hundred meters to swim.
Also in the pool, Kate Douglas won the two hundred
meter breaststroke, setting an American record and becoming the first
US athlete to win Olympic gold in the event since
twenty twelve Okay. In soccer, the US women's national team
finished as the top team in Group B and they'll
face Japan in the quarterfinals at nine am Eastern on
Saturday in Paris. You can watch on USA Network, Telemundo,
(04:22):
and Peacock. Japan opened its tournament with a narrow two
to one loss to reigning World Cup champion Spain, and
then they won their next two games, two to one
against Brazil and three to one against Nigeria. Japan's six
goals have all come from different players. Meanwhile, for the US,
Mele Swanson leads the scoring after pool play with three goals.
Trinity Rodman and Sophia Smith have each scored two. The
(04:44):
past bodes well for the US in this matchup with Japan.
Entering the twenty twenty four Olympics. The US has a
thirty one to one and eight record against Japan. The
one loss in those forty matches came in a friendly
back in twenty twelve, but worth noting, Japan also won
the twenty eleven World Cup Final over the un US
and penalties, which technically goes down as a draw because
of the penalties, but it certainly stands out in the
(05:05):
minds of US players and fans as a major tournament
match to remember.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Be sure to watch the US nine am on Saturday
in hoops.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Sunday at eleven am, Eastern Team USA Basketball takes on
Germany in their last game of group play before the quarterfinals.
Germany has multiple WNBA players on its roster, including Dallas
Wings superstar Satusaboly, who put up thirty three points in
our teams win over.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Japan on Thursday.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
You can catch USA Basketball on the USA Network and
in three x three. The US plays France today at
seven am Eastern and then Canada at twelve pm Eastern
on USA.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
They'll close out pool.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Play on Saturday at one oh five pm Eastern against China.
They've had a real rough start to the tournament. They
got to perform in those three games to have any
chance of advancing. Of the eight teams, only the top
six make it to the knockout stage. In volleyball, the
US indoor team continues its Olympic gold medal defense with
a pool a match against France on Sunday at seven
(06:00):
am Eastern on NBC. After beating defending world champs Serbia
in a five set thriller on Wednesday, the US can
secure a spot in the quarterfinals with a win on Sunday.
Track gets going with a lot of qualifying and preliminary
rounds today and Saturday, highlighted by the triple jump final
and the race for the world's fastest woman get back.
Queen Shaker Richardson, the reigning one hundred meters world champion,
(06:23):
is hoping to turn that world title into Olympic gold.
The one hundred meter final is Saturday at three to
twenty pm Eastern Sunday slate is highlighted by the high
jump final at one fifty Eastern. Finally, since I make
the rules around here, quick shout out to a dude,
Michael Grady, Cornell class of twenty nineteen, who helped tam
(06:43):
Usa snap a sixty four year drought by winning the
gold medal in the men's four rowing event at Cornell.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
We see no gender.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
We're all just big red bears.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So there's a ton of talk online about the women's
boxing competition, and we're going to get into gender testing
and the Olympics in detail next week, but for now,
I did want to make a quick note on what's
causing all this conversation. Okay, So, two female boxers in
these Paris Games were disqualified from the twenty twenty three
World Championships after failing gender eligibility tests. At that event,
(07:19):
Algeria's Iman Khalif and Chinese Type a's Lin Uting both
won medals in the women's competition, before boxing's then federation,
the IBA, announced that they'd failed gender eligibility tests and
strip them of their medals. In a statement on Thursday,
the IOC said that at the World Championship event, the
two athletes were quote victims of a sudden and arbitrary
(07:40):
decision by the IBA towards the end of the IBA
World Championships in twenty twenty three. They were suddenly disqualified
without any due process unquote. The statement then goes on
to say, quote, the current aggression against these two athletes
is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken
without any proper procedure, especially considering that these athletes had
(08:01):
been competing in top level competition for many years. Lynn
has been an elite level amateur boxer for a decade
and Khalif for six years. Both also already fought in
the Tokyo Games. The IBA Boxing's federation has long been
plagued by corruption scandals. It was suspended from twenty nineteen
to twenty twenty three, and then fully banished by the
IOC last year. This week, the IOC said that both
(08:23):
boxers met criteria to compete in Paris and had been
cleared to fight under the rules for the competition. So
on Thursday, Algeria's Khalif won her bout against Italy's Angela
Karini when Karini stopped fighting after forty six seconds Karani
was punched in the nose and shortly afterwards said she
didn't want to fight anymore. According to her coach, the
fight sparked discussions, many of them started or spurred on
(08:44):
by people on social media with many followers but few facts.
