Thanks to a US-led boycott, the first Olympics hosted by a communist country has long been a big black hole in our knowledge of the Olympics — until now.
On this episode, we’re joined by author Tommy Phillips, who wrote The 1980 Moscow Olympics: A Day-by-Day History. His book captures all of the major happenings at these Olympics, which were dominated by the USSR and East Germany. These countries’ athletes dominated with skill and athleticism….and also maybe thanks to doping and some clever help along the way.
We talk with Tommy about some of the wilder hijinks at play during the Games, as well as which nations benefitted from the US and its boycott allies not being at these Olympics.
Get your own copy of Tommy’s book at our bookshop.org storefront.
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TRANSCRIPT
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441-Moscow 1980 Olympics Tommy Phillips
Theme Music
Jill Jaracz: Hello, and [00:00:30] welcome to another episode of Keep the Flame Alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. If you love the games, we are the show for you. I am your host, Jill Jaracz, joined as always by my lovely co-host, Alison Brown. Alison, hello. How are you?
Alison Brown: Hello. In the depths of the summer heat.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Today, uh, it’s, it’s like 2:00 in the afternoon and we haven’t had a power outage here in, in my house, so that’s great.
Alison Brown: That’s a, that’s a party time. That is party time. Don’t open the [00:01:00] refrigerator door.
Jill Jaracz: I know. I know. I know. , But summer is also a big time of Olympic anniversaries. We have talked a little bit about Montreal’s 1976 50th anniversary.
We’ll be talking about Atlanta 1996’s 30th anniversary on our next episode, which means it’s been five years since our Atlanta 1996 history moments.
Alison Brown: That’s amazing to me, ’cause that feels like we just did that Olympics.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. It’s, it’s nuts it’s already 30 years. [00:01:30] but today we’re marking 26 years because, we are profiling the book, “The Mo- 1980 Moscow Olympics: A Day by Day History” by Keep the Flame Alive listener and author Tommy Phillips.
Book came out last year in time for that 25th anniversary, but we were, like, in the throes of Milano Cortina planning.
Alison Brown: Exactly. We couldn’t focus on 25th anniversary when all we could think of was snow.
Jill Jaracz: Right. So, [00:02:00] Moscow 1980 took place on July 19th through August 3rd, and it’s always been a dark spot for us thanks to the US-led boycott of these games.
It’s been a big, black, dark hole for us, but thank you to Tommy. He fills in those missing gaps with what happened during the competition. Some of it is amazing. Some of it is outrageous. Take a listen
Interview with Tommy Phillips, author of The 1980 Moscow Olympics: A Day-by-Day History
Tommy Phillips, you’ve written the book The 1980 Moscow Olympics: A Day-by-Day History, [00:02:30] filling a big black hole for Alison and me, so we really appreciate that. Oh, Thank you so much for being here.
Tommy Phillips: You’re welcome. Yeah, it’s nice. It’s great being here.
How Tommy got interested in Moscow 1980
Jill Jaracz: what drew you to writing this book?
Tommy Phillips: Well, I got, uh, interested in these Olympics because of an old book I had. It was a book on the 1992 Olympics where it had all the medal counts, and I looked in the medal count and I’m [00:03:00] like, “Oh, USA is in every single one of these except one.” And I was like, ” why are they not in this 1980 one?” And I couldn’t figure it out, so, I researched it and figured out that they boycotted those Olympics.
That was me as a kid getting interested in this topic. And then I, later on in life, I decided, you know what? I’ve never really figured out what even happened during those [00:03:30] Olympics, so I want to research them, and that’s what I did.
Alison Brown: Yeah, we’ve never figured out what happened in those Olympics- … until we read the book, which-
which when Jill says it’s a black hole because as you talk about in the book, there was no coverage in the United States.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah. Yeah, no TV coverage except for, one guy who got a 16-foot satellite dish on his house so he could get the Russian [00:04:00] broadcasts in. But yeah, aside from that, there were only, like, a few minutes of highlights, and that was it, so no one really knew what was going on.
