https://flamealivepod.com/tokyo/Today’s guest is author and historian Dr. Cat Ariail. Cat is a lecturer of history at Middle Tennessee State University and author of the new book Passing the Baton: Black Women Track Stars and American Identity. We discuss how great female Olympic track athletes Alice Coachman, Mae Faggs, Wyomia Tius, Wilma Rudolph, Willye White, Earlene Brown changed the way society perceived Black women in the sporting world.
Learn more about Cat at her website.
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Throughout 2021 we’re revisiting great stories from Atlanta 1996! For our Atlanta 1996 moment this week, we relive the incredible story of the Australian Eventing Team during the Equestrian competition.
We also have Games Updates from Tokyo 2020, Beijing 2022, and Milan-Cortina 2026.
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
Photo courtesy of Cat Ariail.
TRANSCRIPT
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174-Cat Ariail on Passing the Baton
Cat Ariail: Whether fans of women’s sports in the United States, or even scholars of women’s sports in the United States, we like to think that the US, despite the flaws, is the most progressive when it comes to women’s sports. And
Jill Jaracz: Hello and welcome to another episode of Keep the Flame Alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics.
I am your host, Jill Jaracz, joined as always by my lovely co-host, Alison Brown. Alison, hello. How are you today I’m looking
Alison Brown: out my window and there
Jill Jaracz: is
Alison Brown: two feet of snow, which says to me it’s one year to go to Beijing.
Jill Jaracz: That’s right. I don’t even have words. Stunned, mind blown that it’s one year to go. We got all the release information about the, the virtual celebration type stuff and videos that are, you’ll see all over social media and it’s really just like one year to go.
Can you believe it?
Alison Brown: I know. ’cause we’ve been all Tokyo all the time in our heads. Mm-hmm. If not actually in, in what we’ve been covering. And then all of a sudden it’s like, hello, I’m Beijing Shing. I have ice and snow for you. I
Jill Jaracz: know. And I’ve forgotten like, oh, the mascots, they’re cute.
Alison Brown: You’re fantastic. So the Instagram account.
At least has been doing fantastic posts of the mascots, doing all the sports. Skiing. Skating, mm-hmm. Curling. Mm-hmm. Which was particularly funny seeing a panda curl. Stop it. I don’t know why that was so cute. It was so cute. So yeah, it’s one year to go to Beijing. Lest we
Jill Jaracz: forget. Alright, let’s get to today’s interview.
Interview with Dr. Cat Ariail
Uh, we’re adding a new author to Author’s Row in Shuk Stan. So our guest is author and historian, Dr. Kat Ariel. Dr. Ariel is a lecturer of history and Middle Tennessee State University and author of the new book, passing the Baton, black Women Track Stars An American Identity. So the book is interesting because it starts with Alice Coachman, who was the first black American female to win a gold medal, which she did in 1948.
And then it goes through history to tell stories of other great black female athletes, including May Fags, Wyoming, tus, Wilma Rudolph, Willie White, and Lene Brown. And when I was looking at these ladies, I, I was just like. If they were in two Olympics, that was low. I mean, these women are incredible.
Alison Brown: I know.
And just this group alone in terms of how successful they were in the Olympics, outshines certain countries, just this group has more medals than Than some very large countries.
Jill Jaracz: Exactly. So take a listen to our interview with Dr. Ariel. We are talking with Kat Ariel, who is the author of Passing the Baton, black Women Track Stars and American Identity.
Kat, thank you so much for joining us. This book is really interesting because you look at starting in the 1940s up through the sixties on the progression of not only women athletes, but black women athletes and how that, uh, changed perceptions of women and black athletes in America. So let’s start in 1948 ish when the book starts looking at Alice Coachman, and let’s set the context a little bit of what life was like in that time for black women.
Cat Ariail: Well, first off, thank y’all for having me. So for Coachman, I guess what is remarkable to me in that a young black woman like her was actually competing in kind of. Athletics at such a high level and that she had begun her career kind of at Tuskegee, um, institute back in the 1930s and then with the World War II and the interruption it caused in sports, you know, for her to kind of still have that opportunity.
It is in part, due to I guess the infrastructure that was established at Tuskegee providing, um, athletic opportunity for young black women, but also for her kind of persistently competing wherever she could kind of very irregularly. Um, because of, in general the lack of opportunity for women in a sport light track and field.
And then particularly due to the barriers faced by black women in terms of trying to, um, I guess have adequate resources and also kind of save travel to, um, various competitions in the United States as well as into Canada.
Jill Jaracz: Right, because we’re coming off of basically 1936 Olympics where Jesse Owens was very celebrated.
It seems to be that there was a little bit more acceptance and we’ll say acceptance loosely for black men, but not so much for black women.
Cat Ariail: Yes. I think especially kind of in concert with how the civil rights movement was beginning to pick up steam coming out of the World War II with a particular focus on black masculinity and kind of lifting up black men as kind of masculine American figures.
Kind of the, I guess contrast compliment to that was really emphasizing the femininity of black women, and that was something that was very much part of the kind of policies at Tuskegee in terms of kind of comportment and, you know, doing chores and presenting oneself. Very femininely too. For these women to have the permission to be seen as appropriately feminine and appropriately athletic, but especially with, um, coach men and kind of her compatriots of that very kind of immediate post-war period, their kind of feminine performance was almost just as important as their athletic performance.
Jill Jaracz: And Coachman broke a barrier in that she won. She was the first black woman to win a gold medal. Well, first black American woman to win a gold medal at the Olympics, and she won in 1948 for the high jump. Talk to us a little bit about what happened with the impression of black women upon her accomplishment.
Cat Ariail: I guess it was, I guess a mixed bag would be the way I would put it in that there was excitement about what she was able to achieve. There was excitement within kind of the black community, um, or the African American community within the United States. And that here was this young woman representing the United States.
And because she met these kind of standards of kind of acceptable femininity, she was seen as kind of a great representative for the race. And the, I guess what I kind of term the black sports community, black sports culture very much emphasized that. Um, and in terms of sort of the more mainstream or white sports culture, obviously the us you know, and kind of this nationalistic wanted to claim every gold medal and celebrate every gold medal, but also celebrating a young black woman celebrating a young black woman from the very Jim Crow state of Georgia was a little bit complicated.
So we see where her kind of hometown had a ceremony for her. And I think that, you know, singular event does a very good job of capturing kind of, okay, we wanna celebrate her, but we don’t wanna celebrate her too much. And that the event did have both black and white attendees, but they said, um, in segregated seating, the individuals on the stage, which included Coachman’s mother and the president of the college that she was attending at the time, Albany State University were kind of separate from the white officials from the town of Albany.
And Coachman was not really allowed to, did not, was not asked to speak at the ceremony. So we don’t really get insight to how she kind of felt about that moment, but it kind of captures how, okay, this let’s, you know, nationalistically pump up what the United States or what an American athlete achieved, but when she did not quite fit what.
I guess many in mainstream culture wanted an American to look like, which was kind of white, heteronormative, and especially appropriately feminine, that it kind of, um, created some complications. So in the white, I guess mainstream press and coverage around the Olympics, Fannie Blinkers Cohen, who was a Dutch athlete or Dutch runner who was very successful at the 1948 games, was sort of more celebrated than Coachman, which was kind of, I guess, shows the priority structure or the hierarchy.
