On this episode we look at great and unique Olympic moments with Jeremy Fuchs, author of the new book Total Olympics: Every Obscure, Hilarious, Dramatic and Inspiring Tale Worth Knowing. We talk Olympic legends, how the Nazis used the 1936 Winter Olympics as a dress rehearsal for the Berlin Summer Olympics, and the infamous plunge for distance event.
Jeremy’s book is the perfect gift for the Olympics fan in your life. It’s full of short articles on everything you need to know about to know about the Olympics, and it’s packed with great photos.
What are our TKFLASTANIs up to this episode? We’ve got news from:
- Para-Equestrian athlete Sydney Collier
- Olympian Kikkan Randall
- Paralympian John Register
Plus, the latest news from Tokyo 2020 and a review of the Team USA Oreos.
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
Note: Links to products may be affiliate links. We may earn commissions through purchases made through them.
TRANSCRIPT
Note: This is an uncorrected machine-generated transcript and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the audio. Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.
197-Jeremy Fuchs-Total Olympics
Jeremy Fuchs: [00:00:00] You know, what’s amazing to me about the Olympics, that everybody has a fascinating story. There are no boring Olympians,
Theme Music: mid the greatest festival of our contemporary society. The Olympic games is about to begin. This is.
Oh, they’re all completely gas given it everything on the global pocket. Oh yeah. Oh brilliant. Brilliant, brilliant. But that is an Olympic chapter.
Ready?
Jill Jaracz: Hello. Fans of shook Luan and welcome to another episode of keep the flame alive. The podcast, four fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. I am your host at Jill. Jarris joined as always by my lovely co-host Allison brown, Allison.
Hello, how are you?
Alison Brown: I have a story for you. You do. I do. So I went swimming
Jill Jaracz: mm-hmm
Alison Brown: and I was thinking of Jacqueline’s Semino. And I was thinking about when I was a kid, I used to think I was really fun to do handstands in the [00:01:00] water and little flips. So I tried to do a little flip under the water and when I stood back up, I almost threw up.
Jill Jaracz: Oh no,
Alison Brown: I was so dizzy. I’m so nauseous from this one little underwater flip.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: So as if we didn’t know, the artistic swimmers were amazing enough for their, their strength and their, the, the disorientation in vertigo. When you flip underwater that doesn’t bother you when you’re seven is really serious because you lose your equilibrium with what’s up and what’s down.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: I do not recommend it over the age of like 12 .
Jill Jaracz: Now I wanna go swimming and try it and, and do the hands
Alison Brown: just be prepared, be prepared.
Review of Team USA Oreos
Jill Jaracz: I will report back. I, you know, speaking of reporting, we got our team USA Oreos in the house.
Alison Brown: With the sparkles, the bursting sparkles.
Jill Jaracz: [00:02:00] Yeah. You know, the generic version of pop rocks, popping candy, you know, what’s fun is sharing your Oreos with somebody who doesn’t know the popping candy is in there.
because Ben was like, I, oh, there’s popping candy in them. I thought I was having a stroke.
This is my, and it takes a, it takes like two seconds for them to kick in. So you, well do
Alison Brown: not eat one of those in the swimming pool when you’re doing a flip cause you’ll give yourself a stroke apparently.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, but that was, that was, I would say totally cool. Cause that was a lot of fun. So if you’re gonna share your Oreos, don’t tell somebody about the pop rocks and see what happens.
But did they taste good? Yeah, they taste fine. You know, I think obviously they don’t look as good as they do in the photographs because food stylists and food photographers do magic in making images. I think it’s more of a [00:03:00] double stuff and the, they took the doubled part and kind of have that to make the red in the blue.
I look at the red, white, and blue layers and think that should be a triple stuff or. , but I think it’s really double stuff size.
Alison Brown: It was too. That was too much math for my adults. Fun ring.
Jill Jaracz: I hear you. It’s hard to think about, but yeah, I do. I do enjoy them. The pop rocks are fun. I
Alison Brown: have people in my house who I could put an Oreo in front of them and they would absolutely ask no questions.
So I have a plan.
Interview with Jeremy Fuchs
Jill Jaracz: Oh, excellent. I want, I wanna hear all about. Well, speaking of totally fun things, our guest today is totally interesting. He is Jeremy Fuchs, author of the book, total Olympics, every obscure, hilarious, dramatic, and inspiring tale worth. Knowing we talked with Jeremy about the book and some of the fun facts throughout Olympic history.
Why write Total Olympics?
Take a listen, Jeremy and Jeremy, we always get the question. Why do you have a podcast about the Olympics? So how, how about for you? Why’d you write [00:04:00] a why’d you write this book?
Jeremy Fuchs: I’ve been Olympic obsessed, uh, for as long as I can remember. Um, there’s a, I wish wasn’t a true story, but there’s a true story of me probably after the 2004 Olympics, hoping that I could learn how to pull vault so I could, uh, join the Olympics.
I was probably about 12. I have no athletic ability, which I knew at the time, but I figured, Hey, can’t be that hard. Right? It is, um, you know, I just love it. It’s, um, something that becomes my life for two weeks, every few years. It’s a combination of things for me, it’s the amazing obviously athletes and, you know, these performances, um, it’s the ability to see different sports that you don’t usually get to see.
And then it’s just, you know, as a sports nerd, having, you know, 24 hour sports is always, you know, not a bad thing either. Um, and so for me, it’s sort of a perfect storm and so. I think by the end of two weeks, my [00:05:00] friends and family are kind of tired of me, um, watching so much, but I just, I just love it. I love watching.
I really, I think my favorite part is just watching things I don’t get to watch. Uh, you know, we can all watch basketball and baseball, you know, pretty much, you know, year round can’t really watch cross country skiing, at least not in the us. Um, so to be able to take all that sort of passion and put it into a book was awesome for me and really exciting.
