Monday Mini: Paralympic Wins

We dig into the virtual listener mail bag to share a letter from a listener detailing some wins and records from the Paralympics. 

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and welcome to stuff I've never
told you production of I High Radio. And today we
wanted to read a listener mail that we received a
while back. UM, which yes, we do read the listener mail,

(00:28):
although I have some concerns about some of the older
email addresses. They should all in theory come to the
same place. But UM, just in case, our emails stuff
media mom stuff at ihart media dot com, we do
read them. We respond in might take a minute, but
we'll get there. We will get there and it will
be a personalized response. But we wanted to read this

(00:52):
UM letter from Taylor that was really well typed out.
We we really appreciate when people take the time time
to contact us and and you know, provide us with
information perhaps we didn't have, or maybe we didn't didn't know,
or bring something to our attention that we might have missed.
UM and Taylor wrote in about the Para Olympics. So

(01:16):
Taylor wrote, I was very happy that you did a
two part or a while back on women in the Olympics.
I love sports, and none of my female lead podcast
cover sports. You both have said that you're not interested
in sports, so it meant a lot for you to
do not one, but two episodes on the Olympics. That
being said, you did not think to cover the para Olympics, because,

(01:36):
let me tell you, women made history there too. More importantly,
disabilities don't disappear. These athletes live with them every day
and don't deserve to be a race. I guess if
you don't do sports, you may not know what these are.
These are the equivalent to the Olympics for people with disabilities.
I think one time it was mentioned that links don't
make it past the firewall. So I'll give you some facts. Boom, yes,

(02:00):
and thank you again. For the first time, USA sent
more women than men to the Paralympics, and the women
won just over six of US medals who According to
an article I found on NBC Sports, this is notable
because the Paralympics are less gender balanced than the Olympics,
women accounting for of total Paralympic athletes in Tokyo and

(02:22):
increase from the last Olympics. Wilchair rugby is a mixed event,
and Kylie Grimes of Team Great Britain is the first
woman to win a gold medal in mixed wheelchair at rugby. Wow,
this is huge because there's a reason that sport is
called murder ball. I have heard it called that. Do
you want to talk about sitting volleyball, Well, a lot

(02:44):
happened in sitting volleyball, so we're gonna talk about it. Yes.
Laura Webster played while pregnant with her fourth child. This
was her fifth Paralympics and the second Paralympics she played
in while pregnant uh. The only difference was that she
told her teammates this time around UH and when searching
for her name, there was an article on her from

(03:05):
AP News with the USA's gold medal win and women's
sitting volleyball. This meant all of volleyball events from the
Olympics and Paralympics were swept on the women's side. The
US won gold in Olympic indoor volleyball and beach volleyball.
I believe that's the first time that's ever happened. Rwanda
was the first Sub Saharan team in this sport to
compete at the Paralympic level. They never want to set

(03:27):
in all that time until this year, not just one set,
oh no, and a classification match. They beat Japan in
straight sets three. There's an article on Olympics dot com
detailing why this is a big deal. I believe it
was mentioned that Rwanda was one of the more expansive
club systems for the sport. Here's some names to google.
Anastagia Pagonis just go along, Tatiana McFadden, Oxana Masters, Susannah

(03:52):
Rodriguez Para Triathlon, Spain One gold is a doctor was
on the cover of Time magazine. You can find the
article on Olympics dot com. Baby at the Paralympics, four
month old Valencia got special permission to travel to Tokyo
as both her parents were competing. Her dad gregaraias polycrinitists.
Hopefully I said that right was competing in bacchi ball

(04:15):
and her mother, Katerina Patroni, is his assistant. They won
silver in the BC three classification um And there's an
article in Paralympic dot org on this. And this is
very US heavy because this is what NBC focused on.
Maybe your research will help make it more internationally friendly.
Typically don't you're doing a great job. Also you should

(04:35):
look up though. We the fifteen campaign, and this is
the biggest human rights campaign ever. The fifteen is a
reference to their being fifteen percent of people estimated living
with disabilities, which is equivalent to one billion people. The
long video on YouTube for it is great. If you
need other suggestions for episode, I suggest Jane Goodall because

(04:56):
science obviously a good one. And an update on the
US women's national soccer team. Yes, lawsuit against the U
s s F or PAPA. I don't remember who it's against.
There was a recent update, but I didn't really understand it.
When to Olympics and Paralympics are in February, you better
believe I'll be watching those as well. Agreed, and thank
you so much for bringing this. We did have a
discussion that we needed to do this not gonna lie

(05:17):
kind of escaped our periphery because we got really busy
with other things, which is not an excuse. Yeah, yeah,
but you definitely did a lot of work for us.
So thank you, Taylor. Thank you so much, Taylor, thanks
for sending like links, thanks to follow up. We definitely
want to revisit this and and do more research. And

(05:38):
I will say um lately for something else we're working on.
I was researching the a d A in the history
of women advocating in the field of disability and women
with disabilities. And I will admit that's a an area
that I did not receive a lot of education in

(05:59):
and I've had to really dig into writings and works
and articles and it's been really really amazing and enlightening.
But it is something that I'm working on, and um,
we do want to talk about more absolutely, And I
actually I will say I don't really watch a lot
of sports, but I do love sports. I like playing.

(06:22):
I'm very competitive. I mean, I'm also very competitive in
video games. But I I have a friend who's like,
you know, now you're one of my TikTok prone Samantha.
I've got like a friend who's a sports friend, and
she's always like, here's what you need to watch, and
here's who's coming up, and here's who's amazing and who's
doing all this amazing stuff. And I love this. So

(06:42):
Taylor really really really appreciate sending this message. And we
are certainly looking in February where we'll be watching and
we're gonna revisit this for sure in the meantime. Listeners,
if you have any anything you want to send to us,
any facts, suggestions, links, you can do so whole episodes.

(07:05):
Love it oh, absolutely absolutely. You can email us at
Stuff Media, mom Stuff at iHeart media dot com. You
can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast or
on Instagram at stuff won Never Told You. Thanks as
always to our super producer Christina, Thank you, and thanks
to you for listening. Stuff One Never Told You is
the production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast from

(07:26):
my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.