Alison Brown: What I found so interesting as a thread through the whole book was these black traffic athletes kind of constantly falling into these three. Struggles of race, femininity and athleticism. So what is an African American supposed to be? What is a woman supposed to be? And then what is an athlete supposed to be?
And none of them could always measure up to what everybody wanted in those categories. And Coachman was the first. But it continues throughout all the women you talk about.
Cat Ariail: Yeah. And I, that’s something that was, I guess, sort of a goal of mine in this book. And if you look at the kind of historiography of women’s and sport, much has been focused on the kind of axes of gender and sexuality to a lesser extent.
And, uh, I guess race or racial difference in the way race has mediated a woman. Athlete’s experience has not. Been as prioritized as much. We see that a lot in the study of men’s sports. It’s assumed that race is the big issue in men’s sport history and kind of gender and sexuality are the big issues in women’s sport history.
But, um, I guess I thought that by looking at these young black women who are, I guess multiply marked by their race, their gender, by, I guess, suspicions of sexuality, can really illuminate how it’s these intersectional demands that were imposed on them, but also imposed in different ways on white women athletes or white American women athletes at the time.
Jill Jaracz: Right. One of the things you pointed out was the different, the, especially the mainstream press and how they coded their language, where a black athlete was described as rangey, whereas a white athlete would be described as shapely. Is that coding kind of well known? Or how did you figure out that they were coding?
Cat Ariail: Yeah, I would say it’s well known, or I guess it’s striking in that for, I guess over time, the white mainstream press began gradually covering more and more what Black American women athletes were achieving. But kind of in that first in period where they were beginning to get more coverage, it was kind of very clear that they were trying to mark them as black as not white through words like rangey and just kind of, I would say more perfunctory reporting rather than kind of the flowery language that would surround a white woman athlete, especially if she was seen as conventionally attractive.
Alison Brown: So to be fair, all the sports reporting of women from this time was sexist beyond belief.
Cat Ariail: Yeah.
Alison Brown: I mean, it was all about how beautiful the women were and how they were examples of femininity. So white women, I mean, we’re talking specifically about black women, but all women definitely got the, uh, short end of the baton, so to speak, on, on the sports reporting at this time.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm. Right. And it’s interesting throughout the book how if you didn’t fit this norm that the press wanted you to be in, they didn’t really cover you. So like Willie White, whose appearance was very different from say, Wilma Rudolph, or the shot putter near the end of the book,
Cat Ariail: Lene Brown.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Erlene Brown, she very large woman, didn’t conform to the norms, achieved amazing things, especially in a discipline that the Soviet women were expected to dominate yet.
Her achievements seem to get swept under the rug because nobody knows what to do with not just a large woman, but a large black woman.
Cat Ariail: Yeah. I think this is, was sort of the double-edged sword of Rudolph’s success in that she was seen as this almost, I guess perfectly amenable or acceptable black woman athlete that she, you know, had light skin.
She had features that sort of resembled kind of desirable white femininity. So against her, any other black woman athlete was seen as sort of inadequate because, okay, Rudolph has this acceptable standard that we can comfortably or more comfortably celebrate in the mainstream sports culture. In contrast to Lene Brown, who was sort of, yeah, I guess when you’re talking about coded language sort of.
Emphasizing kind of her size, emphasizing that she was, I guess, outside acceptable bounds of womanhood and that she was divorced and a single mother. Um, and then also with Willie White, who based on I the way kind of, she, I guess kind of a, had a more bohemian look or something like that to her wearing like, um, handkerchiefs and stuff like that on her hair.
And then also with Willie White’s behavior, and that she was very, um, stubborn, proud, was going to do things her own way and not sort of fall in line or appeared to fall in line as it, it appeared that someone like Rudolph kind of fell in line with what was deemed kind of the very narrow, narrow lane that a black woman could become visible and celebrated as an athlete.
Alison Brown: We read a book about Rome 1960, and one of the things they talked about was the Italian press dubbed Rudolph the Black Gazelle. And so I’m wondering to talk a little bit about the differences between how Black American women were portrayed in the American press versus especially the European press.
Cat Ariail: Yeah, I think a good illustration of this is going back to Coachman and seeing how she was received much more favorably in kind of her moment of triumph in London. And I think it was especially striking because she was battling it out with a British athlete. So there was kind of a lot of reasons for the, you know, Londoners in attendance to not necessarily praise Coachman or embrace her as an Olympic champion, and that she kind of knocked out their hope for a gold medal in Dorothy Tyler.
But there was, you know, pictures of her kind of being asked for autographs and stuff like that from fans abroad. And that’s something in Rudolph’s autobiography and the reflections of other kind of black women who participated in the Olympics in 56 and 60, kind of talking about. The fans and the autographs and the support and how different it was from what they, um, experienced in the United States.
And that kind of same sentiment was reflected in the press, and I understood it as sort of these, again, kind of still white, European, white Eurocentric countries and cultures had this distance from the kind of American racial context. So they, and also it was sort of a, a temporary embrace so we can temporarily embrace these women of color for their achievements.
Because once the games are over, once the moment of triumph is over, we can. You know, they’re back in the United States, whereas in the US there’s kind of greater ramifications for kind of accepting these women who are American citizens, accepting them as kind of celebratory worthy citizens in context with the struggles for and resistance to, um, black civil rights.
Alison Brown: Certainly because in Europe at the time, we don’t wanna pretend that there wasn’t racism there, you know, France and Britain with colonial issues. Mm-hmm. So it wasn’t like, there wasn’t racism there, and yet they seemed to so readily embrace American African-Americans. As opposed to their own people of, of many colors, shall we say.
So it was, it was an interesting dichotomy.
Cat Ariail: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I’ve done some research on Jamaican athletes at the 1948 Olympics and sort of looking at how British fans navigated, sort of both celebrating the Jamaican athletes, but also keeping that kind of colonial color distinction in how they kind of considered them in context with white British athletes.
Jill Jaracz: Well, and, and it’s interesting as we talk about the international press in the book, you talk about the evolution of the sports press, grudgingly accepting black women as being the best in America. How that, that slowly changes over time. So let’s, uh, talk about that for a little bit.
Cat Ariail: Yeah. One thing I wanted to really emphasize that what, that it was these women and their achievements that forced the press to accept them, to figure out how to accommodate them in their kind of grand narrative of American identity and American athleticism.
The fact that these women, even as you know, resources were cut, funding was not provided, continued to compete and increasingly com improved upon their performances on the international stage. So it’s, you know, like they can’t be ignored. They’re doing things, um, for the, wearing the Jersey of the United States at these various international competitions, and then especially as the Cold War heated up, the rivalry with the Soviet Union, this desire to prove that.
Not only was democracy superior to communism, but that democracy was truly democratic and accommodated and provided opportunity for one, regardless of color, race, not really gender, but um, so that these kind of, the performance of the women athletes in context with this kind of larger sociopolitical cultural context sort of force the press, not necessarily consciously, but kind of subconsciously to incorporate these women into kind of the story of Amer American sport, American Olympic, um, performances, American international sport, et cetera.