And, um, just gave me a chance to sort of geek out year round.
Why media outlets don’t cover smaller sports
Jill Jaracz: Okay. So I have a question. You you’ve also written for sports illustrated. So you are a member of the media as well. Why is it that media outlets don’t necessarily write about the smaller sports continuously?
Jeremy Fuchs: Yeah. I mean, I’m sure there’s definitely a few reasons.
I mean, surely some of it is the economics, you know, there’s no broadcast deal for most of these sports, you know, maybe you’ll get a world championship here and there, but really not. It’s really only kind of goes to the swimming level and like, that’s about it. That’s certainly part of it, you know, take a sport.
I use cross country as an example, just because [00:06:00] it’s something I enjoy watching. And I think it’s a good example because it. Uh, predominantly European sport. You know, we’re not sending journalists to Finland to cover, you know, the American’s race in the middle, you know, the dead of winter, I think as an American media in particular, we’re sort of trained on sort of the big four sports, maybe a little bit of soccer, maybe some few things here and there, but to go sort of outside that comfort zone really only seems to happen at the Olympics.
And even then it only really happens when it’s, you know, either an American star or. In recent years, swimming in gymnastics. Yeah. You don’t see many of the sports on prime time. You only see, you know, the swimmings in the gymnastics and track and fields of the world. You know, personally, I wish that would change, but you know, it’s been so entrenched for so many years that it’s almost not surprising.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. That’s kind of Ginny Thrasher was on our show a few weeks ago. And when she won the first gold of Rio games, All of a sudden, everybody knew who [00:07:00] she was because she won the first gold and then we all became experts in air rifle. But yeah, you know, it’s, it’s really kind of interesting how the resources aren’t there or just trying to gain importance.
And, and like you mentioned cross country with Jesse Diggins winning the tour to ski this year, then it got a little bit more prominence, but it’s, it’s, it’s tough. And it’s hard when, when you wanna see something like. Modern pentathlon or TaeKwonDo on a regular basis. And you just can’t.
Jeremy Fuchs: Yeah. And I think the problem also is that if you ask most people what modern pentathlon is, they might not know.
And probably aren’t able to name all five sports or all five disciplines within that same thing with decathlon or heptathlon, all the thoughts. Um, I think Jesse Diggins thing is really interesting because. I was surprised. And this was this kind of iconic moment, or it should have been an iconic moment in us sports history.
Uh, not only was it an amazing race, there was that amazing call to go along with it. And it was, you know, just this big event. [00:08:00] And you know, now Jesse Diggins is probably one of the top CrossCountry skiers in the world. She’s gonna be, you would think a huge star for Beijing in 2022. And. Again, I, I bet if you ask a lot of people, they probably don’t even know who she is.
Um, and so we have a lot of work to do in sort of elevating some of these sports, particularly the ones that Americans are good at. You know, it’s one thing to say, oh, we’re not gonna watch table tennis where, you know, no American has ever gone anywhere, but we have sports that are not the traditional sports that Americans are good at.
And you would sort of hope they would be highlighted. More than they are, but, you know, time and time again, it’s, it’s the big sport and the, and the biggest names that get the most attention and not the littlest things that are to me, just as fascinating, if not more so.
How Jeremy Fuchs chose the Olympic stories for his book
Alison Brown: So you filled the book with a lot of little things and a lot of fascinating things, but then you also have some big stories and some very famous Olympians.
So what was the decision behind putting the stories in [00:09:00] that you did.
Jeremy Fuchs: Yeah. You know, for me, you know, I definitely gravitate towards some of those smaller, lesser known stories. They interest me as a writer. They interest me as just a person, but I definitely felt that, alright, if you’re gonna cover the Olympics, there are certain things that you can’t not write about.
That a book would not be complete without writing about Michael Phelps or mark spits. You know, even though those are known quantities and their stories are, you know, obviously well known, I sort of took the challenge of trying to find things that maybe were a little bit lesser known about their stories.
You know, Michael Phelps’s first Olympics in Sydney when he was 15 years old is not, obviously he didn’t win anything there. So no one really knows as much about that. And so that was sort of my approach. I wanted to. Create a book that sort of cover the entirety of the Olympic experience, everything from everything we know to all the things that you don’t know.
And I think you should know. And, and my hope was to maybe approach some of the more well known stories in a familiar, but also. You know, somewhat different way and then bring some of those lesser known stories to [00:10:00] light and, you know, in, in doing so hoping to create, you know, what I think is a pretty full picture of the Olympic experience, um, that covers sort of every side.
Olympic stories that surprised Jeremy Fuchs
Alison Brown: Did you know or heard pieces of a lot of the stories you included or did you have a lot of surprises as you were, uh, researching the book?
Jeremy Fuchs: Tons of surprises. I mean,
Alison Brown: okay. So what was the biggest surprise? What, what story really just said? I can’t believe that happened.
Jeremy Fuchs: Well, the biggest, I mean, it’s, it’s almost like a series of stories.
The biggest surprise for me was how unorganized the early Olympics were, you know, from 1896 to like, 19, you know, their 1920s. I mean, they were sort of a mess. They were trying to fi you know, we take the Olympics for granted. I think the fact that, you know, you can turn on the TV in 24, 7, there’s a sport, you know, there’s on eight channels and everything’s on, you know, everything’s online the early days.
They didn’t really know what sports would go where, you know, there. One of my favorite stories is the story of Margaret Abbot. Who’s the first American female to win a gold medal in golf in 1900 in Paris. She had no idea she was [00:11:00] competing in the Olympics. She died, never knowing a researcher from the university of Florida, you know, was doing research on women in the Olympics, contacted her family and saying, you know, Trying to get more information.