Those with a high profile have a responsibility to get
things right, and many are choosing not to do the
work to get educated or even it would appear read
a single damn story before they went on TV to
talk about it, for instance, ESPN's Pat McAfee, who spent
five minutes talking about transgender competitors, despite the fact that
(09:06):
Mark Adams, the ioc IS chief spokesman, said on Thursday,
quote the two fighters were not transgender athletes and should
not be described as such.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Adams went on to.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Say, quote everyone competing in the women's category is complying
with the competition eligibility rules. We'll get into this more
next week, including the long fraught history of gender testing
and how athletes with DSDs that stands for differences in
sex development have been impacted by both changing regulations and
the challenges that arise when sports are categorized in a
(09:35):
binary way that human beings simply are not I just
want to remind and encourage people to handle these topics
with care. They're tricky and they're tough, and I get that,
and it is okay to have opinions about some of
these things, but it serves absolutely no one to spread
falsehoods or attack without facts.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Moving on, as we continue to debate the best name
for our show listeners, I'd like to thank Leah Kennedy
for emailing us and reminding us not to rely on AI.
Here's Leah quote high Team, good game, first and foremost.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
I love this podcast.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
It's sports, it's female legends, it's comedy, it's everything. I
wanted to try my hand at ideas for squad names,
and as a modern gal, I turned to Generative.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
AI to help with some ideas.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I laughed out loud at the top suggestion it gave me,
and I just had to share winning wenches. This says
so much about the problems with jen AI and our
internet conversations about women in general.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
It sure does, Leah. Okay, so Leah continues, So.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
I went back to my own brain and a few suggestions,
taking some inspiration from Julie Foudy's Dope Village for Laughter,
permitted another favorite podcast and came up with one Good
Game Nation, two Spainer's Gamers, three Spain Squad.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Okay, thank you, Leah.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Winning Wenches is literally insane, but your other suggestions are cute.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
I'm trying to keep the name about the show and
not me, so less.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Spain and more Good Game But Spain Gamers does have
a really nice ring to it. So okay, I put
together a shortlist of finalists and we're all gonna pick together,
probably unless I make this a Chicago election and I
stuffed the ballot box vote several times and make sure
that my favorite wins.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
We'll see.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Okay, drum roll please, Good Game Nation GGN for short
gigin gig Giggling Giggles, the Gigglers, the giggles, Good Game Nation.
Some form of that breakers as in glass ceiling breakers
and game breakers, not to be confused with Olympic breakers,
(11:37):
because I know not all of y'all can move like that.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
That might be tough.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Spanish Armada goonies for the win slices as an orange
slices that you get after a good game.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
My little slices. I love saying my little slices. I
think you know what my favorite.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Is, but I'm open to the vote.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Okay, we're gonna take a quick break.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Grab your leotard and chock up those hands, because when
we come back, we're talking all things gymnastics.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
With Ari Saperstein joining us now.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Is the creator of the award winning podcast Blind Landing,
a journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, NPR,
The Wall Street Journal, Vox, The New Yorker, and The Advocate.
He used to be a chainsaw crew member for the
Southeast Conservation Corps, and he's an artist who makes tote bags, cartoons,
animated shorts, ceramic bulls and more.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
It's Ari Sapristine. What a renaissance man.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
I'm trying not to laugh too loud as to make
the audio levels go crazy spiking for that's That's That's
definitely my favorite intro I've I've ever gotten. You got
every side job, side hustle I've ever had in there.