Jill Jaracz: That is a dedicated fan
Tommy Phillips: Mm-hmm.
Jill Jaracz: I would say.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah. Yeah.
Preconceived notions about the Moscow 1980 Olympics
Jill Jaracz: What were your preconceived notions about Moscow before you started doing the research and really digging into those games?
Tommy Phillips: Well, I figured that the reason why [00:04:30] the Soviet Union won all the medals was simply because they had the most people there. But what I didn’t realize was that they were using all sorts of ways of getting their athletes across the finish line, so to speak.
Like the javelin throws, every time a Soviet javelin thrower went back to throw it, they’d open up the doors of the stadium [00:05:00] to, let the wind come in, and then after that they’d close them again for the next person. So yeah, crazy stories like that. I never expected those things. I thought that the Soviets were dominant you know, mainly because of their many people, but I didn’t realize what lengths they went to help their players win.
Jill Jaracz: One of the [00:05:30] interesting things was, uh, the men’s basketball tournament where- Mm-hmm … it was like a repeat of Munich 1972, where they kept- Yeah … putting seconds back on the clock, but it didn’t- Yeah … work in their favor this time. Yeah. Yeah. And, that was the one that probably they wanted to win the most was the men’s basketball gold medal, and they figured it was gonna be easy because United States wasn’t there.
Tommy Phillips: And then Italy beat them, [00:06:00] Yugoslavia ended up with the gold medal, and they ended up with just a bronze medal in basketball, which they were all whistling and which I guess that’s the way they boo over in Russia, is by whistling all the time. And they, they did that because they expected it to be an easy gold medal, and it wasn’t
Doping and Moscow 1980
Alison Brown: Another way that they put their [00:06:30] finger on the scales was doping
Tommy Phillips: Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Th- that wasn’t just the Soviets, though. That was pretty much everyone in the Eastern Bloc, especially the East Germans. it was so amusing whenever I, went back to write about each gold medalist, and it was, it one after another. It would say, yeah, this person was caught doping in this year.
there was a ton of doping going on. It ma- it made [00:07:00] the BALCO incident look like nothing. basically almost everyone who won a medal in those swimming events had some sort of doping going on, at least those for the Eastern Bloc countries
Alison Brown: But nobody caught doping in, in Moscow?
Tommy Phillips: No, they, ended up with zero positive tests and until years later after the fact But they tried to claim that they were [00:07:30] the cleanest Olympics ever because they never had an official, doping case. But yeah, those were all found out whenever Germany was reunified and the Soviet Union collapsed
Jill Jaracz: I wanna talk a little bit about Moscow as a host. Do you think Moscow was a good host choice for this time period? Because , this Games was really down [00:08:00] between LA and- Mm-hmm … Moscow to be the host.
Tommy Phillips: Right. So in ’76 it was between Montreal, Moscow, and LA, and Montreal won that one. the next two were like, okay, whoever’s left on the list, we’ll let them do it.
And it was, so Moscow won the ’80, and then it was like, okay, LA automatically wins ’84. obviously with the boycotts and everything, it probably wasn’t [00:08:30] the best choice, though it did have some pretty impressive venues. So I can’t argue with the choices of, of some of these venues. They were really nice.
But, probably not the best idea to host the Olympics in Moscow in these times, that’s for sure.
Who benefitted most from the US-led boycott of Moscow 1980
Jill Jaracz: we talk about a boycott. Who benefits most from this boycott?
Tommy Phillips: probably the home country in East Germany basically, because they get [00:09:00] all the medals that United States would’ve won or, Other countries such as Japan. yeah, so Soviet Union, East Germany benefited the most. I mean, I’m sure they would’ve benefited just from being at home, but the fact that United States wasn’t there, they did a lot better.
Alison Brown: Don’t wanna dwell on the boycott, but I I do wanna mention something that struck me in your notes was [00:09:30] Afghanistan didn’t boycott. Afghanistan was- Mm-hmm … there.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah.