They had no idea that’s chaotic. The Olympics were, you could participate in the Olympics and not know about it. And so that to me was fascinating. You know, we just think that the Olympics are this well oiled machine and it have been since the beginning and they really haven’t. There was just chaos. Um, Particularly the first few games, but even, you know, even going, um, into the forties and fifties, it wasn’t what we expect nowadays.
And I think to me, that was so fascinating because usually when you have chaotic things like that, they don’t last chaotic things tend to break down and the Olympics didn’t, um, if anything, they got bigger and more lavish and you know, more costly and, um, you know, gain more prominence worldwide. So learning that history to me was fascinating learning.
How it sort of went from this idea, uh, in someone’s head to this worldwide phenomenon that [00:12:00] we devote all our attention to and people spent tons of money on. Um, that to me was incredibly fascinating and something that I had really no idea about.
Stories of Olympic legends
Alison Brown: And you have a whole section on legends, which is some of those much better known stories.
So why pick one over another? Cause obvi you include. Like you said Michael Phelps, but then you also included Larissa Laina who most Americans have never heard of, or only heard of because of her relation to the record with Michael Phelps.
Jeremy Fuchs: Yeah. It was really hard to choose and I had to make, you know, there’s a version of the book somewhere that’s like double in length.
I could have written about every amazing Olympic athlete and I would probably still be writing. So for me, it was just trying to find who could I say something new about who could I find, you know, Insight, some unique insight that, you know, maybe hasn’t written, been written about. You know, I wish it was more scientific than that, but, you know, I think the toughest part about writing a book is knowing when to stop and knowing when to cut.
And then when I was sort of halfway through [00:13:00] writing it and I was already past my word count, like some decisions had to be made, but yeah, I, I could have written about every gold medalist ever. I mean, everybody, you know, what’s amazing to me about the Olympics that everybody has a fascinating story.
There are no boring Olympians. I mean, they all sort of come from somewhere. They often persevere against whether it’s injury, you know, personal hardship, you know, economic or political hardship. And then they have this one event and they do just they’re the best in the world at it. And that’s what made the book so challenging to write.
And it’s also so fascinating to write is that all these people are. Incredible. You know, even the ones who, you know, maybe have gotten into trouble or have done things wrong, they have these amazing stories. And so it was a real pleasure for me to go through them, learn about them and then, you know, try to translate it onto the page.
What Olympic stories didn’t make the cut?
Alison Brown: Okay. So you did have to cut a lot. So is there a story that you can share that didn’t make the book that is the one that broke your heart to take.
Jeremy Fuchs: Yes, because I had thought it made the book and then I realized that it didn’t [00:14:00] cuz there was a, you know, because of COVID there was a gap, there was a year gap of when it was published.
So I sort of put it down and was focusing on COVID and I was like, oh yeah, I thought I wrote about that. Cause I did, I looked up and there was a draft and you know, my folder, but it wasn’t actually in the book. So, and the reason I was so surprised is cuz it’s like oddly relevant, but not really. So in 1956, the games were in Melbourne Australia.
Actually, it was a big success. It was one of the biggest, um, successes at the time. Everything was great. Everything was a hit, except for equestrian. The Olympic Australia had a six month horse. Quarantine was only horse that entered the country, had a quarantine for six months, which they didn’t tell the Olympic committee in their bid.
Um, which I’m sure would not have gone over. Well. They were unwilling to budge, I guess, to their credit. I don’t know. Um, so they had to find a alternative location for a. So they chose Sweden. Not really sure why, but they chose Stockholm and the host in the Olympics before. And so they had just equestrian in Stockholm.
They had an opening ceremony. Queen [00:15:00] Elizabeth from England was there. They had all the pop-in circumstance of a regular Olympics, but just for a equestrian. I just found that fascinating because of all sports to have all the pomp and circumstance and its own opening ceremony for equestrian, which is like one of the least watched, especially here.
And then I think I was so disappointed cuz of the quarantine took on new relevance, obviously in the last, you know, 18 months and it wasn’t a person quarantine, but a horse quarantine. And I thought. As I was sort of watching the, you know, pandemic unfold, that story stuck outta my head because I was like, well, are they gonna have to do that?
you know, when the games resume, um, they, I mean, they still may, for all we know, so yeah, that was a real heartbreaker just because I’ve just found it. So oddly delightful that they just figured out another place to go and it worked, it was a huge success and the rest of the games were. Part of it happened in a completely different part of the globe.
Jill Jaracz: The other fun thing about those games was that they were in like December because it was their summer. And you never see that today, even, you know, the talk about the, the heat in Tokyo, what [00:16:00] the last time Tokyo hosted, they were in the fall.
Jeremy Fuchs: Yeah, I, I would, you know, it’s so interesting about how things work for TV nowadays.
I remember in Beijing, they made it so that Michael Phelps’s races would be in prime time, even though it was like morning or like late afternoon or, you know, late morning in Beijing. Yeah. I, you know, you would think Japan in the summer is gonna be brutal. And some of those outside events are not gonna be fun, but things have become so, you know, professionalized and everything is just down to a science.
Changing things, which is what’s gonna make this game so fascinating. Um, but changing things is sort of a big deal in a way that in the early games changing was just, that’s. All they did was change things up and, you know, experiment and try new things nowadays. It’s, it’s so much more, you know, well organized and everything’s down to a science.
Jeremy Fuchs’ writing process
Jill Jaracz: Uh, how long did it take you to write this?
Jeremy Fuchs: So the first draft I had to do, just cuz of timing, thinking the Olympics were gonna come out in 2020 in about four and a [00:17:00] half months. The total book process was probably about a year with revisions edits. Adding some things, taking out some things, uh, photo research, or there’s some amazing photos in the book.