So thank you, Sarah, and thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
You and my producer Alex can chat about being multifaceted
in your in your expressions of art. She's an artist
as well, so I was obviously creep on your insta.
We're here to talk gymnastics, though, and you've done a
lot of gymnastics reporting for your podcast Blind Landing. I'm
wondering when you were watching either the team final or
the all around, is there a factor story that popped
into your mind, like, Oh, this is making me think
(13:13):
of that conversation I had or that fact I learned,
or I'm so glad I talked to this person because
now I know X as I'm watching this.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, I think that the number one headline thought that
I have had watching gymnastics at the Olympics so far
is that we are just seeing a new era of
gymnasts that are challenging every presumption that we had historically
as lay viewers about gymnastics. We're seeing older gymnasts than
we've you know, comparatively than we've seen in an extremely
(13:41):
long time. The majority of the US team is returning Olympians.
The majority of them are in their twenties. They're the
best team in the world. I think that says a
lot about how the sport and the culture of the
sport are now benefiting older athletes. We're seeing more athletes
of color, We're seeing more expressions out there on the
floor of different artistry and different identities. We're seeing a
(14:03):
level of difficulty, of course, led by Simone Biles, that
just is leaps and bounds from where the sport was
fifteen years ago. I always it's impossible to talk about
gymnastics without making a million unintentionalspins and turns ahead. Yeah, exactly,
so you know, yeah, it's that's my big headline from
(14:24):
what I've been seeing out there at the parischemes.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
I've seen it too, and what I've loved is the joy.
It used to feel so clenched. Everything felt so tight
and clenched, and I've liked how even in the moments
where Simona's had a little mistake, she has this smirk
that she sends either to coaches or family or teammates
on the sideline, almost to say, I'm disappointed, but I'm
going to smirk my way through it, and then I'm
(14:46):
going to smile because I'm leading this new culture of
joy and freedom while performing, which is so much better
to watch.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
It makes me happier for them.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Let's talk about the joy for a second here, because
I just on blind landing had on Olympian Denusia Francis,
who is on the board of British gymnastics that's also
been going through cultural changes, competed at UCLA Gymnastics, a
collegiate team known for their joy She's really been this
person that's been a part of a new generation of
leaders who are gymnasts that we're competing in a more
(15:18):
joyless time ten to fifteen years ago, who've really wanted
to change that. And so it's not just a coincidence
or it's not just specific to the US team. It's
an international thing and it's a concerted effort led by
the generation that competed under a much more joyless time.
That's thought, I think the sport doesn't have to be
this way. And so we're also seeing USA Gymnastics now
(15:41):
led by former gymnasts who also competed ten fifteen years ago,
these people under the Marta Corole era, of course, under
the Larry Nasser era, who are coming out of it
and saying, yeah, we're going to make the sport safer
in terms of physical abuse and sexual abuse, but also
this emotional mental health aspect that we need to change
involves this shouldn't have to be so stressful. So walking
(16:04):
on eggshells, especially when there's so much pressure already, and
so we're seeing Simone out there high fiving and dancing
with their teammate Geordan Childs, who's like the poster child
for that attitude.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
We're seeing it swinking mid event. Yeah, absolutely, how she's loose.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah, so you know, I think you're right to note
that that it's It doesn't sound right related obviously to
what we're seeing in the field of play, but it
really is, because if you're more comfortable, you're gonna perform better.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
We've been talking about that across multiple events. We just
had runner Nikki Hilts on the show and they talked
about how just being fully and transparently themselves helped them
run faster, compete better, fight harder at the end of
tough races. Like it's just a truth throughout life, across everything.
And it's been really really, really, really really fun to
watch with this US gymnastics team. Okay, the big ones
(16:55):
sort of are over. We got the team competition out
of the way, we got the all around out of
the way. Do you have any last minute thoughts on
all around you got to get in or should we
move on to individual apparatus?