Jill Jaracz: Well, and it got interesting with the Cold War aspect because then the US really started using these women as propaganda. Did you find much about how they felt about that element? Because on one hand, they’re starting to get the recognition they deserve. On the other hand. You’re being used for this image, that’s not really what your real life is back home.
Cat Ariail: Right. The most insight I was able to get from that was I was, um, able to interview Coach Ed Temple before he passed away a few years ago and kind of getting his insight and especially taking a team over to Moscow, that kind of overachieved and was embraced as this, you know, kind of surprising display of kind of American women’s athleticism.
And I think, um, coach Temple was very, I guess, clear-eyed about what was going on and that he still found it humorous, that the press over there would kind of ask him about the racial situation in the United States and so on and so forth. And, you know, trying to, I guess. From the Soviet pro propaganda perspective, portray the United States in a bad light and, um, gain an edge in that sense.
And I think that for Temple it was always ultimately about kind of his athletes and that athletic opportunity and sort of knowingly playing the part to a certain extent, but also kind of truly believing in sort of the assimilationist integrationist civil rights movement and wanting to, you know, claim their Americanness wanting to present or ensure that the women athletes he coached, you know, presented themselves in a way that was feminine and acceptable.
So the ideology he had, um, possessed and the ideology he impressed on his athletes was sort of doing what was, I guess, pleasing or acceptable to the mainstream white sport culture in terms of the women themselves. Rudolph and her autobiography and some of the others, you know, did not necessarily, Willie White in particular did not necessarily enjoy temple’s, super strict rules about how they were to dress and behave.
But as Wyoming at wrote in her, her most recent autobiography, I think retrospectively they understood it and appreciated it, and that it was sort of the game you had to play in order to play the ultimate game, which was, you know, running, jumping, et cetera on the kind of international sports stage.
Alison Brown: Yeah.
I found Ed Temple to actually be one of the most interesting characters, for lack of a better word in your story, because he plays this very odd role in a way of pushing, you know, the tiger Bells, which we’ve talked about on the show many times, pushing these women to be such superior athletes, yet controlling them in their femininity.
In their blackness in a way. Like, don’t, you know, make sure you are dressed in heels and stockings and, and makeup and don’t be too outspoken on civil rights either. Just let your athleticism and achievements speak for themselves. So it’s a certain. Attitude of feminism and civil rights, like let your actions speak rather than speaking out.
Cat Ariail: Yeah, I think it is pretty clear that, oh, I guess he was a sociology student and then a sociology professor in addition to serving as track coach. So you see his kind of very astute understanding of social expectations and social codes and how he was able to kind of create this web of rules and restrictions that allowed the tiger bells to become, you know, world class athletes in a way that was broadly seen as kind of acceptable and praiseworthy, even at a time when there was a, I guess, a high tide of civil rights tension within the United States, including in Nashville, where Tennessee State is located.
Alison Brown: So when modern civil rights activists or or scholars in that area look back at Temple and the Tiger Bells, how are they viewed now? Is it a necessary step or were they too conservative?
Cat Ariail: Yeah, I think this is, can be hard to wrestle with and in my own writing, trying. I guess some of the comments I got back from my book was to be a little more forgiving of temple or being sure to fully situate him in his time.
And I think that’s an important part of understanding all the strands of the civil rights movement from the kind of more conservative assimilationist point of which kind of temple and Tennessee state was a part of to kind of the more radical efforts and that kind of situating them in their historical context and how, and kind of their ultimate goals and priorities and so forth.
This book does not have to do with the Olympics, but so you, you two might not be familiar with it, but it’s about Jake Gaither, the head football coach at Florida a and m. It’s a book by Derek White called, I Think Blood, sweat and Tears, and it kind of deals with, he, I guess, was kind of of the same generation of temple as a black coach at a historically black college.
And then kind of navigating the transition from kind of the more conservative assimilationist civil rights movement to kind of the black power movement. And the author Derrick White kind of argues for the value of these black only institutions and kind of the. How they contributed to the overall movement for civil rights in a way that maybe from our current perspective seems a little bit too conservative to conciliatory.
Alison Brown: So I think going back to the idea of Wilma Rudolph was brought to the White House in 1961, and then just seven years later at Mexico City, we have Don Carlos and the Black Power Salute and that sort of dramatic shift, right, in that same decade. Mm-hmm. Of how black athletes, obviously men and women being different, but just that, that shift in a very short period of time on how athletes felt like they should express their feelings on race.
Mm-hmm. The other thing I wanted to ask you about was, one of the things that we’ve been talking about leading up to Tokyo is how many mothers are gonna be competing this time? And Wilma Rudolph not very often talked about, but she had a child very young before her athletic career really took.
Cat Ariail: Yeah, I think it’s so interesting that, yeah, it is not very well known that Rudolph had a child, especially, you know, juxtaposed to today’s celebration of the kind of athlete as mother, whether you know Serena Williams, Alex Morgan, whoever else.
So that is something that I wanted to sort of be sure to emphasize, mainly because it’s something that Rudolph emphasized in her autobiography. You know, from reading that I was kind of understood that this was an important part of her identity. It was not just like something to be swept under the rug as it was done.
So at the time, and even though that did occur with Ed Temple, with his sort of Tiger Bell way, understanding that the idea of a young woman athlete who was an unwed mother would not be accepted. So, I guess understanding his policy, but also understanding how Rudolph. Did not necessarily want to accept that policy and wanted to kind of embrace, I guess, her motherhood to have that be part of her identity and kind of the sacrifice she paid in order to sort of not have her daughter be a greater part of the, of her life.
And that her daughter, I guess, one of Rudolph’s sisters kept her daughter for when Rudolph first started at Tennessee State, and Rudolph very much did not like that. So her and the young daughter’s father went to St. Louis to get the daughter back and then eventually resolved where, um, Rudolph’s mother and father would take care of her daughter so that Rudolph would be kind of in closer proximity to her and be able to kind of feel like she was her mother and that she was not having to sort of lose that part of her in order to pursue her academic and athletic ambitions.
Alison Brown: Did Rudolph ever talk about the physical ramifications of, of pregnancy and childbirth and her athletic career?
Cat Ariail: I know both she and Temple said that like she was faster than ever after she had her baby. So I don’t know if that was necessarily true or just sort of hyping her up in, um, anticipation of the Pan-American Games and then the 1960 Olympics.
So there was not any kind of details about any sort of physical struggles possibly because she was still so young, she was able to rebound fairly quickly, um, in her autobiography and in interviews. It seemed like once she, you know, got back on the track, it was. Off and running from there.
Alison Brown: The joys of being 18.
Yes. Not that we’re recommending teen pregnancy to anyone. Not a good idea.
Jill Jaracz: Speaking of the PanAm games, although this is not the same one, the first PanAm games that you talked about, the very first one, which was in 51 in uh, Argentina, in Buenos Aires. What really struck me about that is that this was the time where Perone was in office and Ava Perone, his wife, was a driving force behind women’s equality in the country.
And it must have been so interesting for these Black American women on this team who barely got on the team because of course, we’re also at the time of Avery Brundage in charge of the USOC, who is, as our listeners know, very racist, very sexist, and they’re doing what they can to keep the women out. Yet we get some women who get to go down there and experience, wow, there’s some equality going on here.
