Biles & The Twisties. Sally Jenkins Talks to A&G

Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins talks to Jack Armstrong about Simone Biles exit and the weird standards applied to women's apparel at the Tokyo Olympics.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
The Armstrong and Yetti Show. The greatest female swivel of
all time, Katie, look take you to the wall? Who
like a Sullivan to pick up the silver? Finishing one
and two in the swimming there that Katie Ladecki, who

(00:28):
was uh supposed to? That's the wrong thing to say,
expected to. That's not fair either. I don't like that
that they decide who's gonna win the golds ahead of
time and then if because then if you finish anything
short of gold, it's a failure. Um. Anyway, there are
a couple of races that she was expected to win
and she did not, but she won the gold. There.

(00:49):
We have been doing pretty well the swimming. Let's check
it on the Olympic story with Sally Jenkins. She's the
sports columnist for the Washington Post. We've had her on
the show before. She's won all kinds of awards and
honors for being a sports uh columnists. How are you
this morning? Sally? Doing great? Thank you? Um. Just in general,
just kind of a general overview of the Olympics, I'm
having trouble. I feel like the bloom is off the

(01:13):
rows of Olympics to a certain extent. Um. I don't
feel like people are paying as much attention as they
have an Olympics past. I grew up with it being
just a monumentally huge event. You know, the world would
come to a stop. It felt like to me when
the Olympics was going on. I don't feel like that's
happening now. Is that just my own life or do
you feel that. I think there's something to that. I

(01:33):
think part of it is some disillusion with the International
Olympic Committee and the way they've gone about their business.
I think people have some real objections to, you know,
sending the games to Russia under Putin and to China
under Jim Paying. I think Americans have the sense to
know that doing business with dictators is not great for

(01:54):
the Olympics. You know. I think it's a combination too
of you know, the COVID year and being a little
unsure about the wisdom of this Olympics, and you know,
I think it's a combination of factors that that add
up to maybe less an enchantment. Yeah, and uh, we've
been talking about how things just change. You know. American
Idol was the number one show in America for several

(02:16):
years and forty million people have tune in and then
they just saw enough of it. And when I was
a kid, boxing was the biggest sport in the world.
Every kid in my class always knew who the world
heavyweight champion was. There's nobody in my son's class that
would know that. I mean, so, you know, things come
and go, and popularity, it's just a fact they do.
What doesn't go out of style is the excitement of,
you know, watching a really great performance. You know, watch

(02:39):
watch somebody win a medal. Michael Phelps, I think, was
you know, just an epic an epic athlete to watch.
And um, you know, the athletes always cleanse the Olympics.
I mean, that's the thing. The performances take over and
they start exercising a charm over the whole affair that
that kind of can draw you back in despite your
best intentions not to watch or you know, not to

(03:00):
give it that much attention. Yeah, I'm I'm mostly speaking
for the ratings and just other people I talked to.
I love the Olympics. My my son and I we
watched the opening ceremonies. I'm trying to have have him
have the same experience I had as a kid, because
I I've always liked the Olympics, and we're gonna we're
gonna take in a lot of the stuff this this weekend. Um,
the way it's laid out on peacock, you know, and
it's all there to watch whenever you want it. You

(03:22):
can just you know, kind of all a card. It's interesting.
We're talking with Sally Jenkins, sports columnist the Washington Post.
It's interesting you got a column about what people are wearing.
We got off on a thing the other day about
why do they make the women beach volleyball people playing
their underwear because it looks like it's women playing in
panties to me, and and I just I just I

(03:42):
feel uncomfortable with that, and I think, why are they
doing that? I agree? And then you watch the men,
and you see the men and and you know, and
they're somewhat baggy short right right, Just just to wait
a minute, you're not doing this to the guys. You're silly. Yeah,
just to jump into a second. I want to hear more.
What you have to say about that is, you know,
it was just a man's perspective I was given the

(04:02):
other day. But um, we got a number of texted
and well, they have to wear those clothes because the
sand would get in here. Yeah, it doesn't seem to
affect the dudes. No, No, that's silly. No, No, if
you and I this is partly why I wrote the
column in the Washington Post the other day. If you
actually take the trouble to to pull up the beach
volleyball rules, you can't believe the difference in the instructions.

(04:23):
The uniform instructions for the women then the men. Seven
times it says that the women must wear closely fitting
this or fitted closely that. I mean, it's all about
outlining their body. Really creepy and weird. Well so so
so it's overtly they realize. I guess that the ratings
are pretty good for beach volleyball, particularly the women, because

(04:45):
it's hot women in their their panties exactly with very
fabric covering. I mean, it's the same at the top two.
Like one of the one of the rules is like,
if you like, your neckline has to be uh, twelve
centimeters deep. You know. Wow, that's something I didn't realize
it was that that on purpose. No, it's very overt,

(05:06):
very overt. And one of the reasons is, and you know,
I'm not big on this stuff, but you know, if
you look up the makeup of the executive committee in
the sport, I mean it's like it's like sixteen men
on the on the executive committee of twenty three people.
I mean it's overwhelmingly male eight year old men who
are taking cash handouts from the Chinese and the Russians.
That's right, I mean, that's exactly right. I mean, you're

(05:29):
not you're not exaggerating when you say that. I know,
we we've only got a few seconds. If you could
just jump in with the Simone Biles thing, what what what? What? What?
What do you think of that? Well? I think people
need to understand the term twisties. It's a phenomenon in gymnastics,
and the lay person probably doesn't get it and probably
watched her walk off that floor and went, you know,

(05:49):
you know what the f um But in gymnastics people
instantly understood what it was. The twisties is when you
develop disorientation in the air. It's like a pie let
losing the sightline of that is that is interesting. I
did not know that. I will do a little more
research on that. I'm afraid we're out of time. I
really appreciate you jumping on the air with US Today.

(06:09):
Sally Jenkins, sports columnists, Washington Post read or Stock Armstrong
and Getty