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Of course that's top of mind for me because I
just cannot believe how exciting and how close this competition
was because we saw a gymnast be a true challenge
to Simone Biles, who's been undefeated in her senior competition
for the past eleven years. This gymnast, hebeca andraje who
if Simone Biles wasn't around, we would be treating her
(17:27):
like Simone Biles. She is, in my opinion, the second
greatest gymnast who has ever lived. And we saw them
go head to head at their physical peaks here and Simone,
you know, ended up taking the title and winning her
second Olympic all around, but man, the closeness of that
race was so thrilling. And then the third place spot
(17:48):
was three gymnasts who were all neck and neck right there.
So you know, I mean, I think this is going
to go down as one of the most exciting all
around finals that we've seen in a very, very long time.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
I agree, I don't like being nervous for Simone, but
when she wins at the end, I'm like, oh, good, competition,
that was fun.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
That was fun.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
I was so nervous for everyone, the whole competition for everyone.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Okay, so we've got the individual apparatus competitions this weekend
and on Mondays. So help us be smarter while we're
watching them. You got to give us one non American
athlete to look for in each apparatus. It can be
someone contending for gold or just someone with a great story,
just something that will make us smarter. For the vault,
bar's beam and floor.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
First up vault, it's the shortest event. It's you know,
you just do one scale pushing off the vault table.
And of course Simone's there. She's got her eponymous skill,
the your chinko double pike that is about a point
more than almost any other vaults, so that's why she's
able to fall potentially and still wins. So whether or
not she puts that to her feet will be interesting.
(18:51):
She has fallen a couple of times in the past
year on that scale. There's hebec Andreje again. A big
theme of this Olympics is the matchup of Simone and
Hebeca on multiple circumstances. And Habeca has been working on
a new vault, the triple twisting your Chenko, and that
would be named after her if she successfully competed it.
(19:13):
We'll see if she goes for it. A couple gymnasts
have submitted it over the past decade and no one's
been able to put it to their feet in competition.
You know, two more things with vault to pay attention
to is that Jade Carey for the US is going
to be in the vault final and we expect her
to be a metal favorite. But at the last Olympics
she balked on her final vault and just kind of
(19:36):
did a tuck in the air. It seemed to get
her steps wrong or something didn't metal. So this is
part of this redemption tour. That's the phrase the US
has been saying. And one other thing about the vault
final lookout for is a South Korean and a North
Korean gymnast qualified with the same score into it, and
it's rare that we see North Korean people outside of
(19:56):
North Korea, and the Olympics and sports competitions are really
one of the circumstances. But it's just kind of fascinating
to look at it through that geopolitical ends of foreseeing
of course this political undertones out on the field of play.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, okay, those are awesome.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Give us the bars, the leader on bars far and away.
I know I'm saying a lot of hyperbolic titles. Greatest
of all time here and there, the unquestionable greatest, uneven
bars gymist who has ever lived is gonna win this
title if she doesn't make a major mistake, even if
she makes a major mistake, as long as she doesn't fall.
(20:32):
And that is Khalia Nimore. And this is an athlete
with a fascinating story that people should go look up
the details of. But the thirty second recap is she
is a French gymnast born in France who was competing
for France and had a really contentious relationship with the
French Federation. They wanted her to leave her gym train
at the national gym. She didn't want to do it.
(20:55):
She felt comfortable, again we're talking about what makes athletes
feel good training with her coaches and they were being
by all accounts, kind of spiteful and not putting her
in to play. And so she switched nations to her
dad's country of Algeria, and she's been competing for Algeria
for the past year. And what she is doing for
(21:18):
not just the nation of Algeria, but African gymnastics for
the entire continent by making these finals by just showing
up and being the first gymnast to represent Africa, the
first gymnast to represent to win a medal for any
African nation has just been so incredible. So watch her routine.