Cat Ariail: Yeah. That was um, I guess super surprising to me, um, in terms of kind of the acceptance and that I think whether fans of women’s sports in the United States or even scholars of women’s sports in the United States, we like to think that the US despite the flaws, is the most progressive when it comes to women’s sports.
And I think it’s not the case now, and it was not the case back then. And even in the kind of American hemisphere in that, yeah, we have the US is very lukewarm and that might be stretching it about sending a women’s team specifically, um, sending a team with a prominent number of black women to participate in the Pan-American games.
And then. They get down there and Eva Perone has sort of, I guess, lobbied for fairly equal treatment for, um, both men and women, including kind of allocation of resources, kind of quality of the places they stayed and so on and so forth. Um, so I think, you know, not only was the US sort of behind Europe and the Soviet Union, um, in the kind of immediate postwar moment, but also was not even at the forefront of women’s in athletics in their own hemisphere, in that you had other, of course, Argentina was a little bit of a kind of, I guess, exception with Eva Perone, but I’ve also done some research on.
Actually a West Indian young woman athlete who competed in Panama in the early 1950s named Carlotta Gooden, and she was named like Panama’s Athlete of the Year in 51 and I think 52. So for the whole country. So again, kind of that contrast to these countries, of course, with their own problems of gender and color, still were more willing to see a woman, see a young woman of color as a potential athlete, as a kind of contributor to the kind of athletic quality of the nation than was the case in the United States.
Jill Jaracz: Well, and still it still is kind of, because we talked today about how little coverage women’s sports gets and how just, you know, one performance can be just elevated. You know, we, we can talk about Serena Williams being an exceptional athlete, but there are, you know, how many other Serena Williamses are there in other sports that we just don’t hear about.
Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: And also the backlash that Serena gets and so many other black women get for being not feminine enough for comments about their body shape, for comments about how dare they speak, just go run. So it’s, it feels like not much has changed from what you were covering to what we’re covering now, which is, is very depressing.
Cat Ariail: Yeah. Something I find striking, depressing is like how little renowned Allison Felix has and that she is. Basically set all these records, the most kind of successful American track athlete of all time possibly. And yet compared to many of her predecessors, she’s fairly anonymous. Unless you are sort of a very kind of intentional fan of women athletes or of track and field.
You know, the average American sports fan who may be aware of Serena Williams probably is much less likely to be aware of Allison Felix when what she has achieved is kind of on par, if not exceeding what, um, Serena has achieved.
Alison Brown: And Allison Felix got way more press for complaining, quote air quotes around complaining about.
Her maternity leave rather than her amazing achievements. So we didn’t notice her when she was fulfilling this athletic achievements, but the minute she opens her mouth to complain, oh, there she goes. You know, the black woman complaining again about not getting her her fair share. So it comes up in the same way that these women are being held to an ideal.
Mm-hmm. That is not reasonable.
Cat Ariail: Yeah, this is, and I guess something I try to convey is how these ideals are so slippery and that the ideologies shift in certain ways, and that there’s always this very narrow track for these women to become visible and celebrated. And then as sort as, as soon as they’re able to gain traction, things shift again.
And it’s easy for them to fall through the cracks and, you know, not be seen, not be celebrated. Even as with Wyoming taas, she’s doing something that’s never been done before, but you know, the winds changed and she was not kind of seen as a, I guess, suitable for that. Cultural moment.
Alison Brown: So when we talk about Yia, who achieved the, the back to back gold medals in the Olympics and, and Wilma Rudolph who is so successful, how much joy did these athletes get from their achievements?
Because we keep talking about all the things that they had to struggle through, but let, let’s talk a little bit about the joy they were able to glean from being champions.
Cat Ariail: Yeah, I think that’s definitely the, I think it’s in Rudolph’s autobiography in particular, are able to see how she’s able to hold these things in tension, the thrill of what she achieved with also kind of an awareness of, you know, the barriers that remained, that kept her from, I guess, cashing in on her achievements, not necessarily in a.
Strict financial sense, but you know, able to gain new opportunities off the track, which she was pretty much unable to do so. But I think it from Alice Coachman through Wilma Rudolph both, um, kind of described the emotions, I guess, of the kind of metal moment being on the stand, hearing the Star-Spangled Banner play, whatever, and, you know, feeling kind of acclaim to their Americanness in that moment.
Despite everything, all the ways their country kind of resisted, claiming them and kind of feeling this, I guess, you know, joy with fulfilling those expectations. And, you know, Wyoming Atia, you know, over time knowing that she always did that, it’s something that people cannot take away from her. What she, you know, how she performed on the track, you know, kind of the, her unprecedented achievement.
But I think Willie White is kind of one who talked about. It was sort of never enough in that when she won kind of a surprise silver medal at the 1956 games in Melbourne, I think she made a comment like only one line in the newspaper. Like all the people back home that really don’t understand, okay, you’re a young woman, why are you so obsessed with training for sports and so on and so forth, and okay, you won this medal and it’s one lying in the newspaper and then the world moves on.
But at the same time, you see that white continued to compete for two decades. So this again, kind of holding intention, this kind of frustration with not being adequately appreciated, but also this kind of passion for the sport and for the competition.
Jill Jaracz: Which brings us, or I want to tie this also back to uh, may Fags who was basically considered the mother of the tiger bells in that she was in that.
First generation of athletes under Coach Temple, but she was instrumental about being individualistic and being proud in what you achieved. And as you talk about in the book about kind of coaching and mentoring Wilma Rudolph to take pride in what you can do and which I thought was very interesting.
Cat Ariail: Yeah, I think May Fags is one of the most kind of important and overlooked figures in that kind of. Previous histories of the tiger bells or black women kind of track and field during this period. There’s a lot of emphasis on kind of the institutional support from Tuskegee and then Tennessee State in that, you know, in contrast to white institutions that really provided no support for white women athletes who were interested in track or another so-called masculine um, sport did not receive much support.
And here we had these historically black institutions that were providing support for black women athletes and they’re sort of applauded for doing so. When as Ed Temple recounts and laments Tennessee State was not exactly that supportive of the tiger bells and that temple had to sort of cajole and coerce them to give them what little they had.
So I think it’s important to understand that it was the women themselves who made these. Programs Who made these programs into, you know, such elite world class, you know, athletic programs, not necessarily some great larges of the universities. Yes, they were better than their white counterparts, but they were not exactly generous and, um, supporting women’s athletics and that it was someone like May Facts who came in and said, I deserve, you know, I know what I want.
I know what I can do and I deserve to get it and I’m going to fight as much as I can to get it. And not really necessarily respect or genuflect to you being at, you know, the institution of Tennessee State or the Black Press that sort of was not necessarily a fan of fags as more hardheaded attitude so that.
She came into Tennessee State at the, about the same time Temple became head coach. And you know, as she narrates it, she made sure to kind of make her priorities known and they sort of reached an accommodation. And I guess fags continued to sort of help future Tiger Bells, navigate temple’s more strict rules, whether that was against playing intermural basketball or against kind of going out with any, um, male suitors.
But yeah, understanding that it was kind of fags, this attitude, her spirit, kind of her agency or I guess her entitlement as I discuss it in the book, they sort of infused the Tiger Bell program with this idea that these women deserve to kind of. Chart the course of their athletic and academic careers and not necessarily just fall in line.