Alison Brown: Which I found so surprising.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah. I really don’t know the story behind that. they didn’t boycott, but I, I was surprised about it
Alison Brown: And then the press talking about the boycott.
Whoever, all the American press- Mm-hmm … is the worst games ever. Yeah, yeah. And all the, the, European press it was the best games ever. Yeah. So talk a lit- just talk a little bit about how it was, perceived so differently in the different [00:10:00] places.
Tommy Phillips: whenever you look at the United States press and talking about Olympics, they would make fun of, Lord Killanin.
IOC, they’d be making fun of him and saying, you know, he was overweight and stuff. they had some weird, insults for him. And then the Russian media and the media from other parts of the world were talking about how it was such a fantastic, Olympics.
Everything was fine. [00:10:30] And then of course there were the Journalists who were in Moscow itself, and they were getting arrested for saying things that weren’t nice enough to the Soviets and, yeah, a whole bunch of controversy with that
Sports that had vastly different rules at the Moscow 1980 Oympics
Jill Jaracz: Some of the sports had really different competition rules Mm-hmm wrestling comes to mind and, and we’ve talked- Mm-hmm … from talking with the- That’s true … the Dulcet Tones of Jason Bryant, we know that wrestling has [00:11:00] had a lot of format cha- and rule changes over the decades and, uh, a lot of problems with that. But this sport was really weird. first, did you have any idea that wrestling was so different when you first started looking into it?
Tommy Phillips: No. No. No, I, I had no idea, and honestly, by the end I had as much of an idea as I did at the beginning. It was so confusing. I’m like, “Okay, so you got penalty points. If you got so [00:11:30] many points you get eliminated,” and then there’d be a second round, and then we’d find out who got the most points and they’d get eliminated, and by the end it was like, how did that person end up with the gold medal whenever they didn’t have the most penal- the least penalty points?
, It was so bizarre. I thought that was one of the more amusing events of how they scored it, [00:12:00] definitely.
Jill Jaracz: Right, because it didn’t even seem like you had to win a match. You just had to- Right … escape with the most-
Tommy Phillips: Yeah …
Jill Jaracz: with the least points, and you stayed in. Mm-hmm. It was just like, let me get fewer points than everybody else or just at least one more guy- Yeah
and I stay in the match, Yeah. “This was really weird, and who thought this was a good idea?”
Um, there were still a lot of, we have no elimination brackets, we just have round robin play. Yeah. And then-
Tommy Phillips: Yeah …
Jill Jaracz: the winners, uh, there’s no gold medal game [00:12:30] per se. Right. There’s just, well, you, you won the round robin, so therefore- Yeah … you win.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah. You’d have six teams and just a round robin.
Although some of them did have gold medal games, but they were a lot different because you didn’t have semifinals, you just had the top two teams playing each other for the gold, and then the third and fourth place teams playing for the bronze. most of these events though, they, they had a hard time [00:13:00] finding pe- teams to even participate, which is why Zimbabwe ended up winning the gold medal in, women’s field hockey
Jill Jaracz: There were a lot of lucky countries. Yeah. It, it felt like a lot of lucky- Yeah … athletes and a lot of lucky countries who all of a sudden found themselves going to the Olympics when they had not planned to.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah. yeah, you had some really weird, choices for teams to be in these [00:13:30] competitions whenever they, had to go to the next alternate and the next alternate and the next alternate, so to speak
Jill Jaracz: it just is so wild. But in a way, like, that’s a silver lining in a sense- Yeah … for some of these very small countries to get to have that recognition of having Olympians, and for those sports getting more interest in-
Tommy Phillips: Yeah
Jill Jaracz: in other countries, right?
Tommy Phillips: Yeah. Yeah, so that was a real bonus to those [00:14:00] countries who, got to compete. But the problem was is that it was pretty much no competition for the host country, and they simply used it as a way of getting just another medal on their, what was it, 80 gold medals? Something like that.
a- at the time it was the most gold medals ever, and then, then LA ended up being one more than that for the United [00:14:30] States.