And the one other routine I want to say to
people is there's another gymnast in the bars final named
(21:41):
Becky Downey, who competes for the UK. This is her
third Olympics. She's thirty two years old, she's twice the
age of some of the other finalists, and she's also
a real medal contender. How to score in the team
final that would put her on the podium. So those
are two gymnasts. I think we all need to keep
her eyes.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Only quick aside before we move on. Please, I'm obsessed
with watching Olga Corbett's band routines on the bars, and
I realized that they look absolutely terrible for your body,
but they're also incredibly thrilling to watch.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
If Olga Corbett we're.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Competing now based on what we saw in those routines,
do you think she would be the best ever? Because
I'm struggling to put wrap my head around anyone being
better than those band routines.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Olga Corbett was a gymist that was competing in the
nineteen seventies who really innovated on the uneven bars, and
right around that time in the seventies, gymnastics is at
a turning point where it starts to look more like
it looks today. But to be honest, what we saw
fifty years ago, someone that's like really good at CrossFit
could probably do. And now what we're seeing on bars,
(22:46):
it is only several people that you know.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
So if Olga lived now and we taught her if
oga again things based on what we saw all the
way back then, she would be crushing I did she.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Did Olga Corbett have the talent, have the preternatural talent too,
if she lived in this era, make it far? You know,
I think that that is very interesting hypothetical, And I
imagine that honestly, any great Olympic champion like Olga Korbett,
like not either two nice like Mary.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Lou Rett hashtag team Olga. Okay, let's get to the
balance beam.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
What you got in the balance beam final. There's a
little known gymnast who's just kind of rising onto the
scene that people should keep her eye on. Her name
is Simone Files. I don't know if it's sort of
ringing a bell for you, I think it's be lace belece. Yeah,
I'm not quite sure. I haven't heard it, you know,
many times in my life. So Simone is a you know,
qualified into the beam finals. The interesting thing about watching
(23:44):
Simone at the Olympic Beam Finals is that at the
last two games, Rio twenty sixteen Tokyo twenty twenty one,
she won bronze in the beam final both times, and
the first time it was seen as this disappointment because
it was the one gold me that she didn't win
at those games, and people kind of like wouldn't mention
it and she felt like ashamed of it. The second
(24:06):
time she won the bronze, it was the one eighty
opposite because that was the one event that she was
able to come back to the Olympics after getting the
twisties to do and compete, and so it had this
total different meaning to her. I think if she got
the bronze a third time, that would kind of feel
like amazing in full circle, but I think that we
could very well see her get the gold. So it's
(24:28):
fascinating because it's almost like, no matter what color medal
she may get it would have such meaning and significance.
And her teammate Sunny Lee back at Olympic Trials, when
I was talking to her in the press zone, she
was saying that this is really the medal that she
would love to win gold on, in particular, that she
feels like has been a little underrated in her career,
(24:50):
maybe hasn't hit in the most high pressure moments, and
she feels like she could possibly do it.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Okay, floor exercise, we.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Got another Simone.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Hebeca matchup.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I mean, the audience is just tired for me saying
that again and again and again, but it's just the truth.
This is a case where it's definitely Simones to lose.
As we saw in the Olympic all around final today,
Simone scored one point higher than hebeca on floor. A
fall is one point deduction, so it means that the
(25:22):
cushion that Simone has going into a floor final is
pretty significant. But the routine that I think folks should
keep their eye on is another US competitor, Jordan Chiles.
This is someone who I mentioned UCLA Gymnastics before about
my co host Dinusia for the last pine landing episode
that she went there UCLA gymnastics has been a main
(25:44):
collegiate program that has been very big about supporting people
who also compete elite at the Olympics and is really
known for the dance on floor and the funness of
the routines and the intricacy of the choreography. And so
Jordan Chiles on Floor is going to go up last
be the last gymnastics routine of the entire Olympics, and
it will really be one to watch because it's arguably
(26:07):
the most fun floor routine. I've got Beyonce in there.