So it’s kind of the, the balance of navigating what was deemed kind of acceptable by the more conservative black culture, by mainstream white culture, but also what was acceptable or appealing to them and their own ambitions.
Alison Brown: I like drawing the comparisons between, you know, the, the, the older stories and the newer stories.
So rule 50 and the protests and people like Gwendolyn Barry who are kind of our modern day Mays wanting to fight back against the system. And where do you put that in context with the historical American women who have wanted to work the system a a little bit. And it’s tricky.
Cat Ariail: Yeah, I’m not as abreast on the, the current situation as I should be, but I do, I, I guess again, I would look back at someone like Willie White who was back in, I guess the fifties and the sixties, most willing to sort of buck the system to challenge the system in a way, um, that was, or challenge it in a way that was kind of not necessarily loud, but noticeable that couldn’t be kind of swept under the rug, I guess.
Because one thing I wanna emphasize that even with someone like Rudolph, who was often portrayed as like this, oh, naive girl who’s just sort of lada and she just happens to run fast, that she actually had kind of a very strong backbone and, you know, knew what she wanted. And, um, so did you know Willie White, um, who ended up, you know, leaving the Tiger Belle program and then was.
Kind of kicked out of the 1960 games after competition for sort of, from what I understand or what I was able to glean from the research sort of awarding or interracial awarding among the team. And, um, she was, I guess, accused of drinking with coaches or something, which I’m pretty sure was not true. But I think we can lament kind of the lack of progress that has happened, but also see that there has been significant progress and that women of color athletes are able to stand up in a louder way and kind of be seen and be heard rather than Willie White to sort of fell through the cracks when she sort of stood up to kind of the internal authority of the US Women’s Track team and the USOC,
Jill Jaracz: right.
It’s almost as if her personal loss from being outspoken. Had a greater good further down the line. Am I thinking about that correctly or?
Cat Ariail: Yeah, I’m not sure if there’s a direct line there just because it’s sort of, I guess the way I see it is sort of like, you know, hills and valleys and that there’s the progress and the lack of progress.
And I think it’s interesting in that 1968 you had Wyoming ATT wore black shorts during the relay rather than the kind of white shorts as a form of protest. And yet that was not seen or kind of read as protests by the various observers who saw kind of what Smith and Carlos did as sort of a flagrant violation of Americanism.
Whereas there was this sort of. Obviously what tus did was more subtle in just wearing a different pair of shorts, but there was sort of almost no suspicion that a black woman would stand up to authority. It was almost assumed that they would sort of fall in line, so that what Tus did was, you know, not even read as controversial or kind of worth commenting on in that.
So I guess again, with kind of this twisted progress, at least we now can see kind of the agency of these women and that their protestations, their challenges to authority are seen even if they are not always fully kind of heard and respected.
Alison Brown: Yeah. As a protest. A protest if nobody notices. Right.
Whatever the intent. Yeah. And is a not protest a protest if people interpret it that way,
Jill Jaracz: right.
Alison Brown: That same, that same question.
Jill Jaracz: What were some of the surprising things you learned while researching this book that kind of contradicted some hi initial hypotheses.
Cat Ariail: Yeah. I think as you, we discussed earlier with sort of the, the support for women’s athletics at the 1951 Pan-American Games.
What surprising in terms, I think also kind of once I dug in more to the story of kind of May facts, her influence was surprising in that it’s often like may facts the mother of the tiger bells, well what did it really mean to be the mother of the tiger bells? And it was not her being a traditional mother in a sense, but rather kind of almost this sort of, kind of form of empowering mothering that she did.
Alison Brown: Well, you lived with these women for so long, probably. How long did it take you to do the research in the book itself?
Cat Ariail: I was thinking about it ’cause I, I believe Alice Coachman passed away in the summer of 2014. And I think I started this in the fall of 2014, started as a seminar paper solely about Wilma Rudolph, and eventually expanded in different directions and came around into this.
Alison Brown: That’s sort of how we feel about our podcast sometimes. Just started at this little idea and then all of a sudden here we’re all the best ideas. Start that way.
Cat Ariail: Yeah. I think though, I guess the one, going back to kind of thinking about, ’cause obviously you’re kind of under pressure to add something new to the historiography and thinking about how the 1950s is often considered kind of a low point for women in sport in the United States.
Yet, if you look okay, Alice Coachman wins gold in 1948. 12 years later, Wilma Rudolph, you know, celebrated around the world for her victory. So clearly we don’t necessarily have a low point in the 1950s if this great progress happens. So seeing that, okay, what was a low point for white women was not necessarily a low point for black women.
So is it really a low point for American women? And that we wanna see the history of women in sport is not necessarily this kind of, I feel like it’s sort of like this two track where it’s like black women, white women, and then about Title ix. They sort of begin to merge. But there is sort of a interconnected history that goes back and that if we sort of decenter what happened to the white female athlete in our narrative, we can kind of understand the kind of progress, the lack of progress in a women’s sport history more comprehensively.
Jill Jaracz: That’s also an interesting point that I saw in the book was reading how white women weren’t really supposed to be in athletics. They were supposed to be housewives. And having the successes that black women had paved the way for it to be okay for white women to be in athletics. And that was, that was interesting to me.
Cat Ariail: Yeah, that was kind of an interpretive argument, argumentative leap that I sort of made, but I felt confident in, in that it was, if you kind of look at the trajectory of what Rudolph achieved, sort of woke people up that okay, a woman can be feminine and athletic and in the United States in the 1960s, if a woman is gonna be feminine and athletic, it was preferred that she be white.
Um, so kind of opening that space, that Rudolph’s success. Encouraged, kind of a subtle subconscious revisioning of what a woman or a white woman athlete could be. And then we see, um, in distance running and tennis, you see women begin to kind of become more visible and then things begin to culminate more so in the 1970s with Billie Jean King, her achievements, title ix, you know, the more standard story.
So kind of re periodizing that and thinking, okay, how did we get to Title ix? How did we get to kind of the women’s movement in sports? And that intersection with second wave feminism, kind of pushing that back and expanding the kind of population of historical actors who had a impact on kind of that coming together of the 1970s that’s kind of more, more studied, more celebrated.
Jill Jaracz: Thank you so much, Kat. This has been really interesting. The book is really fascinating. Once you, once I got into it, it was just like, oh, I gotta keep reading. Gotta keep reading. So we really appreciate you taking the time to come on. Thank you so much Kat. We’ll have a link to Kat’s book on our bookshop.org page.
That’s bookshop.org/shop/flame alive pod. If you, uh, buy a book through that link, it gives us a little commission, which greatly goes to help running the show. You can also see what, uh, Kat is up to on her website, kat ariel.com. We will have a link in the show notes. This was a really good book. I will have to say, you know, if we weren’t a, we weren’t approached by a publisher, I would think that this would make our book club list in a few years.
Alison Brown: It’s true. And what’s funny is we’ve read 1960, we’ve read 1964, and a lot of these women do appear in those books. Mm-hmm. You know, briefly, obviously ’cause they’re covering the whole Olympics and from a very different angle. And then to turn it around and focus on those women and look at those Olympics through their eyes rather than the other way around.