Jill Jaracz: in a way that’s like a big, “Hey.” Yeah. “We’re the, we’re the top dog, really.”
Tommy Phillips: Yeah.
Who would have won if there had been no boycott of the Moscow 1980 Olympics
Alison Brown: You, you mentioned a lot when you were talking about the press coverage that a lot of the athletes were asked about would you have won, if the United States et al. had not boycott? And, and a lot of the athletes seemed to have the same answer. It was like, “I’m the one who’s here.”
Tommy Phillips: Yeah.
Alison Brown: To-
Tommy Phillips: Yeah …
Alison Brown: it-
Tommy Phillips: [00:15:00] almost all the athletes would just be like, “Well, so and so isn’t here, so, uh, we can’t really say anything about it.”
And even Yugoslavia basketball, men’s basketball team was like, “Oh, we, we probably could beat the United States, but we’re not gonna take on their challenge.” So, ’cause some people had suggested United States to challenge Yugoslavian basketball, and [00:15:30] it was like, “Nah, we’re good.” So, no one wanted to talk about who was missing.
They just wanted to talk about, “Oh, yeah, I won the gold medal and that’s all that mattered.”
Jill Jaracz: Well, and Yugoslavian basketball, like you see the- Hmm … different entities from Yugoslavia- Mm-hmm … that are countries today- Yeah … and how big they are in basketball now.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: And it’s just kind of inter- especially three x three, you get these other [00:16:00] styles.
Yeah. And they’re still a powerhouse even though, I mean, I think some h- sports historians would wanna go, well, these games have an asterisk because of the boycott, and LA has- Mm-hmm … an asterisk bef- because of the boycott. Mm-hmm. But, but let’s be honest, Americans don’t think LA has an asterisk. Yeah. They just wanna put an asterisk on Moscow 1980.
Yeah. And I’m sure the reverse is the same too- Yeah … when, when Russians talk about the ’84 games. But like, like we’ve said, it’s- Who’s there is what [00:16:30] matters Mm-hmm And who’s there, you know, they, that’s who wins the gold. And you say that for any sport and any event where you have injuries or countries not participating or whatever.
Doesn’t matter. Nobody remembers who wasn’t there at some point in time. Right. Yeah.
Tommy Phillips: yeah, it just goes into the books as a gold medal, and most people don’t look back and say, “Oh, this is who they beat, and they had less competition.” the triple jump. This was crazy. They had [00:17:00] two people, a Brazilian and Australian in the triple jump.
Both broke the Olympic record, and both of them were disqualified for or fouled on it. and These were people who never fouled in their entire careers, so they were like, “How did that even happen?” And of course, the Soviets ended up one and two in the standings. but those would’ve both been Olympic [00:17:30] records, and they got wiped out by, some shady judging.
Alison Brown: some questionable fouls- Yeah … let’s say.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah, yeah.
Perceptions as Tommy tackled the topic of Moscow 1980
Alison Brown: When you were writing the book, I’m curious, and, and this would come up, did you ever get any pushback like, “Oh, why are you writing about Moscow?”
Tommy Phillips: Well, a- actually, the funny thing is no- most people didn’t know I was even writing the book about it. So I was doing all this football stuff at the same time, so [00:18:00] it was kind of a side project, uh, for a while, and then I really got into it.
But everyone thought I was writing about football at the time. So, some people did find it, it, uh, incredibly interesting that I was doing it on the ’80 games, because they were like, “Oh, so those are the ones we didn’t go to.” So I was like, “Yeah.” So, but yeah, overall, most people didn’t realize I was even writing [00:18:30] this book.
Alison Brown: Your secret obsession, Tommy.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah. We’ve
Alison Brown: exposed you.
The writing process for this book
Jill Jaracz: How long did it take to write?