It's really a routine that she's had to push back
against some officials that have told her to not use
traditionally black music or some of the choreography that she does,
fearing that it won't score well internationally. And she's kind
of said, yeah, I don't know, man, I just want
(26:30):
to be me out there and kind of gone against
the grain to put together this routine that could definitely
get her on the metal stand. She finished in third,
qualified in third, and we could see her take that
metal home.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
We love that.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
We love it so much and we love that Beyonce
sent them all shout outs and then they got to
do that opening ceremony video, the talking back and forth
with her, which I can only imagine the mind blown
situation when they got the call for that.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Ari, thanks so much for the insight.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
I'm so much more excited, and I already was very
excited to watch all these apps, Barradas Finals. Everybody check
out blind landing the podcast. Also some figure skating on there.
If you're a figure skating fans, you get gymnastics, figure skating,
all the good stuff.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Maybe is even some chainsaw talk.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Thank you, Ari, Thanks so much for having me really
appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Time to pay the bills, time to make the donuts.
When we come back, we find out who looked around
and found out Welcome back. Okay, So you heard me
and Ari talking about the culture change in gymnastics, particularly
a shift after the Marta and Bella Corola years. Well,
a gymnast from those days Tokyo Olympia, Mikaela Skinner criticized
(27:40):
the current gymnastics squad, and while we're totally empathetic to
how our years in the toxicity and pressure of the
Corolis might influence her opinion, we're just never here for
unnecessarily taking shots at fellow athletes.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Because when you do that, you might end up here.
That's right, It's time.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
For figger around and find out Friday around and ooh.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Buddy, this one's a doozy.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
So in case you don't remember the comments from Skinner
on her YouTube channel back in July, here she is
questioning the work ethic of Team USA's current gymnasts. I mean,
obviously a lot of girls don't work as hard.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
The girls just don't have the work ethic to get
towere you need to be in gymnastics, you do have
to be.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I feel like a little aggressive and a little intent.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Well, she couldn't have been more wrong.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
After the US one gold in the women's team final,
Simone Biles took to Instagram posting a picture of herself
and her teammates with the caption quote lack of talent,
lazy Olympic champions and current and former teammates chimed in
on the comments. Sunny Lee wrote, put a finger down
if Simone Biles just ended you ed Mikayla Maroney, not
(28:45):
to be confused with Mikayla Skinner wrote, it doesn't get
more iconic than this.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
She surround and found out for real.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Feels like I need to apologize just to redeem my
first name.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Yeah, people do not message Mikayla Maroney, she is not
the one.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Also, according to a post on Jordan Childs Instagram, Mikhayla
Skinner has since blocked Simone Biles. After the team win,
it was revealed that this year's gymnastics squad has a
nickname of both the Golden Girls, a nod to their
age and no doubt thanks to Mikayla Skinner, another nickname
team around and find out.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Ef around and fine find out.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Let me just say, y'all loved seeing these absolute legends
shut up Mikayla Skinner, including at a little leader on Twitter,
who wrote, I can't express enough how much I love
that Simone Biles stayed focused, took care of business, but
did not forget to come back and take care of
a hater as soon as she got her work squared away.
May we all also at Joe moo Lungma on Twitter
(29:47):
wrote in male sports, they would call what Skinner said
bulletin board material. I'm fine going with that for female sports,
but if women want to come up with their own
term for it, please go right ahead. It'll almost certainly
be better than bulletin board material. That's your key listeners.
Send us your better version of bulletin board material at
good Game at wondermedianetwork dot com, send it to me
(30:07):
on social at Sarah Spain on Twitter. Try to beat
this at Agent's nine hundred suggested vision board material or
pinterest eaten good, which is absolutely incredible. I don't know
if we can stop pinteresting good. It's so good, Okay fun.
Little side note to shout out to Lindsay.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Gibbs, who we love and has an incredible women's sports
newsletter called power Plays. She reminded us that MICHAELA.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Skinner also made news last summer because she had an
elaborate gender reveal party with her husband Jonas Harmer, and
they had a giant balloon covered light up sign that read.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Baby Harmer.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
You know, like baby Harmer, but it just said baby Harmer.