Um, illustration. So yeah, about a year total, the first draft took about five months. And then, yeah, we’ve just sort of been waiting, you know, when COVID came we’re like, all right, Olympics are postpone. Like, it doesn’t really make much sense. And so it was, uh, we were waiting longer than it actually took to produce, but, uh, it was exciting nonetheless, for it to come out and you know, now we get two Olympics sort of back to back.
So I think it actually in a weird way, the timing is gonna work out.
The other 1936 Olympics in Germany
Alison Brown: Yeah. Cuz you do talk both winter and summer. And some of the winter stories are, uh, amazing and fascinating. You know, the whole idea. We talk a lot about the Berlin 32 games, but you have a whole section on the winter games that were also in Germany in, in 36.
Excuse me.
Jeremy Fuchs: Yeah. This to me was the most, I, I, this is probably one of the most fascinating stories for me in the book, cuz everyone [00:18:00] knows 1936 games, the Jesse Owen games. One of probably the most well known games. This is sort of, Hitler’s big debut, I guess, in the world stage, you know, you have the Lenny reinstall videos and all these things, right.
You know, Jesse Owens has been ingrained in popular culture about sort of destroying the area in myth and all those things. They hosted a games in Germany a few months before that from the winter games in sort of a more industrial, um, town. And what I found so interesting was a few things. One. They were still Nazis.
They were not great. They weren’t a feel weird saying this. They didn’t go as far as they did in 1936. Right. So in 1936, you know, all the Jews were banned from, you know, From the German team in the winter games, they allowed like a half ger, a half June on the hockey team. There was like less signs of sort of like exclusionary things and sort of Nazi propaganda.
But there was still some, the way I sort of formulated was that it was like a trial balloon, [00:19:00] almost like how far could they go in the summer games, which would’ve gained more attention and were more popular at the time. And, you know, summer games probably still are more popular. So like they tried some things, it worked the press.
Bought into a lot of it. There was a lot of really bad, you know, New York times articles about how great things were and, you know, it was, for me, it was like, all right, how far can we get without people noticing? And no one really noticed they went further in 1936 in Berlin. I think they obviously weren’t.
Thinking that Jesse Owens was gonna go and win four gold medals, which sort of tore the whole thing apart. But I think it was so interesting because we don’t talk about those games. And I think, you know, obviously the Jesse Owens thing makes the Berlin game so memorable, but they were doing the same exact thing, just like one degree less.
And I think. Without that sort of breakthrough performance, no one really remembers it or talks about it. And I think it’s just as interesting, um, just as sort of terrifying in many ways and just as important as a political event and really one of the first times, you know, everyone [00:20:00] talks about in Berlin, how politics and sports come together as one, I mean, a few months earlier, the same thing was happening.
And I think it’s a, a games that. Deserves a lot more study and attention and sort of, you know, revisiting because you know, we now know how impactful those Berlin games were and they, that would not have happened without, uh, the winter games in garish for treatment.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Yeah. It’s just, it’s really interesting to think about that and think about how they really pushed the envelope.
And also just how the winter Olympics doesn’t get the same amount of attention even today. .
Jeremy Fuchs: Yeah, I, and I personally actually prefer the, I mean, I love both obviously, but I prefer the winter Olympics. They don’t get as much attention. I mean, some of it, you know, it happens in the middle of February, you know, it’s summer games.
People are off, maybe at least for part of it, it feels a little bit more festive, you know, as opposed to seeing everybody freezing. Um, but yeah, I, I think there’s definitely more to be written about those early 1936 games in the winter. [00:21:00] And I think, you know, we talk so much, we’re gonna talk about it again in 2022 in Beijing, about how politics and the Olympics collide.
This was one of the first, you know, world war I, there was games were being canceled. So obviously that was a political thing. But you know, by then, you know, in 1936, this was really the first major time that politics and the Olympics collided nowadays, you can’t separate the two it’s impossible before then you kind of could.
Even, you know, the 1932 games in LA the great depression, it was still sort of separate in some ways. And so, yeah, it’s a games that I think are, to me, have been fascinating to read about and to learn about, I, I hope through this book gets a little bit more attention.
The most surprising Olympian
Jill Jaracz: Is there an athlete that surprised you.
More so than any other in the stories. I mean, and like you say, it’s hard because we’re gonna get 10,500 stories this year that are all gonna be interesting. And yeah, we’re never gonna remember most of ’em, but, but, uh, any, especially in the [00:22:00] first section, Because that’s one of the things I liked about this book is that you had these firsts, that, that talk about different countries more so than
Jeremy Fuchs: yeah.
You know, actually I, you know, maybe cuz we were just talking about it, but Jesse Owens actually really surprised me. And I think everyone knows about what he did. You know, he won four gold medals. It was a. Cultural, you know, it’s a moment that everyone knows about, um, an African American man going into Nazi, Germany and winning.
And then to me, what the, you know, his sort of section of the book focuses on is coming home and it’s 1936 in America. And so he is, had this happen today. You could imagine the huge superstar he would be, he came home. There was definitely some fanfare for sure. Um, he wasn’t invited to the white house. He has a quote and I, and I’m butchering it, but something along the lines of, you know, you can’t eat four gold medals.
Um, and so he sort of had to sort of out of necessity do sort of the things that we might consider side shows, right? So he, he would race horses. You know, he was a [00:23:00] salesman, he was doing all these different things, but he had to make a living. Right. And you can only run fast for so long. And he came home and was treated, you know, not the heroes welcome that you would expect from winning four gold medals.