Tommy Phillips: I know it took about a year to complete, but I was doing it as a side project for some time, so, probably about six months of just working on this thing alone.
But it, it came out to a whole year because I got into [00:19:00] it and I was enjoying it, and I was like, “Okay, this might be something interesting.” And then it turned into a all out book, and I was like, “Okay,” so yeah.
Alison Brown: How hard was it to find English language material?
Tommy Phillips: Oh, very hard. So I went on eBay and found all the results books for the 1980 Olympics, which cost quite a bit, but, half of them were all [00:19:30] in Russian, so I had to use my phone to translate them as I looked at them.
So I mean, I, I started to learn the abbreviations in Russian by, the ones that came up the most. So I’m like, “Okay, that’s the USSR, and, that’s East Germany.” but yeah, I was translating all kinds of Russian things because there simply [00:20:00] just wasn’t any English coverage of it.
Jill Jaracz: What was your writing process, right? Did you look at this sport by sport or did you look at it day by day as you structure it in the book?
Tommy Phillips: that’s a good question because I kind of did both. So, I would, sometimes look at a sport and be like, “Okay, so these are the players who got eliminated, and this is who won.” But then other times I just do it day by day. So [00:20:30] yeah, I’d say probably half and half with that
The Soviet Opening Ceremony
Jill Jaracz: What did you think about the ceremonies? ‘ Cause we’re talking good Soviet- Yeah … ceremonies-
Tommy Phillips: Yeah …
Jill Jaracz: style here. Yeah. And that’s also an element of the beginning and the end.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah. The, the opening ceremony, which I watched, but it was all in Russian, so I didn’t understand anything, that was very impressive and, every single republic had their own, bit of the [00:21:00] ceremony.
But ultimately, all people remember is the flagpoles that had no flags on them, and the fact that you couldn’t raise the American flag in the closing ceremony, and so they had to just do the Los Angeles city flag at the closing ceremony because, the USOC wouldn’t allow it to be raised.
Alison Brown: Yeah, the handover ceremony must’ve been such a strange situation because you’re [00:21:30] handing over to someone who’s not there.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah. that was really weird. I can’t remember if there were, uh, United States people on hand to, do the handover ceremony. There probably were a few, but yeah, they were only allowed to use the Los Angeles city flag, and they were not allowed to use the United States flag.
Alison Brown: The United States flag did make an appearance at the opening ceremony, though.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah.
Alison Brown: That’s a strange little story. You wanna tell that [00:22:00] story?
Tommy Phillips: Yeah, so a couple guys came in and had a six-foot-tall American flag, and they raised it up during the opening ceremony, and of course they got a lot of pushback. But most of the pushback came from more American Western sources who were like, “Well, why would you even, come here with the American flag?”
And like, “Well, you know, we, we want to support our country. We want to represent, I [00:22:30] guess.” so that’s what happened there.
Alison Brown: Now, were they just fans? Were they just- Yeah … in, in the stadium?
Tommy Phillips: Yeah, they, uh, I don’t know why they were over there, but they were Americans who were over there to watch the Olympics
Jill Jaracz: I wonder what that was like being American and being there to watch the games, or even if like you were, part of the ambassador’s family or worked in any kind of embassy in the Soviet Union at the time and decided- Mm-hmm … that you wanted to [00:23:00] go to the games, and then all of a sudden your country’s not there and you can’t cheer for them.
Not all Iron Curtain countries were treated the same at Moscow 1980
One thing I noticed, it did not seem that all Iron Curtain countries were treated the same by the Soviet Union. A- and I think- Yeah … like you could tell some lesser favored nation status going on with some of these. Are there any examples that you remember?
I th- p- something about Poland sticks out to me.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah. the pole vaulter from [00:23:30] Poland, uh, I cannot pronounce his name and I apologize for that, but he, won the pole vault and I think he broke the world record. I, I’d have to check on that, but, and whenever he beat the Soviet players at the pole vault, the fans were whistling at him, so then he gave them a certain gesture, and this gesture really rankled their [00:24:00] fans and really got them mad.