Just absolute gold, which you know is what this lazy
ass team won. So I guess sip on that girl.
Woof all that tea spill and it's given me a
taste for more. So let's spill a little more tea
ahem cafe in Paris. We've gathered some of the wildest juiciest,
(31:15):
most dramatic stories we've.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Heard come out of the Games.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
So pull up a chair, grab a croissant, and let's goss. First,
a terrifying encounter for Canadian rugby captain Olivia Apps Okay, So,
six weeks prior to the start of the Games, she
was attacked by a cougar while hiking the animal. Guys,
not Courtney Cox and Busy Phillips or me for that matter,
(31:38):
Misha Okay, Olivia, her hiking companion, and their dogs all
managed to escape, using bear spray to fend off the cougar.
She was treated for a cougar byite and airlifted out
of the park. And get this, she was back on
the pitch mere days later, and now less than two
months after the big cat bite. She and Team Canada
(31:59):
secured as silver medal this week.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Pretty good, Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Next up twenty six year old Egyptian fencer Nada Hafez,
who revealed after her competition ended that she was seven
months pregnant while competing in the individual women's saber competition
at the Olympics. In a post on Instagram on Tuesday,
Nada wrote, what appears to you as two players on
the podium. They were actually three. It was me, my competitor,
(32:23):
and my yet to come to our world little baby.
It's giving Serena at the Australian Open, It's giving Rihanna
in the super Bowl. It's giving women could freaking do anything.
She lost in the round of sixteen, but still she
was seven months pregnant competing in the Olympics.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
And here's a fun fact for y'all.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
According to the Olympic Nerds over at Olympdia, at least
twenty five athletes have competed at the Olympics while pregnant,
but Hafez breaks the record for most pregnant athlete.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Is that an official record? I feel like it should be.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Also, with all those like swords around, it's badass. Last,
but not least a lack of movement that would have
made me move some bowels back. At US track Trials
in June, before her semi final race in the four
hundred meters, runner Kendall Ellis found herself trapped it a
porta potty, pleading for someone to let her out. She
(33:16):
was finally able to alert someone and made it to
a race, which she won in a personal best time.
Then she topped that mark in the final, winning the
event and earning her spot in the Paris Olympics and
the cherry on top of the near do do Sunday.
Kendall has since partnered with Sharman toilet paper to keep
her backside covered at the games. Gosh, we love a
(33:36):
clever sponsorship. Enjoy the go Kendall, or enjoy the games. Okay,
we love that you're listening, but we want you to
get in the game every day too, So here's our
good game play of the day. Vote on those listener names.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
This is it.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
I promise I'm not going to add anymore. Those are
the finalists. Unless someone suggest something like no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
I'm done. We're done. Those are the finalists.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
You have to vote on them at Sarah Space on Twitter,
good game at wondermedianetwork dot com. You can even leave
us a voicemail pleading for one in particular. Eight seven
two two o four fifty seventy. It'll probably be a
democratic process, but much like our country, I can't promise that. Also,
don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. It's easy watch
(34:18):
Free Shit, rating eleventy out of five stars.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Review We love free shit. Thank you to Breaking.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Tea for sending everybody on the show tons of awesome
women's sports gear. Misha and I are both wearing our
shirts today. Thank you, Breaking Tea. Also, this is not
an ad and we haven't been paid for this, but
if you send us free shit, we might talk about it,
especially if we love you like Breaking Tea.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
See how easy that was. Now it's your turn, rate
and review.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Thanks for listening as always, Happy birthday, Happy anniversary, Mom
and Dad.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
Good game, Ari, Good game Heroes. Fuck you Misha twenty seven?
God damn it? What's up is this?
Speaker 1 (34:59):
This game? Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart
women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment.
You can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network,
our producers are Alex Azzi and Misha Jones. Our executive
(35:20):
producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
And Emily Rudder.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Our editors are Jenny Kaplan, Emily Rudder, Brittany Martinez and
Grace Lynch. Production assistants from Lucy Jones and I'm Your
Host Sarah Spain
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