He was treated like any other African American was at that point in time. And, you know, for decades, you know, thereafter, um, and it’s a part of his story that doesn’t get told. Um, it’s a part of his story that I think needs to be told because it’s the realities of that time period in our country. Even people who accomplish amazing things and have a narrative, especially now is sort of defeating white supremacy only comes home.
His experience is anything but the heroes welcome. And so that was really sort of fascinating, a little painful to, to read about, you know, that even, even those who competencies, you do these amazing, you know, world beating feats, uh, you come home and, and things aren’t changed. And so, and that comes up a number of times for African American athletes, especially, you know, in the thirties, forties and fifties, but, you know, obviously through.
Our country’s history, gold medal feats, right. Win a gold medal Olympics, and then you come home and things aren’t any better. [00:24:00] Um, and so that was fascinating, obviously painful. And I think, again, something that people need to know about that, you know, just because you’re an Olympic hero doesn’t mean you come home and, and things are changed.
Discontinued Olympic sports and events
Jill Jaracz: You’ve got another section in the book about discontinued sports, which is always fun to read about, because like you say, back in the day, The Olympics were kind of, uh, chaotic, but they also had some wacky wacky stuff. What kind of sports were you surprised to see were part of the games at one point in time?
Jeremy Fuchs: Yeah. All the sports that were discontinued were weird. I mean, let’s just say that up front. There’s a reason they were discontinued and that it was so much fun to write about. Like especially the early games, you know, newspaper coverage in the early 19 hundreds is fantastic. I mean, it’s, it’s bad in many ways, but it’s also fantastic.
And the way they would be very colorful in their writing in a way that you don’t see today. To me, the biggest surprise by far was art for like 50 years, they had [00:25:00] art painting, sculpture, architecture, music, literature, you name it. It was there. The idea sort of makes sense. You know, Pierre de cup tan, the founder of the modern games.
Definitely had this belief of sort of the mind and body working together in concert. And if you had a strong mind, you had a strong body and vice versa. And so they have these art competitions and they sort of continue today, um, not in a competition sense, but they have sort of these cultural exhibits at, at every games, you know, in the modern era.
Um, but back then, you know, you could win gold, silver, bronze. Um, there were judge competitions. It, the reason it stopped and this was actually took me by surprise was not because it wasn’t a sport was. Because these artists in many cases were not amateurs, you know, back then being an amateur was the biggest thing.
If you were not, you know, today it’s like so odd to think about given, you know, some of the obviously professional athletes in many cases, when I see the NBA stars, uh, but also the endorsement money that comes. You know, it’s hard not to see a commercial that doesn’t have Simon bios or so many of these people back then, [00:26:00] like sacri.
So these artists were professionals. And so that’s sort of why it stopped. Not because art and sports, you know, it doesn’t really go. And it was so fascinating to me because first of all, some of these competitions like win, have a golden medal winner, but would have a. Bronze medal winner, like, or they would have a silver medalist, but not a gold, not a bronze.
And so you, I feel like if you’re the silver medalist, you have to wonder if no one beat you. Are you really the gold medalist? I guess not. You’re good, but not that good. And so, you know, I think. That was just so odd to me. Like, here’s this great, the greatest athlete in the world, and you have a painter, not against painters, but like it’s not an Olympic sport.
And so, and to have that for so many games, you know, so many of these discontinued sports I talked to talked about were in the Olympics once, maybe twice. Art Olympics was there for like 40, 50 years. And so even some of these sports that weren’t there for that long were at least had an athletic component to them.
Um, you know, obviously art doesn’t. Um, so that was fascinating to [00:27:00] learn about and read about and, and, and investigate. As were all the discontinued sports. I mean, you know, these, some of the times it was hard to find information about them. You know, you think the Olympics there’s, everything has been written about it.
And like sometimes was like, there was something I couldn’t find like anything on, you know, it was firefighting at the 1900 Olympics and there was just like nothing on it. I know the Americans won. There was like one sentence and like one story somewhere. And like, that was it. And then some of them have been really written about like my personal favorite is called plunge for distance.
Um, which every year I think people are like, oh, I could do that. I think plunge for distance is the one event you could actually do. It was only in one games again, for good reason, you dive into a pool and you see how far you float without moving. Person who goes so far, those wins, you know, there’s a reason, obviously that didn’t stay, but like I find that sport fascinating and how that sort of came to be.
And I don’t know, maybe I could do well on that. Maybe that’s why I like it so much. As opposed to the sports you see today, like everyone like makes a joke [00:28:00] about curling. It’s like, oh, I could do that. And you can’t obviously it’s really hard. I, I think PL maybe that’s why they got rid of it. Cuz punch for distance was too easy.
Um, you just see what happens, you just dive and see what happens and like. That still bothers my mind, you know, all these, you know, even after writing it and the book coming out like that just is like, that’s awesome. To me.
Jill Jaracz: maybe there’s a limit on how far the, the human body can flow.
Jeremy Fuchs: Well, eventually you stop.
Yeah. Eventually you stop. You don’t just go on forever. Eventually
Jill Jaracz: you die.
Researching Total Olympics
Jeremy Fuchs: Well that too. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, they would just keep going. Um, and this, the New York times, again, I, I think one of the, the best parts about writing the book was going back into the archives of so many newspapers and magazines.
Especially in the early 19 hundreds, when, you know, they have the exact quotes in the book, it’s something like, you know, it favors the, the mere mountains of fat among us, which is one of my favorite quotes of all time. And they just sort of put it out there. But yeah, that, that to me is one of the best.
And you know, if that were to come back, I would, you know, I would be, uh, I’d fully support it.
Jill Jaracz: When you [00:29:00] did the research, did you read all these old articles in the old timey voice?
Jeremy Fuchs: Oh yeah, of course. Yeah, the
Jill Jaracz: traditions.
Jeremy Fuchs: It, that was like the best part. I mean, I love doing historical research in general, which.