But it also w- Poland loved it, and P- Polish people loved this gesture that they stood up, he stood up against the Soviets. So yeah, the, uh, definitely the Pole- Polish did not get treated well by the Soviets and their press.
Alison Brown: Oh, I was gonna say, and probably judging too. Yeah. Let’s be honest. There was a lot of- Yeah
controversial judging. Yeah, I was gonna say, nor, nor did my b- my beloved Romanian, Nadia [00:24:30] Comaneci- Yeah … do, uh, fared well with the Soviet judging.
Tommy Phillips: Yes. She ended up tying for a silver medal in the all-around whenever it was clear that she probably should have won. And then the Romanian judge refused to, give the final scores because she disagreed with them.
So it, it was a big, long pause waiting for those final scores until finally they forced her to [00:25:00] do it, and, made it so that, you know, the Soviet, Davidova, I think it was, she won the gold medal, and Nadia ended up tying for the silver.
Alison Brown: Just wrong. Just wrong.
Jill Jaracz: I kinda wonder what it was like for the athletes from the satellite nations- Mm … who may or may not have frosty relations with the Soviet Union, or even for, for East Germany, [00:25:30] which obviously did have good relations with the Soviet Union at the time, who also did so well in the medal table, although they also had such a good doping campaign going on.
But, but it’s interesting just to see, and maybe this is because I have this American perspective, it just seems like favoritism going down. Maybe not, but maybe.
Tommy Phillips: Oh, there was definitely a lot of favoritism. I mean, [00:26:00] the, the stuff I talked about was just the stuff that I was able to find out in the, you know, the American press.
There’s probably so much more that went on, behind the scenes to kind of rig it so that the Soviets would get certain medals.
How this book changed Tommy’s thinking about these Olympics
Jill Jaracz: How did your thinking about these games change? Like, what did you think about Moscow going into writing this book, and what do you think about it now?
Tommy Phillips: originally when I [00:26:30] started writing about it, I just felt the same way that most Americans feel. You know, it’s Russia, it’s terrible. And whenever I was finished writing I’m like, “Yep, it’s Russia and it’s terrible, but they did have some pretty cool venues.”
So my opinion on the government and everything about Russia was still the same, but I was like, ” they had some pretty good stadiums and, pretty good venues.”
Alison Brown: [00:27:00] And it’s funny because today as we’re recording this, the IOC has lifted the ban-
Tommy Phillips: Mm …
Alison Brown: on Russians and Belarusians. So this is, this is a very timely conversation-
that, still is, still we’re having this controversy- Yeah … with Russia.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah. I don’t like hearing that the Russians are gonna be back, accepted back into the fold,
Jill Jaracz: You talked about cool stadiums. Which ones [00:27:30] stand out to you?
Tommy Phillips: well, the, the main stadium, the Lenin Central Stadium, I think it was called. that one was pretty amazing. And, they had a really good thing up in Estonia for the sailing where they, did the sailing that was pretty nice.
they had a highway that went from Minsk, Belarus to Moscow, and that’s where they held the road race of the [00:28:00] cycling on that. And, the marathon went all around the river, and that, that was a pretty interesting route they went because the whole route just was, like, by the side of the river the whole way until it made it to the stadium.
Jill Jaracz: And Moscow is a huge city.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: That’s the amazing thing. It’s just such a big city W- what do you think readers should take away [00:28:30] from these games as a whole?
Tommy Phillips: Well, I tried to be nice to the athletes who participated because it really wasn’t their fault that they were in these doping systems, especially the East German women swimmers.
They really were kind of victims and not really the ones to blame. But I look at it and say, you know, th- these are good performances by the people who [00:29:00] competed in them, so they ought to be praised, but at the same time you’ve gotta look at everything with a grain of salt because the Soviets, did so m- many things to, cheat basically
The legacy of Moscow 1980
Jill Jaracz: Anything else in terms of legacy from these games?