Jill Jaracz: Right. It was really interesting. Yeah, and just to see with a lot of the talk that’s been going on in our country over the last year about social justice issues and just differentials in treatment of people based on skin color and seeing what these women went through and putting it in that lens, it was really interesting to do and kind of eyeopening as well.
So thank you ke, for putting this book together.
News from TKFLASTAN
Alright, let’s see what’s going on with team. Keep the flame alive.
Alison Brown: Welcome to Shuk Stan.
Jill Jaracz: We are checking in with our citizens of Shuk Stan, who are past guests of the show. Uh, starting up with some news we missed. Back in March, 2020,
Alison Brown: which I hope listeners will forgive us, considering the world was ending.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Okay. So, uh, they, the world and our world was ending. ’cause when this came out, I noticed, okay, we had found out that we had to change the name of the podcast.
So we’re dealing with that grief and just, oh my gosh, look at the work we have to do for this. We were speaking at a conference and then the pandemic came. So during all of that was the US shooting trials for the Olympic team, and our Ani Kim Rodie failed to qualify. She finished fourth in the trials, which made her the second alternate.
So we’re sad that she’s not gonna get to go to the games. You never know, stuff could happen, but it would’ve been her seventh one. But hopefully she’ll be back for, uh, Paris 2024 and LA 2028.
Alison Brown: Yeah. She has not announced retirement and in, in fact, said the opposite, that she is planning to continue to compete.
Jill Jaracz: Good.
Alison Brown: I think she’ll just roll up with her walker. She’s never gonna retire and she’s still gonna beat people a lot. She’ll be like, here comes 90-year-old Kim roadie onto the field. She’s, she’s not giving up. Speaking of authors, author, Andrew Marina’s new book, singled Out. The true story of Glen Burke will be released on March 2nd, and you can pre-order a copy of that also at our bookshop.
Org storefront, which is bookshop.org/shop/flame alive pod.
Jill Jaracz: Our travel expert, Ken Hanscom, has a new video series called Everything about Olympic Ticketing. This is a YouTube show that is a companion piece to his five facts about Tokyo that he, he was putting out every week leading up to the games kind of until the games got postponed.
So th those come out occasionally, but he’s been putting together more answering questions about Olympic ticketing. So it’s informative If you are looking to go to the games and trying to figure out how you get tickets for stuff,
Alison Brown: hockey player Brianna Decker will be at the Girls Try Hockey for free event on Friday, February 26th at the Kettle Marine Ice Center in West Bend, Wisconsin.
Very exciting. You think they would notice if I showed up and pretended to be 10? To try hockey for free, you
Jill Jaracz: might be able to get away with it ’cause you’re short, you’re in gonna be in like a big jersey and some pads and you got a helmet on. Nobody will know I’m five feet tall. I’ll fit in with the middle
Alison Brown: schoolers.
Yeah,
Jill Jaracz: totally.
Alison Brown: The wrinkle showing and
Jill Jaracz: nobody will know. Uh, speed Skater, Erin Jackson will miss the speed skating world championships because she was exposed to COD So far she’s tested negative, but she still is in quarantine and waiting that out. So tough season for her. I mean, it was a tough season for Americans in a lot of sports because they went late or the sport season got condensed for their sport.
But you know, between the eye injury and the COVID exposure, she just lost out on an all World Cup stuff. It’s not okay. She did get a Toyota.
Alison Brown: She did. And she was actually very positive saying, yeah, it’s been a bad January, but I’m gonna pull it together and, and I’ll be back for the next World Cup events when I can travel again.
Excellent. So on a happier note, snowboarder, Chloe Kim won gold at the X Games this past weekend and only her second competition since returning from a lengthy layoff.
Jill Jaracz: Finally, Claire Egan, our by athlete, is on the Clean Sports Collective Podcast, so we will have a link to that in the show notes as well.
History Moment – Atlanta 1996: The Eventing Competition
Must be in Atlanta. That’s right. It’s time for another Atlanta moment, which we forgot to do last week, to be quite honest, I was so excited about Book club. I forgot that we had to do an Atlanta moment. So it is the 25th anniversary of the 1996 Atlanta games. We are celebrating all year long with little stories and, uh, special interviews on Twitter.
If you follow us at Flame Alive Pod, there is a daily Atlanta moment or fun fact that drops every, every day at noon Eastern time. So look for those. But, uh, Allison, I have a story for you. I’m so excited this we are gonna talk the three day eventing equestrian competition.
Alison Brown: If you tell me about a horse getting hurt, I’m gonna be really upset.
Jill Jaracz: Mm. No, I don’t think you’ll be upset. You’re gonna be more, it’s, it’s gonna be a little shock and awe. Okay. So, uh, the three day Eventing event is. Three competitions, dressage cross country and show jumping. And you have four person teams, but only three results count. So somebody’s scores on your team get dropped.
Whoever’s the lowest gets dropped. Atlanta happened to be the first time that the individual competition and the team competitions were held separately. ’cause apparently before, if I understood my research correctly, before, it would be whoever got the best score in the team competition across all the teams.
They would also win the in individual. Gold, but this time they, they did it separately. So I wanna talk about the Australian team
Alison Brown: who are usually historically quite strong in equestrian events.
Jill Jaracz: They are quite strong in equestrian. They are the defending gold medalists in Atlanta, and two people from their 1992 team are on their four person team.
So let’s, uh, here’s the team members. You have Andrew Hoy riding Darien Powers. Andrew also competed at 84 and 88 and 92, so he’s already won a gold medal, but he’s on a different horse in 1996. He is also Australia’s flag bearer at the opening ceremony, so he is pretty important to the team. Then you have Jillian Rolton, but she’s on a horse named Peppermint Grove.
She was also in 1992, so won the gold. She had tried to make 1984. But her horse got injured in 1988, but she got injured. So she’s in her second games. Then you have two newbies. You have Philip Dutton riding true blood, Girdwood, who grew up in New South Wales. But in 1991 he moved to the US to prepare for Atlanta.
Spent five years. Yes. Right.
Alison Brown: That’s taken, you know, that whole making your body clock adjust to a whole other level.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And then finally we have 21-year-old Wendy Schafer, who’s writing sunburst. And that’s
Alison Brown: a baby in equestrian.
Jill Jaracz: Exactly, exactly. So nine weeks before the games, Wendy falls from her horse during training breaks her tibia and fibula has a screw and a plate holding her bones together.
She still competes in Atlanta. Oh my Lord. She also gets the highest ranking on the team. So if the, if the individual had been at the same time, she would’ve won the gold for that too. Wow. So competition dressage starts off, Australia’s not doing good. They’re in sixth place. After dressage US is winning, then it’s Great Britain, then New Zealand next day, cross country endurance.
So Gillian five minutes into the phase, peppermint Grove skids and falls. She falls, fractures, her collarbone, and several ribs. She gets back on the horse.
Alison Brown: Oh my.
Jill Jaracz: Because she’s gotta make her points come from the team, even though she didn’t know she’d broken bones and could not use her left arm at the time.