Part the reason why I, you know, I was tracked to this book, but like, yeah, those articles are so bad, but so good. And some of the information trying to extract stuff from it is like, it’s just written sometimes in what seems like a different language.
What Jeremy Fuchs is looking forward to at Tokyo 2020
Alison Brown: What are you excited about for Tokyo?
Jeremy Fuchs: You it’s been so weird cause I’ve been asked this obviously a number of times about like what’s gonna happen in Tokyo and.
I am on one hand. So incredibly excited, especially sort of having obviously been robbed of it for one year. Um, I’m also conflicted. I don’t know if you guys feel that way. I feel like it’s gonna be very odd and sort of like, I don’t know, holding my breath a little bit, not just a, I mean, just the, the thought that an athlete might have to miss or, you know, people obviously getting really sick and, you know, and worse, it’s just that sort of specter over it is so uncomfortable.
[00:30:00] but at the same time, I think it’s gonna be hard not to enjoy it. Um, just because I think we haven’t had that type of event, obviously in a long time, you know, we’ve been waiting a while for it, obviously a little bit longer than usual. I think for me, you know, in the summer, my favorite events, I mean, I, I do love swimming.
You it’s, again, it’s not a sporty watch outside of the Olympic. , but it has sort of the drama that makes, you know, for great entertainment and great sports, same thing with, uh, track and fields. I really enjoy the basketball, you know, as somebody who’s sort of a casual NBA fan, I find I actually enjoy it more sort of seeing it in a different, in a different light.
I think people need to know how good the Americans are at water polo. Um, both men’s and women, um, sort of dominant the same thing with, you know, women’s rowing. This is sport. I enjoy watching they’re women. The women’s eight team is just beyond dominant. That would be a lot of fun to watch. I mean, I think getting a chance to see, you know, a legend like Simon Biles is just really cool to have that experience, um, to [00:31:00] see the best of all time probably in her prime is just kind of awesome.
So I think there’s a lot to look forward to. That’s a lot to sort of. Be concerned about a lot’s to just like, all right, are we gonna get through this? You know, are people gonna be okay? Is it gonna be weird with no fans? There are very limited fans there. You know, I was reading today. They can’t really make any noise.
Uh, the fans who are allowed, which I don’t know how you police that, but it’s, it’s gonna be very different. It’s gonna be obviously a little bit uncomfortable, but at the same time, I think there’s gonna be enough. That’ll make, obviously people, you know, keep watching, but at the same time, like we’re gonna have.
You know, hold our breath just a little bit, which is gonna make for something obviously that we’ve never experienced before
Jill Jaracz: out of the five new sports are quote unquote, new sports. Cuz we have some of returning sport in the program. What are you most looking forward to?
Jeremy Fuchs: Yeah, well, I would say baseball, but I’m not sure that qualifies because returning sport three and three basketball should be really interesting.
It’s like, again, [00:32:00] you know, it’s very clear that the IOC is trying to get younger. Viewers younger fans, which makes sense. You know, you see surfing and skateboarding and you know, some of the winter events, like the big air event and snowboarding and three on three, I think is another way to do that. I think it’ll be interesting just because it’s sort of an odd format for the sport.
It’s you kind of think about just like pick up basketball with your friends and playing three on three, you know, in a way that you kind of can’t do with any of these other sports. I don’t know, it’ll be interesting. And I think I’ll be really curious to see if any of three on three stars, you know, particularly from the us, but even around the world, it’s like, all right, can they parlay this into like an NBA career would be interesting to me.
Yeah. I think that’d be interesting to see and also just like, see it just suppose against the traditional basketball, which is gonna have some big stars. I think it’ll be interesting to see what sort of play it gets, cuz it. It’s basketball. It’s, you know, basketball’s one of the biggest sports there and it’s like a, the weird cousin.
So that’ll be interesting to see how that sort of plays out. And I’ll be curious to, uh, to watch it and [00:33:00] really see it for the first time, at least at a high level,
Getting the Paralympics into the mainstream
Jill Jaracz: you also include the Paralympics here and there in the book.
Jeremy Fuchs: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: How do you think the world or at least the country here in the us, how we’re starting to see the Paralympics.
Jeremy Fuchs: I think it’s awesome. We have so much work to do in terms of making the Paralympics more mainstream. You know, the fact that they’re on TV, I think is incredible. I imagine most people sort of tune out for the Paralympics. The, you are starting to get more coverage. Um, some of the stars, um, are starting, are starting to become, you know, more part of the regular Olympic coverage, particularly in the trials.
I don’t think people realize how awesome the Paralympics are. Getting a chance to write about some of, some of the athletes in the Paralympics was unbelievable. You know, you, you think, you know, you’re dealing with people who are, have probably some of the most perseverance out there and unbelievable athletes just doing unbelievable things.
I hope that we can start to cover it and [00:34:00] watch it and just sort of talk about it a little bit more. Everybody was talking, obviously the Oscar Astoria, not the later Oscar Astoria, but the Olympian, Oscar Astorian part. And I think people were sort of intrigued by that. Um, but if you wanna see more of that, just wait after the Olympics and watch the whole thing.
You know, you get some different events, you get some of the same events, you know, the great thing about the Olympics that I just love more. Anything is being able to see people from all walks of life. You know, everyone made fun. Everyone was sort of, you know, the internet was a blazed with that Tongan and.
Guy who was all covering oil, but it’s, it’s a, it’s a way to see different cultures, right. Or, and different walks of life. And you sort of see, particularly in countries that we don’t know much about, uh, whether it’s the traditional dress or whatever, the same thing applies to the Paralympics. There are people from different walks of life.