Like, do you think the IOC learned anything from having the games in Moscow?
Tommy Phillips: Yeah, I think they definitely did. Yeah. there’s probably a reason why it took them until [00:29:30] 2014 to go back to Russia, and, hopefully not anytime soon. But who knows?
Jill Jaracz: Well, because this was also the first games in a communist country.
Tommy Phillips: Right.
Jill Jaracz: And then right after that we have 1984 Sarajevo, which is another- Yeah … co- communist country at the time. Um- But very
Alison Brown: different games.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Much, kind of beloved Sarajevo-
Tommy Phillips: Yeah,
Jill Jaracz: yeah … is. Especially, you know, [00:30:00] and especially since then it ended up being war-torn, and there’s just a lot of that- Mm-hmm
that whole outpouring of support-
Tommy Phillips: Mm-hmm …
Jill Jaracz: for that city after those games. Yeah. I, I’m not sure we would do the same for Russia.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah.
Tommy’s thoughts on Misha
Alison Brown: Most importantly, what do you think of Misha?
Tommy Phillips: Oh, that, that’s such a great bear. I, I actually have one of them. I bought one off eBay, part of my, sports collection. that was probably one of the best [00:30:30] legacies from this games, was that they had a mascot, and after that they’d have mascots every Olympics.
So I guess if you, you want to look at a positive legacy you can see it there.
What’s next for Tommy Phillips
Jill Jaracz: you also write football books and, working on some of those, but what other Olympic things would you like to explore in written form?
Tommy Phillips: I kind of just wanna do the same thing, but do it for a different games. [00:31:00] I’m not sure which ones I’d pick. I thought of doing something for the 25th anniversary of Salt Lake, But the problem was, is that it takes so long for, the process of after you write it, how long it takes for them to set up the, book itself. Oh, the,
Jill Jaracz: the, yeah, the, the publishing
Tommy Phillips: process. The type. The type. Yeah, the publishing proc- yeah. So it takes so long for that, that there would be no way it would’ve gotten out [00:31:30] by 2027, you know?
So I was like, “Ah, you can’t really do that.” But yeah, I… There have definitely been some, some of the older Olympics I’ve, looked at, and I have a whole lot of material on LA ’84 now, but I’m not sure that would be a very interesting book, so I don’t know.
Jill Jaracz: The boycott from the other side.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah.
The infamous food fight in the Olympic Village
Jill Jaracz: Uh, is there anything else that we [00:32:00] missed talking about not- Moscow in 1980 that you wanna make sure that we discuss?
Tommy Phillips: well, one of the funniest stories of the Olympics in Moscow was the food fight where, a whole bunch of British and Australian people got into this huge food fight at the Olympic Village because they were mad because the discotheque had closed early.
They wanted to, you know, [00:32:30] disco, I guess. And they got mad, so they just start throwing food all over the place, and then the Russian police had to get involved, and then that was the end of that. But yeah, that, that was one of the really weird stories. And then there was the story where, where it came up as the headline, it was like, “Jimmy Carter ejected from Olympics.”
And it was like, ” What’s going on here?” And it was because there was a British [00:33:00] swimmer named Jimmy Carter who got into similar trouble, and they ejected him, made him go home. So, Jimmy Carter did go to the Olympics after, Moscow Olympics after all.
Jill Jaracz: not a great name to have at the time, I would think.
Yeah. It’s when you start going by Janie or something else entirely.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah.
Alison Brown: That’s
Jill Jaracz: fantastic. It’s so amazing what, , what stories survive to [00:33:30] make it through history.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah.
Alison Brown: It’s the discotheque. I think they stopped having discotheques- … after, after this, ’cause that was it. That was… ‘Cause at 76- Yeah … I remember when, when Jill visited Montreal, the 76 discotheque was a big happening place too.