So then how did she even get back on the horse? The very next obstacle, peppermint gr somersaults, it’s a water obstacle. So the horse somersaults into the water. She falls off the horse again, wades out, gets on the horse and finishes. She goes to the hospital, she refuses painkillers just in case she’s still good to ride the next day and finish out the competition.
Alison Brown: Right. Because then she’d be doping.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Okay. Right. And she later said this was a great quote, I found you don’t go to the games to be a Ws. You don’t go to the games to be a wimp.
Alison Brown: Okay. So she had a broken collarbone.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm. Broken ribs and several fractured ribs.
Alison Brown: Did she puncture a lung? I don’t think so with that.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. I don’t think so.
Alison Brown: Because then she’s fine to go. I mean, what the heck’s a few broken bones. Right. But this is by this
Jill Jaracz: time
Alison Brown: get hurt in any of these tumbles,
Jill Jaracz: right? No, the horse is fine. Okay. The horse. Yeah. Nothing happened with the horse. It just was skittish, I guess. Um, well, I’m sure
Alison Brown: the horse can sense that she’s not okay.
Once that first
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Slipped up. Yeah, probably. That could be. That could be. And uh, yeah, especially if you can’t use one arm. Whatcha gonna do. But you know, she gets back on the horse ’cause you’re not a wuss. You’re not a wimp. Get back on. And the fact that she’s like, well I don’t know. I, they might need my points.
Which is true because I don’t know what order she went. Because if they did need her points to keep going, if somebody else had done worse, they needed a score. But by that time, I think hers was the worst of the three. So they, she dropped on the competition. So they did an amazing job, the whole team did in eventing and they’re leading by 61 points, which I guess is a huge margin of this competition.
And then it’s the US and then New Zealand. Then we get to last day show Jumping Australia finishes sixth in show jumping. But our friend Wendy, who has played it and screwed up in her leg, she had a pen penalty free round in this thing. And you know, that’s hard to do.
Alison Brown: Especially when you’ve only got one leg that works.
Right.
Jill Jaracz: So the amazing thing is the US finished fourth in show jumping. So because Australia was so far ahead from day two, they got the gold. So lemme tell you what happened to the team after this amazing run.
Alison Brown: Well, nobody could stand on the podiums to get the medals. I mean, this is like the Olympics of people getting carried to the podium.
Right? They just throw it in the back of the horse and just like trot them out. My goodness.
Jill Jaracz: So, uh, sadly, Jillian, uh, she did not make the 2000 team. Which wasn’t Sydney because she had a new and inexperienced horse, but she did get to carry the Australian flag at the opening ceremony. You’ll love this.
They’re all part of the order of Australia. She got to be an AM member. The others are just OAM, but she did die in 2017 because she had a endometrial cancer.
Singer: Oh. So that
Jill Jaracz: was really sad. Wendy lives and trains in South Australia. She has an, uh, equestrian services team. Philip has gone on. This is the, uh, one who traveled to the US to train five years ahead of time that his body clock.
He’s competed at every game since. Are you serious? He competed for Australia through 2004 and then he switched to the us So he’s been competing for the us. Oh, you
Alison Brown: stole him.
Jill Jaracz: I guess the Australians won gold again in 2000, which Come on in Sydney. Can you believe how crazy that must have been? That must have been beautiful.
And then in 2016 he got bronze and he’s qualified for Tokyo. 2020 will be games number seven, Andrew, he competed in 2000, 2004, 2012. He’s had a total of seven games. ’cause he also competed earlier than, uh, 1996 to 92, right? He was
Alison Brown: 84, 88, 92.
Jill Jaracz: So in 2000, when they won the gold, everyone started cheering. Ossie Ossie, Ossie Hoy, Hoy, Hoy for him.
Alison Brown: I gotta find that tape.
Jill Jaracz: He is only the second Australian to win three gold medals in the same event. The other being Dawn Frazier, the swimmer. He’s And she
Alison Brown: didn’t do it over mult. I mean, how many Olympic did? No, she must have
Jill Jaracz: the same event. So she must have Right the same event. Okay,
Alison Brown: but still she didn’t do
Jill Jaracz: seven.
No. He also has qualified for 2020. Uh, he qualified in 2019. He was 60 years old then.
Alison Brown: I was gonna say, he’s gotta be like a hundred years old. He’s
Jill Jaracz: so if he’s, if he goes, he’ll be the 14th athlete to compete at eight plus games. What a story. The Australian eventing team. Atlanta 19. He would definitely not WSEs or wimps or
Alison Brown: they, that’s amazing.
I still think the horses needed metals after all. That.
Jill Jaracz: Very true. They probably got some good carrots though.
Alison Brown: Give that horse a sugar cube at the very least. Holy cow, peppermint Grove. I’m here for you. Right.
Tokyo 2020 News
Our first playbook is here. We have been talking about this for couple of weeks. Couple of weeks. And certainly Tebo mentioned it at the last executive committee, that they were gonna start issuing these playbooks with very specific guidelines on how we’re gonna have Tokyo and make it safe. And here comes the first book.
So he promised he delivered. Mm-hmm. I give the IOC credit for that. I am very concerned about a couple things in this playbook.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. Like, so this is so no
Alison Brown: singing.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, right. So this is, no, this is the playbook that is geared for international federations. Uh, there will be future playbooks for broadcasters, athletes, and team officials and the press.
So that’s what we have to look forward to. But this is international federations, so,
Alison Brown: so this is kind of the most broad mm-hmm. How the events are actually gonna run. Mm-hmm. So no singing, no chanting. You are allowed to clap.
Jill Jaracz: Exactly,
Alison Brown: which reminded me of when my daughter was very little and she played soccer and there were all these rules to parents as to what you could and could not do on the sidelines.
And most people did not listen to them. And then there were some incidents of parents getting into actual fights. Oh my goodness. So I’m a little concerned that a Vella will come out and someone will attempt to use the VLA and somebody else will take it and hit that person over the head with it
Jill Jaracz: could be.
But a lot of this book, I thought was common sense stuff that we, we already, you know, keep physical interactions to a minimum. You’re not going anywhere. Don’t use public transportation It. And that was, I think they are gonna be pretty adamant about that. Nobody needs to have the vaccine to go to Tokyo, but they need to have negative tests and proof of that ahead of time.
They’re probably gonna test. During the games, but there’s no quarantine when they get there. So that, that’s kind of nice. It’s a little bit more flexible, I think. And then a lot of, a lot of hygiene. I did there is one little guy cough into your mask sleeve or tissue and I just, I’m sorry. I understand that you’re not gonna take off your mask to cough, but I just got kind of grossed out by that image.
Alison Brown: Well, it’s better than what happens when I’m at the grocery store and I cough. Have you had that experience? Mm-hmm. Where I have my mask on and it’s, you know, February in New England you, you can’t help but cough.
Singer: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: And you cough And I’ve got my mask and I cough in my sleeve and everybody gives me the death stare.
Jill Jaracz: Very true.
Alison Brown: I wanna see someone try and give dick pound the death stare. Dick’s gonna give them the death stare. That’ll be the end of that person. I’ll tell you. He will take that voodoo and just wa
Jill Jaracz: ano. Another thing they said you should do is ventilate rooms and common spaces every 30 minutes, which will be interesting also interesting because it will be very hot.