We’re dealing with things that maybe we don’t have experience with or too much exposure to. And so if we think of the Olympics as more than a sporting event, as sort of this cultural. It’s sort of a history lesson, sort of this crash course in, in world culture and history in a, and he’s like the best way to learn about [00:35:00] these things.
Cause you’re watching sports, but you’re also learning. I think people get a lot more out of it and that’s how I try to approach just watching it and writing about it. We’re learning and we’re seeing so many things that we just don’t get to see on a daily basis, you know? Yes, professional sports are much more globalized than they used to be.
And you know, the NBA has all these amazing international players, but that. They’re talking about on the court stuff, you know, by and large, this is a chance to learn sort of what happens off it. Um, and I think the Paralympics are just another representation of. Just getting more exposure to different types of people from different backgrounds from all over the world, um, and how they sort of all work to do something incredible.
And yeah, I hope we start to do more of it. We’re obviously not anywhere close. And I, you know, I include some Paralympians. I sort, I, you know, certainly could have included a whole lot more. And so I hope that, you know, we can start talking a little bit more and there’s some of just amazing stories in the Paralympics.
Just say the Olympics and it deserves, it deserves all that coverage and more.
What’s next for Jeremy Fuchs
Jill Jaracz: Uh, so what is next for you? Are you gonna write more Olympic stuff or, [00:36:00]
Jeremy Fuchs: yeah. Um, you know, T B D exactly. I would love to keep writing about the Olympics and sort of this historical, quasi historical lens that I’ve sort of applied to it.
You know, like I said earlier on there’s so many more stories that we haven’t talked about or stories that got a little bit of attention in the book and are probably worth more. Yeah, for me, I think it’s something that’s a lifelong endeavor. It’s just writing and, and learning and, you know, exploring the Olympics as a sports writer, but just, you know, putting sort of this historical cultural lens is something that, you know, I don’t think I’ll ever stop doing.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. Games are 17 days long. What are your strategies for watching them and the endurance of the event?
Jeremy Fuchs: Yeah. I mean, you gotta stretch and stay hydrated, have the proper snackage nearby. I think you have to, the most important thing is to not be discouraged. When people tell you to turn the channel. I [00:37:00] remember very vividly in college.
The Olympics. It was really only not an issue, but it was really only a thing. It only occurred once with the winter games when I was in college. Cause I was like right before my, it was like my senior year of high school and my senior year of college for the Olympics. Obviously the summer games didn’t really count for that.
And so I was my senior year of college. I was living with three guys and I was watching 24 7 and they were so annoyed. There was one TV. and they were not happy with me. And the first few days, eh, it was fun. Let’s watch the Olympics together. And then by day five, they were done and I was just beginning.
And so I think you have to have that endurance. I think the same thing, you know, now by like day 12 or 13, my wife gets a little tired of it this year. I have the excuse by saying like, it’s my job. I have to watch it, which I can’t wait to use. I don’t know how long it’s gonna last. Yeah, you just have to be dedicated and.
And, you know, take it also, I think like how cool is it? You can watch it 24 7, like the best part to me about working from, you know, obviously all working from home now, or, you know, [00:38:00] many of us still are, I can have like three screens going and no one’s gonna judge me. Like, that’s awesome. I don’t think I’ll get much work done, but you know, that’s okay.
I guess for it’s only two weeks, so it’s not too bad. There’s some weekends there. Yeah. It’s I don’t know. To me, it’s like, it’s just the, the coolest thing. Uh, I have like three events going on at once.
Jill Jaracz: I was gonna ask about multiple screen strategies.
Jeremy Fuchs: Definitely. If you have like a dual monitor set up, which like I, which I have on the computer, that’s a good way to start.
You know, you get one Mo you can get one monitor and the TV, the phone is underrated. It can work too. Like, it’s sort of, this is what I do with like March madness too. You have to sort of stagger what’s important. Um, you don’t need to see every single minute of every event, but if you kind of know. When things are getting interesting, you know, you don’t have to watch the first heat of a swimming event, but like, you know, you gotta be ready for the final one.
Um, I think if you sort of learn that and, and I think I, I do this often throughout the day, it’s like all what’s on in prime [00:39:00] time, like what, it’s gonna be a replay. What can I watch live? You obviously, it’s very easy to just turn on in prime time. You’ll get a good gist of the games, but some of the exciting stuff, especially given when there’s a tie difference, like there will be this.
Being able to watch some of those things live is pretty exciting. And to again, it’s just more opportunities to watch and, you know, to learn more, we, we we’ve been delayed a year, so I feel like we have to like get as much as we possibly can.
Jill Jaracz: All right. Excellent. Thank you so much, Jeremy, you can follow Jeremy on Twitter.
He is at J a F 78. He was a lot of fun. I do. The book is a lot of fun.
Alison Brown: The book is a lot of fun, and I do wanna mention that. We never talk to an Olympic historian without getting into some Avery brandage talk. And that is correct. We’ve we have saved that for our special patrons.
Jill Jaracz: Right? So to get that bonus audio, you can go to patreon.com/flame live pod and select one of the levels that [00:40:00] offers bonus audio.
Every month you get a special show just for you.
TKFLASTAN News
Alison Brown: Welcome to CHLA dog.
Jill Jaracz: Yes, it is time to check in with our team. Keep the flame alive who are past guests of our show this week, some tough news for our para equestrian writer, Sydney Collier. She was named to be an alternate for this year’s Paralympics, but the good thing is she gets to travel with the team to Tokyo and, and you’re part of the team.
I will say that it’s better than not being on the team.
Alison Brown: Going to camp and they will be heading to Tokyo.
Jill Jaracz: So, uh, congratulations to Sydney
Alison Brown: coinciding with her departure as the member of the IOC, ke and Randall has stepped down from her role on the us O P C board of directors as well.