So they were expecting the same in 1980, but somehow Ru- Yeah … you know, Soviet discotheque. That’s where you get into trouble.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, well, Tommy, [00:34:00] thank you so much for coming on, and a- actually, thank you very much for demystifying Moscow 1980 for us. Yes. That’s, you know- … a huge help there. This book was really interesting, and a ton of research went in, and work went into it.
And, uh, we appreciate knowing some of the big stories that happened and things that helped kinda change the games in little ways throughout history.
Tommy Phillips: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you for having me on. I love listening to your [00:34:30] podcast, especially during the Olympics.
Although, uh, I have to change my sleep schedule whenever- I wanna listen to you guys, ’cause I’m like, I’m like, “Okay, I, I need to get to bed, but I wanna listen to your daily review first.” So So, so- Well,
Alison Brown: Thank you.
Tommy Phillips: Yeah. Very much.
Jill Jaracz: Well, Tommy, thank you so much. We’ll, , put a link to the book in the show notes, 1980 [00:35:00] Moscow Olympics- Okay. Thank you … A Day-by-Day History.
Tommy Phillips: Thank you.
Jill Jaracz: Thank you so much, Tommi. We’ll have a link to “The 1980 Moscow Olympics: A Day-by-Day History” in the show notes. You can also find it in our bookshop.org storefront at bookshop.org/shop/flamealivepod. Purchases made through that link go to keeping the show’s flame alive. So I know we talked a little bit about it during the interview, but, [00:35:30] like, now that you know more about Moscow, what do you think of these games now?
Alison Brown: I think I’m even more confused in a way than I was before because it was still an Olympics. You know, it still had all the competition, even with all the doping and all the, the nefarious judging that was going on. And it still had all the bells and whistles and pomp and circumstance, and yet we will never get all of it because we [00:36:00] couldn’t watch it.
And even the videos that you see now, most of it is in Russian. Mm-hmm. So you can’t really know what’s going on. So it’s, it’s hard. But I do know so much more now, and it’s like, ah, okay, a little bit of that black hole is not– It’s, it’s a lot grayer as opposed to- Yes … black.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. I’d be curious to talk with Russians who were alive then and watched it and loved it, and what it, what that, what those games mean for [00:36:30] their personal history kind of thing.
Alison Brown: Mm.
Jill Jaracz: Like, we can look back at LA 1984, and we can look back at Atlanta 1996, and there’s always some national pride there. So-
Alison Brown: Right …
Jill Jaracz: , even if there were issues with some of the games. So I wonder what they think.
If you’re from
Alison Brown: Russia They all loved Misha.
Jill Jaracz: They did all love Misha. As did you.
Alison Brown: As did I. As, uh, as do I.
Jill Jaracz: He is [00:37:00] one of the iconic, mascots.
Alison Brown: Big guns of mascots.
Jill Jaracz: speaking of historical games, we are also having a summer of nostalgia here at Keep the Flame Alive on our Patreon site, patreon.com/flamealivepod.
We are sharing never before seen photos and videos from our escapades at Beijing 2022, Paris 2020– ’24, and Milano Cortina 2026. You know, I’m really [00:37:30] sorry, I don’t think I took pictures of the parking lot where we were stuck at various points in time during Beijing.
Alison Brown: I was gonna say, which, which parking lot?
There, there were, there were a few that we got ourselves stuck in.
Jill Jaracz: But there are many other happier memories that may jog your memory. Things that happened, near the field of play because we’re, you know-
Alison Brown: Not on the field of play …
Jill Jaracz: right. and just some really [00:38:00] fun moments that make being at the games special.
So if you’d like to relive that with us, go to patreon.com/flamealivepod and, uh, keep our flame alive by, uh, reaching out and, uh, either becoming a patron or purchasing the Summer of Nostalgia collection. That is gonna do it for this episode.
We don’t have news today because we’re taping a little early. I am at the LA 2028 World Press briefing this week, so I will have hopefully some stories to [00:38:30] tell next week.
Alison Brown: I’m excited to hear it.
Jill Jaracz: Thank you so much for listening.
Alison Brown: And until next time, keep the flame alive.