So will they want to, do they just leave the, the rooms open
Alison Brown: and we’re, it’s still Tokyo. I mean it’s still a major city.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: With significant pollution. So are you more ventilated by artificial means? I dunno. Or by natural means?
Jill Jaracz: I don’t know. But they did say also that uh, there might be specific rules that may apply to your role sport and at certain locations.
So my guess is that there’s still more information to come and that this is just, like they said, playbook. It will evolve over time. But it also had a very lovely message from your boyfriend, kit McConnell.
Alison Brown: I know it did. I didn’t wanna bring that up ’cause I don’t wanna be creepy.
Jill Jaracz: Saw Cozy John Coates. The, uh, who’s the IOC member who’s on the, the heads of the commission for the Tokyo 2020 games.
Not going rogue. He was on Sky New, was with Chris Smith tonight. And, uh, said that the games were never off and thought that that rumor of cancellation originated outside of Japan.
Alison Brown: Maybe in Florida,
Jill Jaracz: could have been. But he basically said, this is how we’re gonna do the games. We’ve come up with all these countermeasures.
People are gonna go through testing, they’re gonna get tested every day. Athletes are gonna get to go to the village and the venue. Training and performance. That’s it. No downtown, no hotels, which to me is gonna be interesting. ’cause you know how many athletes, especially from the US go special and get hotels, don’t wanna
Alison Brown: stay in the village.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm. I bet that they will not have a choice this time around, but the, the village is also gonna be a little less crowded, I would think, if you can only go a few days before and stay a couple days after. So there’s that too.
Alison Brown: You would think that you would wanna be in the village, ’cause that’s probably going to be the safest location in the city.
Mm-hmm.
Jill Jaracz: I would think so. I would think so. So he said also va uh, vaccinations will not be necessary because they, they don’t wanna take vaccines away from people who have higher priorities than athletes. Although he did mention that there’s gonna be athletes like in Israel and Serbia and Denmark and Canada who could probably get vaccinated.
That’s kind of in how they’re rolling stuff out. So by July they could be vaccinated from some countries still looking at venue capacity for spectators. He said that Japan has had 30,000 people at baseball venues, so they’ll make a decision in a couple of months. Another article from the Ashi Shimbun said that volunteer doctors might not be available to work.
Alison Brown: Right. ’cause they’ll have their hands full with COVID. Mm-hmm. They can’t.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And they’re also stop and
Alison Brown: be available.
Jill Jaracz: Exactly. And they’re getting burned out, so.
Alison Brown: Right. And it’s not like they can pull them from other countries. You know, it’s not like when Japan had the meltdown of the nuclear facility that wasn’t affecting other countries.
So other medical staff could come from Australia and New Zealand and China and other countries can’t do that this time around.
Jill Jaracz: Right, right. The Japan Times also mentioned that, uh, volunteer enthusiasm in general is waning, so that’s a little rough. I wonder if that’ll come back up as they get closer to, closer to the games and as the situation changes.
Alison Brown: And on the other hand, how many volunteers are they gonna need? If you have that many fewer people in venues, that many fewer people in the village, you’re not gonna have all those outdoor fair like events.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: So their volunteer needs are gonna be so diminished,
Jill Jaracz: right.
Alison Brown: That even if a lot of those volunteers don’t wanna participate.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And right now, I mean the mindset when you’re in a state of emergency or your country is experiencing, uh, the definition of a surge to them. That’s a different kind of mindset. So yeah, you might not be very excited about that. You might not think there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, but, um, we’ll see what happens.
The Kyoto News is reporting that there’s another problem with the rowing and canoeing venue in that there’s an oyster invasion.
Alison Brown: Well, this is because of the delay, because obviously the event should have been over by now. And so they, they’ve had this long delay and it’s not being used for any other events.
So the oysters are just like, this looks nice. Let’s move in.
Jill Jaracz: Right? And so what they’re doing is attaching themselves to these floats that keep the waves down so that you have nice, smooth water for the boats to go through,
Alison Brown: but then the floats are sinking from the way to the oysters,
Jill Jaracz: right? And not effective, but.
Like I, I said on Twitter, you have a new revenue stream there, Tokyo 2020, harvest those things. I’m like, dinner, maybe a pearl. Could you imagine getting an Olympic pearl?
Alison Brown: Ooh, I hadn’t even thought of that.
Jill Jaracz: See, I think
Alison Brown: food.
Beijing 2022 News
Jill Jaracz: All right, uh, let’s move on to Beijing 2022.
So yes, it is one year to go until Beijing 2022, and they have said that the ice ribbon is ready.
Alison Brown: The Chinese know how to name a facility.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: We had the bird’s nest, we had the ice cube. Now we have the ice ribbon.
Jill Jaracz: Right? That is the speed skating venue. So that is good to go. Very excited, I think. I bet they’re getting so excited there.
It’s almost a shame that Tokyo 2020 is still happening and that they don’t get to celebrate and have bigger celebrations. But I’m very excited to see what those venues look like.
Milano-Cortina 2026 News
We have a little bit of news from Melan, Corina.
Yeah, I know. Happy Music, but sad news.
Singer: Oh no.
Jill Jaracz: The International Paralympic Committee announced that Para Bob Slay will not be included as an event in Milan Cortina. ’cause they, they were trying really hard, they tried to have it for Beijing 2022 and got uh, denied. But the sport still does not meet the minimum criteria for the number of nations and regions regularly participating in the sport.
It’s being practiced in 10 countries and three regions. Right now they need a minimum of 12 countries and three regions over a designated four year period. So Andrew Parsons, the IPC President, said in, uh, press release that it was disappointing, but if the, if they could keep up the participation levels that they had during the 20 19, 20 20 season when 16 nations took part, then they’ll be in a strong position for 2030, which is really, uh, really stinks because.
Pandemic probably put a halt to a lot of pair of Bob Slayer’s
Alison Brown: career. Right. Because there’s only so many tracks around the world, and we’ve talked about this before, that oh, we’ve got, you know, one track in Asia and you know, two tracks in North America. So if you want multiple countries, people have to be able to travel.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: And people can’t travel, so they can’t go to at least their region of the world’s track because you can’t cross country borders.
Jill Jaracz: Right. So very tough, but hopefully they will get it for 2030. The five sports that will be in the Paralympics in 2026 are para alpine skiing, para ice hockey, para Nordic skiing, para snowboard and wheelchair curling.
Alison Brown: Excellent.
Jill Jaracz: Well that is tough, but at least we don’t have doping news this week. Right.
Alison Brown: Oh, thank goodness. Nobody’s doping their horse.
Coming Soon
Jill Jaracz: That’s that’s true. That’s hope not. That’s gonna ramp it up for this week. Let us know what you thought of our conversation with Dr. Ariel. Email
Alison Brown: us at Flame Alive pod@gmail.com or call our voicemail hotline at two zero eight.
Flame it. We’re Flame Alive Pod on Twitter, Insta, and Keep the Flame Alive Podcast Group on Facebook.
Jill Jaracz: Next week is movie Club, so film b Fran will be back to talk about the other side of the mountain. Let us know what you think of that movie and as we go out to Music by Archdale. Thank you so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive.
Singer from Archdale
Jill Jaracz: You don’t go to the games to be a Ws. You don’t go to the games to be a wimp.