Jill Jaracz: And our, uh, Paralympian John register was M M was CD, uh, the opening of the park union bridge in downtown Colorado Springs.
So [00:41:00] Olympic
Alison Brown: city.
Jill Jaracz: Exactly.
Tokyo 2020 News
Bun
of Tokyo 2020 news. As always, if you’re driving down the highway or in one of some select cities across America, you might see the Olympic rings because NBC is trucking ’em around in their rings across America tour, which is kind of, it is a massively long semi with like the middle cutout. And the rings are on a pedist or are just like propped up on, on little sta uh, a stand and then there’s just a Tokyo signage around it.
Alison Brown: Will they throw me some Oreos?
Jill Jaracz: I think I, I would be nice just from the truck throw ’em out.
Alison Brown: Yeah. Like they throw beads at Mardi GRA.
Jill Jaracz: Right, right. Uh, so it was first in Los Angeles over the, this past weekend, then it’s on its way to Chicago for a J a July 9th stop then to Miami, [00:42:00] Orlando, Washington, DC, and New York city, the opening, it gets to New York opening day and it will be at Rockefeller Plaza.
If you it’ll, the rings will cover 8,000 miles of roads and visit 25 states. So maybe you will see them bad news in coming out of Tokyo is that COVID cases are rising and they, they really are rising from, they were like a couple hundred. And now in they’re in like the five, six hundreds. So that’s not great news.
It’s. Very worrisome for the organizing committee for the government. So the organizing committee, uh, is considering postponing the announcement of the ticket lottery results, which were supposed to be announced on July. Now it may be a wait and see, because we may have to change the limit on spectators again, because right now it’s maximum 10,000 or 50% of the VE the venue, but they may have to take that 10,000 number down kind of crummy news.
If you are a [00:43:00] Japanese athlete, the Kyodo news is reporting that. You will only be eligible to take part in the opening and closing ceremonies, if you are staying at the athlete’s village around that time or eligible to stay at the athlete’s village around that time. So that’s part of all of the regular steps.
That’s kind of a bummer because you’re already somewhat local and it would be, you know, that whole, you walk in as the host nation and the stadium goes crazy moment. That’s uh, really something that a lot of athletes have mentioned to us is so powerful, but it’s really a kind of a bummer that some of these athletes will not get to have those moments.
The Japanese Olympic committee has also told sports federations that athletes will not be allowed to take photos with their smartphones or cameras when they March in the stadium. No reason why, but maybe it’s because they’ll wanna be close to each other. And I, you know, just like, oh, Hey, take a, let’s take a [00:44:00] picture of you and me or whatever, but that’s also kind of rough
Alison Brown: or maybe they’re just using it as an excuse, cuz they’re tired of seeing all the athletes walk around with their phones,
Jill Jaracz: I think.
But I, I also get it from the athlete’s perspective. Like I gotta capture this moment.
Alison Brown: Right. It’s remember when John McCloud was telling us how he back in 76, tried to sneak his. You know, Kodak, Insta Chrome into the, he has one sort of blurry picture. So it’s, it’s a once in a lifetime event. So understood both ways here.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm also some frustrating news from inside. The games Samoa has closed its borders due to COVID. So that affects the athletes who are currently in the country. If they’re in the country, they can’t get out of the country. And that means they can’t go to Tokyo. To compete in the games because they don’t know when this band will be lifted.
So that affects three weight lifters. So [00:45:00] they will not be competing this year. Uh, athletes from Samoa who are currently training in other countries, they can go to Japan, but they can’t go to Samoa when they’re done.
Alison Brown: I’m very worried. Now,
Jill Jaracz: are you, are I, I don’t like the spike.
Alison Brown: I don’t like the spike. The bloom is definitely off the rose.
I wonder if I’m even going to be able to enjoy it all that much.
Jill Jaracz: That’s a good question. I, I kind of wonder if we need to see more teams arriving and if we can get few through a few countries coming in, and there’s no cases that get off the plane,
Alison Brown: because you know, there is no way that this is gonna come off well in the media.
Certainly not in the us.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: We just know the narrative has already been written
Jill Jaracz: mm-hmm
Alison Brown: maybe Simone Biles can go flip over something and distract everybody.
Jill Jaracz: I hope so.
Alison Brown: Maybe she can do a triple pike and [00:46:00] that we’ll be talking about that forever.
Jill Jaracz: I hope so. And the sad thing is only time we’ll tell, come on Japan.
Come on, athletes. Delegations. Let’s do our part.
Alison Brown: You know who doesn’t get COVID
Jill Jaracz: who?
Alison Brown: Dogs.
Jill Jaracz: Hm.
Alison Brown: That’s why I still say dogs should be in the Olympics.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, maybe someday. What would be fun is if there was new Paralympic competitions. So instead of running with a guide runner, you run with your guide dog.
Alison Brown: I would love that anything to have a dog involved, my dog will make me feel better and make me more excited.
Jill Jaracz: There you go.
Alison Brown: She, she watches it with me, so she’s definitely an Olympic fan.
Jill Jaracz: There we go. There, we. Well, that will do it for this episode. Let us know what you think about the ongoing, ongoing COVID situation in Japan.
Alison Brown: Email us@flamealivepodgmail.com or call or text us at (208) [00:47:00] 352-6348. That’s 2 0 8. Flame.
It. We’re flame alive pod on Twitter and Insta and keep the flame alive podcast group on Facebook.
Jill Jaracz: Join us on Thursday when we are going to have historian Georgia servant on to talk about the evolution of women’s gymnastics. So as we go out to music by mercury sunset, thank you so much for listening.
And until next time, keep the flame alive time
Theme Music: to think that you’re in a. I start of what’s inside.[00:48:00]
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